Just one month ago, a heretofore unknown player emerged on the political scene: Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. At just 28, she is running for the United States House of Representatives, and barring some wild occurrence, should win in November and become the youngest woman to do so. Ocasio-Cortez led an unlikely primary campaign against a top Democratic leader, Rep. Joe Crowley. Crowley was a ten-term incumbent, and had been a likely candidate for speaker if Nancy Pelosi fell short of the requisite votes in a Democratic House. Pelosi won’t have to worry about Crowley coming for her gavel anytime soon, though.
What some may not know is that her victory came in a very low turnout primary election. Ocasio-Cortez captured 15,897 votes to Crowley’s 11,761. That’s a healthy margin, but the district has about 700,000 people in it. Though she will go on to be their Congresswoman, only 2% of the district actually picked her over Crowley. That’s not to minimize her victory at all — a win is a win. But to glean from this single election that the entire party ought to adopt the Ocasio-Cortez or Sanders platform is a stretch. Additionally, this candidate, unknown two months ago, has now sprung onto the national stage. I think there are two different reasons for this.
First: the progressive wing of the Democratic Party. The Bernie Sanders wing, which now has one more member in Ocasio-Cortez, has sought more legitimacy within the party since the fierce primary between Sanders and Clinton in 2016. Pair that with the perception that Clinton was anointed as the nominee, and her eventual loss to Trump, and one can see where the liberal wing of the party is convinced that a new type of Democrat ought to take the reins. Ocasio-Cortez and her victory over one of the old guard confirms this narrative for progressives.
On the other side of the aisle, Republicans are gleeful that Ocasio-Cortez is sucking up all the oxygen right now. The idea that Democrats are a party full of socialists is not a new talking point for many, if not all, Republicans, but now there is more proof positive. Sanders and Ocasio-Cortez, among a growing number of others, are unflinching and outspoken about their political beliefs. Ocasio-Cortez is a member and activist in the Democratic Socialists of America, and she is now a very public member of the Democratic Party. What’s more, the Sanders / Ocasio-Cortez duo is barnstorming across the Midwest, evangelizing their left-wing message. This only adds validity to Republican crowing about Democrats lurching leftward.
Becoming a party of Democratic-Socialists is not a panacea for Democrats. While Ocasio-Cortez might work well for her district, something far more important than ideology won her election: hard work. She started organizing for Bernie Sanders during his presidential run, and channeled those skills in her own campaign. She recruited volunteers, she knocked on hundreds if not thousands of doors, and she got out the vote. Joe Crowley did not. The upshot for Democrats across the nation is not to adjust their ideology, but to adjust their work ethic. When turnout is high, Democrats win.
Kirk Kovach is a native North Carolinian interested in writing about politics, communication and culture.
Let’s start with “she recruited volunteers”: As a volunteer, as a door-knocker, I don’t do this for people like Joe Crowley. She got people to volunteer for her because she was different and better. She got NONVOTERS out to vote because they saw something they hadn’t seen. Yes, you have to actually knock on people’s doors in order to GET them to see this something, but they have to LIKE it to go out and vote for it.
So yes: ADJUST YOUR IDEOLOGY.
The so-called “centrist” Dems are primarily attacking Trump from the RIGHT. They are leading with reduction of gun rights (actually rightist in the original French Revolution sense –pro-aristocratic; increasing concentration of power) and RussiaRussiaRussia (evidently channeling the ghost of Joe McCarthy).
Unless I see a Democrat emphatically repudiate authoritarianism and the push for war with Russia, I’m staying home in November, and I’ve voted in every election including primaries for a very long time.
Everyone seems to be in favor of something here. Be it ideological change; a breath of fresh air if you will. Or a shift in the status quo; a change from a 20-year incumbent to someone that has very little face time.
Some even feel a shift in the air coming. While lamenting the fact that she Ocasio-Cortez beat the incumbent Crowley by over 4,000 votes, you’re ignoring one big aspect of this race. Ocasio-Cortez and Crowley combined pulled in 27,000 votes and change. In a district with a population of over 700,000 that’s about 2% if you want to do the math.
Given those numbers I’m at a loss to see the cause of celebration here. This is hardly an argument against centrist thought or action in the party. Nor should the champagne corks be flying raison d’etre signaling a dramatic shift left in platform and thought.
Having covered the down, lets look up. Ocasio-Cortez brings some magnificent issues to the fore. Things that we should be talking about rather than the fact that she calls herself a “Democratic Socialist.” Healthcare, living wage, everyone paying their fair share, education should be talking planks in everyone’s platform, not just the extreme left; that includes centrist and even conservative members of the Democratic party.
There seems to be a notion that centrist Democrats is merely Republican Light. Not even in your worst nightmare are Democrats close to being Republicans. I used to like to say that years ago, when Democrats cared about working people and classes, it was the party that changed. It was the party that shifted and lost the middle. While I still hold on to that notion as true, now the Republicans have shifted their ideology. They have turned away from their ideals and the things that made them the party, for better or worse, that they were to what they are now. Subservient minions to an ideologue. Make no mistake, Donald Trump IS the Republican party now. The party it was is no longer the party is now is. One man has chosen their identity. The religious right has sold themselves for the sake of one man. If I didn’t know better I’d swear there is a belief Donald Trump is the Messiah. He’s done and said as much except in those exact words.
In that regard centrism in the Democrat party is nothing close to being a Republican. What we likewise don’t need right now is a factionalist divide within the party. Unity, a strong inspiring message for all people and a relentless spotlight on how Trump and Republican policy is hurting rather than helping. The evidence must be so overwhelming that spin would be pointless.
Donald Trump and the Republican party in this state are the antagonists. They must be stopped and they must be defeated.
Oops. Kovach had already covered the numbers. I should have read more astutely rather than browsing over it. Sorry for the redundancy.
While the DNC and Hillary Clinton weren’t in the voting booth, its actions are responsible for for the lack of people who were and for the closeness of an election that should have been a runaway for the Democrats by any objective analysis.
Bernie Sanders has gracefully faced and defeated the Republican onslaught of “Socialist, Communist” name-calling and scare tactics for 40 years throughout his political career. The results have been victories of more than 70 percent, including more than 20 percent of Republican voters who acknowledge and admire his integrity and consistency.
The Democrats could use more of that.
Not in totality. There were other extraneous factors such as the Comey statements. Hillary shooting off her own big mouth, and the fact that she embraced every niche cause tied to at least two people across the progressive spectrum. Not once that I can recall hearing of did she ever go to an assembly plant, a processing plant of any type. A local diner in small town Americana. And in the final week, her advisors, handlers, or whomever else was around her controlling access to her and appearances by her decided Wisconsin, Michigan, and Pennsylvania were just not important. They thought wrong.
There is no evidence that centrists actually have the political courage to reverse the effects of 36-38 years of bought and paid for government and improve the resultant income inequality gap. No progressive candidate I know has actually advocated restoring the tax tables of 1959, just going part of the way there, but that would create plenty of resources for making our lives better. Just like that raving card carrying socialist Dwight David Eisenhower. Representing the interests of the people is democracy. Restricting their choices in order to become the least of evils and then representing the donor class is NOT democracy. Government of the people, by the people and for the people. What a radical concept!!
I’m a PROUD believer in socialism. The dems continue to screw up with the centrist viewpoint. I believe we need to be proud of our heritage and stick to the values that got us here. I believe that is the reason we’ve lost. Until the dems really have a meeting w/ jesus and not continue to ‘fine tune’ the middle way; we’ll be just like the republicans when they refused to meet reality. We’ll continue to lose. One only needs to look at Hagan’s refusal to have a full-throated defense of O Care to see why the electorate was confused. We don’t get the vote out b/c our message sucks. It’s as simple as that.
Much good sense on both sides of this debate. Perhaps we can have a week in which every Democrat can show past wounds, celebrate old hurts; then move on. So I will share a few of mine. The suggestion that somehow Hilary Clinton was “anointed” is….well, silly. In a tough, competitive primary election she garnered more votes than any candidate in the history of US presidential primaries of either party – more than anyone except herself in 2008 (unless you don’t count Michigan but then there are those of us who think Michigan voters are just as good as other voters). Democrats are not so bad at vote getting. They have won the popular vote in six of the last seven presidential elections.
They won 11 million more votes for US Senators in 2012 and 2016 than did the Repubicans. The problem is a system in which a vote in Idaho for US Senator and, thereby, two electoral votes, is 26 times more powerful than a vote in California. And them there are the Dakotas and Alaska and New Hampshire and Vermont and Arkansas, etc. etc. The Democrats are strong on people; the Republicans have acreage in their favor. Social Security, Medicare, wage and hour laws, civil rights legislation, the vote for women, health care and on and on – all achieved by a Democratic Party that pulled folks from each side of the middle into a coalition for good, even when it was a road that was too twisted and two long. By the way has Bernie Sanders now decided whether he will run for re-election as a Democrat or a Socialist?
One point being missed in this article is that not only did the candidate work hard, but her supporters were inspired to work hard, as well. This enthusiasm cannot be separated from her so-called “ideology.” The label of “Socialist” or “Democratic Socialist” is meaningless without the specific platform of issues Acasio-Cortez is promoting along with Bernie Sanders and a rapidly growing Progressive Wing of the Democratic Party.
The majority of the public, nationwide, including most Democratic, independent and even a sizeable portion of Republican voters, of course, is way ahead of political leaders in favoring a universal, single-payer healthcare system, a living minimum wage of at least $15/hr, criminal justice reform, legalizing marijuana, getting the money out of politics and ending American exceptionalism in our foreign policy. This is a winning platform and that’s why Progressives are winning the day.
The Republicans are not “gleeful” to see Progressives doing so well in the Democratic Party. They are scared and attacking Progressives ruthlessly, because they know that the Progressive platform is extremely popular and appealing. Republicans know how to beat “moderate” Democrats. in the past decade, they’ve been very successful at winning two-thirds of all state legislatures, a majority of gubernatorial elections, both Houses of Congress and the Presidency against corporate-backed so-called “moderate” Democrats. But, they don’t know what to do with Progressives. That’s why Bernie Sanders regularly wins more than 70% of the vote statewide in Vermont, including more than 20% of registered Republicans. Wake up Dems and embrace the change. The up and coming generation is 80% Progressive. The times they are a-changing.
The point of this post is that turnout equals winning for Democrats. I absolutely agree. Turnout is the most important thing Dems can do to win. But I disagree that association with socialism is going to doom the party. The right wing howls about anything Democrats try to do. They howled when LBJ passed Medicare. They howled when Obama adopted a Heritage Foundation-New Gingrich plan for market-based health care reform. They reconstructed end of life counseling as death panels, attempts to regulate private arsenals as dictatorship, and raising the debt ceiling as treasonous. They have cried wolf too many times. Why not just lay your cards on the table and be done with it, labels be damned? You’re gonna get called names and face baseless accusations regardless. That’s what bullies do. Call ’em on it. No more retreats. In the 1990’s, Bill Clinton kowtowed to these bozos to save his own political skin, and the country has suffered for it ever since. We still got W and then Trump, and we got the NC GOP.. Capitulation was not worth it. Time to be bold.
“The upshot for Democrats across the nation is not to adjust their ideology, but to adjust their work ethic. When turnout is high, Democrats win.”
That sentence sums up the author’s point, IMHO. Certainly sitting here in western NC and having for a very brief time been involved with the democratic party, my impression is that they are too busy pushing and shoving for personal power to get anything useful done
Sounds like this author was a Clinton fan. The centrist way is the way of losing. This has been the pattern over the last couple of decades. Look no further than the NC Legislature for proof. The centrist way has lost THOUSANDS of seats across the country over the years at all levels and the Progressive way has a winning strategy to fix that. Simply take care of the common man. Very simple. Very powerful. Strength in numbers. Obama preached change but it was more of the same. Now it’s time for that change. That is, of course, unless you want the polar opposite to happen with the Trump agenda. Your choice.
TJ, care to substantiate your claims with a few facts????
The Centrist way may be a losing way, but it may be more accurate to say that you’ve been losing Centrists. And therefore losing elections.
Or maybe we need to do a little of both…
The flaw in this theory is that the “middle way” of the national Democratic apparatus has been costing the party elections for YEARS. This isn’t new. Playing to some perceived “center” — Republican Lite — has brought about the loss of both the House and Senate, and finally the White House in the last cycle. On the state level, we’re only now recovering because the NCGOP is SO corrupt that even their own people are beginning to see it. Since 2008, the Democratic Party has lost seats at EVERY level of government, and even though the trend is creaking towards a reversal, the net is still in the negative. Worse still, once you set the politics aside and start looking into the actual business of governance, the people on the ground are not served by the status quo, nor will they be served by a slightly less draconian government. There are people in parts of the state that are literally having hog crap dumped on them. This is NOT going to be resolved by “keeping your powder dry” a la Nancy Pelosi. The time when that might have done the job is done. Carbon is already 25% beyond the point where just maintaining course and speed will suffice for the time being. We are headed for critical mass, and without some pretty dramatic changes in the operative mission profile, it isn’t just democracy in peril — it’s our species writ large. And maybe that’s for the best. I honestly find myself wishing the asteroid would just go ahead and hit us at least once a day now. I had hoped that my sons and my grandsons might right the ship once my generation handed them the reins, but I’m not at all sure they’ll get the chance.
Here we go again!
humm, that’s quite a dispairing bleat James, but it isn’t at all clear what you want democrats to do. Are you advocating for democrats to leap on the socialist bandwagon a la a Bernie “pony in every yard” nonsense without a hint of how to pay for it????
Bernie has called for taxing the wealthiest 1%, cutting wasteful defense spending and instituting a financial transactions tax for decades. If you choose not to take a “hint”, I can’t help you.
Sanders estimated his tuition-free college + pony would cost $75 billion annually. The US Senate just approved an $82 billion increase to the defense budget last week. Bernie was one of 8 in the Dem caucus to vote against it.