Your thoughts please--It is said that the electorate is further left than the politicians are, and

[Jackpine Radical]

Last edited Wed Aug 28, 2013, 03:35 PM - Edit history (1)

further left than the politicians think they are.

Presume a slightly reddish, lower-income Wisconsin state Senate district (recently visited by ol' Gerry Mander). Also presume lots of money behind the incumbent Teabagger.

I think that a Democratic candidate for this seat would have nothing to lose by going full-out Progressive in the election. His/her platform might include

--restoring a state health care insurance program to people who were recently cut off, and adding dental care

--Restoring recently-eviscerated environmental regulations on mining (the district is home to a number of quite unpopular sand mines and not terribly far from the proposed Gogebic taconite mine)

--Legalization of pot

--A more progressive state income tax (the current one is progressive in name only) to reduce property taxes and fund public schools, etc.

--a State-level public works program funded out of general revenues and through a general decline in the Corrections budget

--Repeal of Act 10, Walker's union-busting legislation

etc.

[Scuba]

1. Not only would the vast majority of the traditonal Democratic voters support such a candidacy ...

... but so would a bunch of the folks who don't usually bother to vote because they see the Democrats offering nothing but Republican-lite.

I'd also definately add raising the minimum wage to your list.

[Jackpine Radical]

5. Minimum wage raise--definitely.

These days in this state, any Dem is gonna be very much outspent by the Koch/WMC/Chamber interests, but there is only so much TV & radio space they can buy, only so many fliers they can mail. The key at the local level is personal contact. Actually, not just personal contact, but contact that is pre-designed to work in their heads. I have some ideas about an open-ended polling procedure that would gather information on what people are actually concerned about in their daily lives & what sort of language they use to think & talk about these concerns.

[leftstreet]

8. +1

[deutsey]

2. We need to articulate a left vision, make it part of the national discussion

I think that's what surprised so many people about Occupy. The 1% vs. 99% rhetoric struck a deep chord with a lot of people.

Most of the time in most media outlets, however, we only get far-right and center-right (and occasionally plain old centrist) points of view.

[gopiscrap]

3. I believe that to be true

for two reasons: many moderate republican politicians are afraid to vote their conscience for fear of being primaried by a nut bag from the tea party.

Second: our media is corporate. They will always slant to the conservative and business side of things.

[corkhead]

4. I think our only hope is from the bottom up.

All 3 branches of the Federal government are hopelessly corrupted.

[ewagner]

6. Interesting.....

the point that interests me about the proposal is that it seems to cut through the normal hoopla of a campaign and go straight to the HEART OF THE MATTER.

and

in doing so, forces people to confront what they REALLY believe as opposed to what they are TOLD THAT THEY BELIEVE.

[geek tragedy]

7. The truth is that a lot of Republicans are more liberal on policy than they are

in their voting behavior.

They want a lot of things that their party will never allow, but they'll never consider doing anything but supporting Republicanism.

The problem is that reasonable human beings do not control that party.

[Jackpine Radical]

9. That is no doubt true, and I could cite you examples.

But there are a bunch of others who are not so committed to Republican or any other ideology, and who in fact may be pretty apathetic until the right issue comes along to stir them. If you can energize this group to vote for you, you can win the election.

[geek tragedy]

14. The problem is that the issue

often winds up being abortion or guns.

[leftstreet]

16. Which is probably why half the eligible voters don't vote n/t

[Jackpine Radical]

18. I'd take guns off the table

by simply saying that the nation is providing us with a "natural experiment" on the effects of CC; if the law proves harmful, then it ought to be opposed. If not, why fight over it? Just accept it as the will of the people. I would also make some moves toward securing the sportsmen's vote by campaigning for the purchase of more public lands for hunting & fishing, etc.

As for abortion, northern WI has never particularly been Bible belt country. Certainly there are Fundies and some Catholics for whom it's an issue, but I think you'd stand to gain at least as many votes as you'd lose by standing for abortion. Especially among women.

[xchrom]

10. the only barrier is a finding charismatic speakers.

people who can carry the torch before the people and in legislative practice.

that's it.

[Jackpine Radical]

11. Point well taken.

[Barack_America]

12. I can answer your post in one symbol...$

It's not about the electorate or the politicians, it's about the corporations that finance the elections. That's who determines what the politicians support, and who the people vote for.

People may lean to the left, but they vote to the right, because those are the options corporations give them. (at least in larger elections)

[Donald Ian Rankin]

13. By which measure? The median voter is probably well to the left of the mean voter.

I think - although I can't claim any strong evidence for this - that the political opinions of the American electorate exhibit rightwards skew - that is, if you pick a hundred voters and line them up from left to right, voter 50 will probably feel that their views are much closer to voter 25 than to voter 75.

[Jackpine Radical]

15. I'm not aware of any single metric that could be analyzed in that way.

It would be something of an interesting psychometric scaling problem, but it's no doubt complicated by the underlying factorial structure of the imagined "right-left" continuum. Most of the even slightly sophisticated structural analyses I've seen end up with at least a 2-dimensional solution (e.g. a civil-libertarian v. authoritarian dimension and an economic egalitarian v. "free-market" dimension), and I imagine that there may be plenty of variance left over to load on some other factors. I guess I'd start by looking at Hans Eysenck's old political psychological factor analytic studies.

[Motown_Johnny]

17. You need to play to win or you never will.

There is no way to know what will happen during a campaign. The (D) needs to try to win as many votes as possible. Some scandal may break and damage the (R) so that he/she can be beat.


I am all for running on progressive policies but a Kamikaze campaign isn't going to help anyone.

[Jackpine Radical]

19. On the other hand, if you're going to make a bold move, you can't be afraid to lose.

[Motown_Johnny]

20. True, but if this is a red district

making a bold move is just wasting money that could go to competitive races.

I think you should try to pick up as many supporters as possible. Even if you lose this time you might have a better shot in 2016 if you play the game in 2014.


We need to win The House back. With the Gerrymandering in place it is an uphill battle. Throwing away a race doesn't make sense to me.

[Jackpine Radical]

21. This is a State Senate race.

The Usual Suspects in the State Party have already thrown it away.

It's only sort of reddish, and that after recent gerrymandering. Turnout hasn't been all that great. There are some hot-button issues like sand mining that the R's are on the wrong side of. The Party-approved candidate may well also be on the wrong ide of that one.