"Progressives" Win Big In Dem Primaries

[Brainster]

After hearing for most of the last four years that the GOP was nominating far too radical candidates, it seems the shoe is on the other foot:

On Tuesday, in competitive primaries from New Jersey to Iowa to California, voters chose bold progressive Democrats over more conservative and corporate Democrats, handing big victories to the “Elizabeth Warren wing” of the Democratic Party.

You know how it is, the Elizabeth Warren wing of the Democratic Party can win in Massachusetts. But Iowa?

We saw another populist win in Iowa. While it used to be popular for Democrats in rural states to run as corporate Blue Dogs, the Blue Dog Coalition in Congress has now been put down.

Instead, former Iowa House Speaker Pat Murphy won a big victory in a primary for the First Congressional District with TV ads proclaiming himself a “Bold Progressive.” He actively touted his endorsement from the Progressive Change Campaign Committee (the organization we run), and ran on his record of raising the minimum wage and creating universal pre-K in Iowa.

Err, his record of doing those things? Or his platform of supporting those things. And one can't help but wonder how a congressman is going to create universal pre-K in Iowa.

Current first district congressman, Bruce Braley(D) who is running for the Senate, barely survived the 2010 election, winning by 2 percentage points.

I suspect that the "Progressives" are going to have a tough time of it in 2014's atmosphere.

 

[Gawdzilla Sama]

"Progressive" is a pejorative term?

 

[JoeB]

You know how it is, the Elizabeth Warren wing of the Democratic Party can win in Massachusetts. But Iowa?

Iowa's got some progressive chops, 4th state with gay marriage. It happened through a court ruling, but a constitutional amendment banning it a-la California's Prop8 has consistently failed to even make it on the ballot.

Err, his record of doing those things? Or his platform of supporting those things. And one can't help but wonder how a congressman is going to create universal pre-K in Iowa.

"We were talking about middle-class issues — raising the minimum wage, making sure that we address universal pre-school at the federal level like we did at the state level and making sure we address paycheck fairness for women in the workplace," link

So, both. Did those things as a state legislator, supports those things, and if he becomes a US Congressman wants to do them on a federal level.

 

[maxpower1227]

Are "progressives" supposed to be the counterparts to the drooling lunatics running in Republican primaries?

 

[kookbreaker]

So promoting raising the minimum wage and supporting Pre-K are supremely radical ideas now?

 

[Magyar]

After hearing for most of the last four years that the GOP was nominating far too radical candidates, it seems the shoe is on the other foot:



You know how it is, the Elizabeth Warren wing of the Democratic Party can win in Massachusetts. But Iowa?



Err, his record of doing those things? Or his platform of supporting those things. And one can't help but wonder how a congressman is going to create universal pre-K in Iowa.

Current first district congressman, Bruce Braley(D) who is running for the Senate, barely survived the 2010 election, winning by 2 percentage points.

I suspect that the "Progressives" are going to have a tough time of it in 2014's atmosphere.

Please, what a patheticaly lame attempt at equivication.
First, Warren running in any other country inthe world would be considered at best, a hard core centrist. Only in the US right wingland, where the rest of the world filed with brown people dont matter, is she comsidered profressive.

Now lets look at why (no im not going to engage in the lame is she indian, that horse is been beat to death and served up for supper)

She is for uhc - the only controversy here is dim bulb righties are pretty much the only ones on the planet claiming that this "problem" is unsolvable and she doesnt believe them.

She wants more protection for comsumers against bankers and wall street who have proven the,selves to by sociopathic criminals tht have almost brought the global economy to its knees more than once in less then half a lifetime. The HORROR.

Vs

The evils of homos
Christian nation and not christian should hold office
The tea party,


Somehow i think you post is a complete fail.

 

[TragicMonkey]

Junior high school social studies reminder, the spectrum goes like this:

Radical < Liberal < Progressive < (Center) > Moderate > Conservative > Reactionary

The OP speaks of the closest-to-right left side as if they were the farthest-from-right. I can't imagine the reaction should such a thing as an actual radical emerge.

 

[turingtest]

Are "progressives" supposed to be the counterparts to the drooling lunatics running in Republican primaries?

Sort of Bizarro-world counterparts, I think- the "progressives" (is that term supposed to be a slur?) like Murphy run on platforms centered on things they not only support but (as JoeB showed) have done and can continue realistically to do something about. At least here in Mississippi, not so much for the Republicans (which is all the choice anyone really has). I just sat through endless weeks of campaign ads by folks like Chris McDaniel, Thad Cochran, and Steven Palazzo boasting about "bringing conservative Mississippi values" to Washington- how many times they'd voted against ObamaCare (Cochran and Palazzo), how they were "defenders of faith and family" (Palazzo), and how they were going to "get prayer back in school" (McDaniel). I don't know how McDaniel thinks he can, on a federal level, "put prayer back in school"; I don't even know what "defending faith and family" is supposed to mean in terms of real policy (I suspect it has something to do with teh gayz, and that Palazzo knows it's nonsense, but it's nonsense that sells); and I don't know why these guys are so proud of fifty or a hundred failed votes against something the Supreme Court has upheld and the rest of the country has come to accept and wish the Republicans would just shut up about (though I know why they boast of it- again, in Mississippi, it sells, and Mississippi is in it's own little bubble).

But that's "conservative Mississippi values" (and, evidently, the values of modern American conservatism as a whole) for you- pride in mindless obstruction with no ideas for what to put in place for what they want to block, and endlessly defending things that aren't under attack and that they can't do anything about on the level they're seeking election to anyway.

 

[Gawdzilla Sama]

Progressives vs. Repressives? No contest.

 

[gabeygoat]

So promoting raising the minimum wage and supporting Pre-K are supremely radical ideas now?

Wild and Crazy!

 

[Myron Proudfoot]

Wild and Crazy!

yep. now craziness such as Obama is a secret Muslim, Agenda-21 is a UN plot to take over the world as is Common Core, the ATF is stockpiling tons and tons of ammo for when they come to take your guns and stick you in a FEMA camp, death panels, and so on is now the moral and political equivalent of "lets teach kids to read, make sure then have healthy food in schools, and golly, it'd be nice if more poor people could see a doctor."

 

[Bikewer]

So all of the pundits (mostly NPR sources) I listen to are going on as to how the Republicans are "poised for big wins" in the coming election. That there is a strong possibility of "taking back" the senate and even gaining seats in the house.
This is somewhat alarming to me, since essentially all the news about Republican primary races is to the effect of how extreme the candidates are with one trying to out-conservative the other.
Seated congressmen who don't appear extreme are threatened with primary challenges from tea-party types that are even more radical.

As well, many of these people are in "safe" districts due to gerrymandering. Frankly, I haven't heard much coverage at all regarding Democratic candidates or the prospects for the Democrats...
All the "buzz" seems to be about the other side.

Will the prospect of even-more-conservatives taking control of both houses "energize the base" of the Democratic Party?
Or will this be yet another case of "Yawn, another mid-term election..."?

 

[ravdin]

Seems to me the real winners this past Tuesday were incumbents.

 

[Silly Green Monkey]

Junior high school social studies reminder, the spectrum goes like this:

Radical < Liberal < Progressive < (Center) > Moderate > Conservative > Reactionary

The OP speaks of the closest-to-right left side as if they were the farthest-from-right. I can't imagine the reaction should such a thing as an actual radical emerge.

I can't imagine it either, but suddenly I'm really wanting to.

 

[Chaos]

Notice the scare quotes around "Progressives"? Nice touch. It´s almost like he doesn´t want us to realize he thinks they´re pinko commie terrorist-hugging traitors, or something.

 

[ravdin]

One of the candidates for a hotly contested state legislature seat set up his HQ in my neighborhood and touted himself as the "progressive" candidate. I am still unable to explain what "progressive" means in this context.

 

[Brainster]

Notice the scare quotes around "Progressives"? Nice touch. It´s almost like he doesn´t want us to realize he thinks they´re pinko commie terrorist-hugging traitors, or something.

Considering that Bill de Blasio (cited in that article) ardently supported the Sandinistas in the 1980s and said:

he was an advocate of “democratic socialism.”

I'd say that "Progressive" is not too far off pinko commie; it is only a matter of degree. At any rate, I think we can all agree that "Progressives" are more to the left than Democrats in general, perhaps somewhat less left than admitted Socialists.

 

[Chaos]

Considering that Bill de Blasio (cited in that article) ardently supported the Sandinistas in the 1980s and said:



I'd say that "Progressive" is not too far off pinko commie; it is only a matter of degree. At any rate, I think we can all agree that "Progressives" are more to the left than Democrats in general, perhaps somewhat less left than admitted Socialists.

You are using the phrase "I think we can all agree" when in fact the appropriate phrase would be "I declare it to be so". Why?

And don´t just ignore all the whacky things and whacky dictators the right (you´ll notice I´m not calling them "Fascists" or "Reactionaries" or some such) used to support - or that the 80s were thirty years ago and people change in the meantime.

 

[Upchurch]

After hearing for most of the last four years that the GOP was nominating far too radical candidates, it seems the shoe is on the other foot:



You know how it is, the Elizabeth Warren wing of the Democratic Party can win in Massachusetts. But Iowa?

Hold up. You're saying Elizabeth Warren is to the Left what the Tea Party is to the Right?

You don't find that the tiniest bit disingenuous and disproportionate?

 

[ferd burfle]

Junior high school social studies reminder, the spectrum goes like this:

Radical < Liberal < Progressive < (Center) > Moderate > Conservative > Reactionary

The OP speaks of the closest-to-right left side as if they were the farthest-from-right. I can't imagine the reaction should such a thing as an actual radical emerge.

Yes, anyone to the left of Atilla the Hun is a raging communist.