Politics as usual

Dear Friends,

An article in The New York Times (here) reported on the speeches given by the Democratic candidates for President to the Democratic National Committee summer meeting. Governor O'Malley and Senator Sanders both attacked the party for its politics as usual approach, including limiting the number of debates. As Senator Sanders said, the Republicans did not win big in 2014, the Democrats lost because of our failure to vote.  He is right.

The Democratic Party establishment has and continues to destroy the party. The party leadership has continued to support a Republican light agenda to try to capture some independent voters. That policy has been a failure.  Only because of Senators Warren and Sanders has Secretary Clinton begun to sound like a Democrat.  Howard Dean championed expanding the number of people who vote, and President Obama proved that Governor Dean's theory was right. Nevertheless the Democratic establishment refuses to stand up for true progressive policies. The result is complete voter apathy. Bernie Sanders continues to draw huge and enthusiastic crowds and to rise in the polls because he is a genuine and out spoken liberal whose message resonates with real people who will go out and vote if he is the candidate and will stay home if, politics as usual, Hillary Clinton is the nominee.

A recent poll in Iowa (here) shows Bernie Sanders within 7 percentage point of Hillary Clinton (37% v. 30%), a big gain for Sanders and a big loss for Clinton. It also shows that support for Clinton is now well below 50%. That poll also shows that Sanders is doing just as Obama did in Iowa. He is attracting first time caucus goers at a much higher rate than Hillary Clinton is.  While it appears that many establishment Democrats continue to fall in line to support Secretary Clinton, the voters who will vote if they are excited by a candidate are showing up for Senator Sanders. Democrats can not retake Congress without these voters even if we might be able to defeat the Republican presidential candidate.

Bernie Sanders is articulating the theory that he can beat any Republican presidential candidate and that in doing so the voters who come out to vote for him will help Democrats retake Congress. I am not sure that we can retake the House with all the Republican gerrymandering and voter suppression, but we can only be truly competitive by standing up for our liberal heritage which will generate new voters who enthusiastically go to the polls. Politics as usual will ruin the Democratic Party.

Thanks for reading and please comment,
The Unabashed Liberal