Who should we nominate in 2018 and 2020 primaries? Very simple.

[DanTex]

We should nominate people who can win. That's by far the most important thing. The second most important thing is to nominate people who, if they take over one or both houses of congress, or the presidency in 2020, will be effective political maneuverers. Ideological purity, or whether a candidate co-sponsored some specific bill or advocates some specific policy, lags far behind the first two.

I am aware that for some younger and/or more idealistic Dems, this might not sit entirely well. Yes, it feels good to support candidates who agree with you on every single issue, that "speak the truth", and so on. And, yeah, that's great, provided that such candidates can actually win.

But the reality of American politics is that things get better when Dems are in control, and worse when Reps are in control. That's rule number one. And the amount by which things get better or worse depends on how good the Dems in government are at political wrangling, as well of how large the majorities or minorities in congress are.

Ideological purity really only matters to the extent that we elect people who are to the left of what can actually make it into law. So, for example, that means that the difference between wanting single-payer healthcare and wanting a public option is unimportant. We're not getting a single payer, so both of those hypothetical candidates will be pulling to the left on health policy. And in this case, what matters is not how far left a person wants to go, but rather how effective that person is in pulling left. When it comes to actual outcomes, "excess progressivism" beyond what is politically feasible might make for good speeches, but doesn't actually affect legislation.

It is true that there are some Dems that fail that test. But those are red-state Dems like Joe Manchin. And Manchin is the best we can do in WV. He's far better than a Republican. Trying to push "true progressives" in red states simply makes it more difficult for the Democrats to win congress.

Yeah, I know pragmatism and realism aren't as sexy as voting your conscience and then watching the GOP tear down hard-won progressive accomplishments. But realism is what we need if we're actually going to make this country a better place.

[hueymahl]

1. Good Post

There is a time for ideological "purity." This is not it. We are in a war, and the only thing that matters is winning.

[marble falls]

2. Lets get a true blue Democratic Congress in 2018 before we start on 2020....

the loooong 2016 primary is part of the reason voter turnout was so freaking low on Nov 8th.

[ck4829]

3. We need to realize there is a chunk of this country who would rather see their child in a coffin

than vote for, support, heck, agree with a "LIBERAL!!!!"

I'm a straight ticket Democrat, but voting alone isn't going to fix the problem of the virulent strains of disordered thinking sweeping our nation.

[CentralMass]

4. That is what primaries are for.

[mythology]

5. How do you determine who can win?

In 2006, I would have said that a black guy couldn't win. In early 2016, I would have said a twitter troll couldn't be elected.

[DanTex]

6. That's a good question. There's not an exact answer, and sometimes it can't be known.

I'm not saying I can determine who can win and who can't. I'm just saying that electability should be the top criterion. Obviously, people can and will disagree about who is more electable, which I'm OK with provided that we keep our eye on the ball, which is winning elections rather than enforcing ideological purity.

[Thekaspervote]

7. Great post.. took the words right out of my mouth

[KatyMan]

8. As long as it's not someone

who feels it's their "turn". Also, how about someone of Obama's generation rather than Biden's?

[R B Garr]

9. Sanders' own words are that he's more about "transformations,"

than winning, so he's out. It definitely needs to be someone known, but practical and ultimately very tolerant. If you have no results to show for your "progressivism," then it's time to admit that and not berate other politicians.

According to Politico, Sanders reiterated that message to his colleagues on the Hill Wednesday, explaining that “elections are not necessarily about winning but about transformations.”

[loyalsister]

10. Yes.... WE

When it comes to primaries, WE voters in the states and districts sort it all out when we vote in our primaries. I think national attention on local primaries is not helpful. Bernie should stay out of it, and I have no business sticking my nose in WV, or any state other than MO.

[Jim Lane]

11. Alas, not so simple.

The biggest problem is that people all across the political spectrum have a great ability to persuade themselves that the candidate who's closest to them ideologically is also the one with the best chance to win.

With only slight oversimplification, we can apply this to the current debates within the Democratic Party. I don't want to incite distracting side-arguments so I won't put labels on the intra-party factions; just add your own in.

One faction: Take the electorate as it is, align all voters on a left-to-right spectrum, assume that people vote for the major-party candidate who's closest to them; then the Democrats should move as far to the right as possible so as to pick up votes in the ideological center. This often means backing former Republicans.

Another faction: Persuading the swing voters is fine but there's more potential in motivating nonvoters. For example, in 2004, Bush beat Kerry by about 3 million votes, but there were 51 million registered voters who didn't vote, and more than 40 million people of voting age who weren't even registered. We appeal to these people by moving left, to give them a reason to support us.

Neither of these views is completely right or completely wrong. The national Democratic Party does, in my opinion, have an excessive faith in the first view. For example, in 2016, there were several Senate races in which the national party backed the candidate who was more conservative and hence more "electable" -- but who, after defeating a more progressive Democrat in the primary, went on to lose the general election. We can't know for sure who would have won the primary if the national party had been neutral, nor can we know for sure how the more progressive Democrat would have fared in the general election. What we do know is that nominating someone who's as far to the right as possible is not a royal road to success.

[DanTex]

12. I agree with you, mostly.

Definitely, people tend to think everyone else sees the world as they do, so they think candidates who share their views are the most electable. That happens across the spectrum. And also, what you laid out are the two main ways to get more votes: pull "swing voters" from the center, or increase turnout by motivating the base.

I don't think either one is the "royal road to success". Running centrist candidates definitely helped the Dems take over congress in 2006, but then a lot of those candidates lost in 2010. It's true that the experiment of running a bunch of lefties in purple/red districts hasn't really been tried, but that's sort of for the same reason that people don't try the experiment of jumping out of a plane without a parachute.

I think candidates in the mold of Obama are basically the best of both worlds. Ideologically they are not so far left as to alienate centrists. Obama was able to inspire people to vote, not by moving left ideologically, but just through sheer charisma.

I disagree with the jump from the fact that 51 million registered voters didn't vote in 2004 to the conclusion that moving left gives those voters a reason to support Democrats. Non-voters come from all ideological stripes. Yeah, there are the Green votes, I agree that moving left would help capture some of those, but for the most part it's complacency and not ideological purity that keeps people on the sidelines.

[Jim Lane]

13. The key about nonvoters is that most of them SHOULD be ours

You write:

I disagree with the jump from the fact that 51 million registered voters didn't vote in 2004 to the conclusion that moving left gives those voters a reason to support Democrats. Non-voters come from all ideological stripes.

Voting correlates with wealth and income. Nonvoting correlates with youth. If somehow all or almost all the nonvoters could be gotten to the polls, it's overwhelmingly likely that the result would be a big net plus for Democratic candidates over Republicans.

You can see an example in the higher turnout in presidential years than in midterms. Both major parties draw more votes in presidential years, but the Democrats gain more. It's long been a truism that Republicans tend to do better in off-year elections.

If a push for sharply more progressive policies generated higher turnout, some of those additional voters will have been galvanized to show up to vote against such policies, but they'll be outnumbered by those who are motivated to vote for them.

The problem with the strategy isn't that the nonvoters have the same collective ideology as the voters. They don't. The problem, instead, is that there are so many reasons why nonvoters don't vote. The belief that there's no difference between the parties is only part of the problem.

[DanTex]

14. I agree with you there.

You're right, non-voters skew further left than voters, and turnout generally favors Dems, which is part of the reason the GOP is obsessed with making it harder to vote.

The only disagreement is whether moving left would actually increase turnout (and increase it enough to compensate for potential losses of centrists). And, look, I wish that were true, because that would be great for me personally: I want Dems to win, and also my views are to the left of the Democratic mainstream. But I don't really see it.

There's clearly not enough data to determine this with much confidence, but I'll speculate a little.

The big example from recent history of increasing turnout is Obama. He didn't do it with extra-progressive policies. He ran on basically the same platform as Gore, Kerry, and Clinton, but with more charisma and less baggage. Which is why I'm a big proponent of high-charisma low-baggage candidates.

The sense I get from personal experience, both in being a former 18-year-old non-voter and also talking to people (I know, it's a highly skewed sample, but it's all I got), is that non-voting has little to nothing to do with policies. The exception would be some grad school friends, but that's a tiny sliver of the population, and it would pretty much take Che Guevara to get them to the polls. But otherwise, a lot of it is just that they don't think their vote will make a difference, they don't think Washington affects them, they are complacent, etc. If you polled them, for the most part they'd probably give progressive answers on issues, but basically they don't care.

Also, I get the sense that a lot of people not politically engaged would answer polling questions in ways that could be interpreted as either left or right. For example: Medicare for all? Yes. Strong military? Yes. Higher taxes on the wealthy? Yes. Limited government? Yes. Pay teachers more? Yes. "Individual responsibility"? Yes. And so on. Basically compassion mixed with platitudes and patriotism.

And, to be honest, I have a pretty dim view of the informedness and rationality of the electorate. Aside from a few things (e.g. some people will vote against abortion no matter what), I don't think policy matters too much. Certainly not policy details -- Hillary had a bunch of well thought out and realizable policies that she ran on, but I think that basically made zero difference to anyone. And there is some data to back this feeling of mine up. I haven't read the book yet, but this Vox interview with the authors of Democracy For Realists I found pretty informative.

https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2017/6/1/15515820/donald-trump-democracy-brexit-2016-election-europe