50 state strategy to primary safe district D's with dem socialists?

[zazen]

This may sink like a rock, but I've been wonderful for a while here what we do to keep building on the Occupy/Sanders/Democratic Socialist momentum regardless of whether Bernie wins the nomination.

Whether he wins the nomination, we need many more elected officials at local, state and federal levels who share his/our principles. This is because movements require a range of leaders who can deliberate and build consensus. You can't just have one voice in the wilderness. Humans are inherently flawed, so you need a range of people who share fundamental policy values to keep the inevitable foibles and eccentricities at bay.

I know a few current (and certainly former) elected federal reps who share these principles. One was double-bunked here in NC in 2011 into a gerrymandered district by the NC GOP so that two long-term NC Dem reps had to run against each other.

I won't go into the ugly details of what happened, but the more conservative Dem (though he now runs as a "progressive" after being a DLC member) kept the seat. Part of that was that the older conservative Dem had brought a lot of money to the state, while the other one had been an original, vocal critic of the big banks well before the crash, which was "suicide" in the mainstream Dem party here in NC. The bank critic (a dem socialist by any def) decided not to run against his old friend.

However, the upshot is that in NC today, we have two "safe" Dem seats (of 13 total) that the GOP gerrymandered so the Repubs could sweep the remaining 11, which they promptly did.

In the "safe" seats across the country, including in NC, we may be able to mobilize enough voters to primary out the mainstream Dems and put democratic socialists in who could still keep the seats, who could then begin to form a caucus in Congress over the next 2-4 election cycles.

This is the longer view, but I wonder what y'all think about its feasibility.

Sanders/dem socialist voters are high info voters anyway. If it's clear that there's a coordinated 50-state strategy to build a dem socialist party/caucus, and that this is a way to channel all of Sanders' support into concrete action regardless of whether he wins the nomination, do you think it'd get any traction?

[peacebird]

1. We need to put the blue dogs out to pasture.

[wilsonbooks]

2. This is an obvious strategy.

Of course it needs to happen.

[zazen]

3. what kind of central structure could it have? a PAC? ActBlue?

I really don't know and don't have the energy to start one.

It's just that, this may be obvious to you, but I never hear or read about ANYONE talking about actively forwarding other democratic socialist candidates as part of an organized effort.

Regardless of whether Sanders gets the nomination, we need to begin building this structure now. I think 1/2 of the progressive caucus secretly support Sanders' platform but most are too afraid of the backlash to come out for him (or have the legitimate concerns that if he's alone, he won't be able to get much done).

It'll get contentious, because a party structure requires some central discipline and our trying to address 15,000 causes at one time will risk our devolving into the usual litmus tests on particular issues. OTOH, if we're serious about long term economic reform, we've got to do more than support Bernie Sanders.

Frankly, what happened here in NC was a trial run of what would happen if we primaried a "safe" Dem here or elsewhere. Many mainstream Dems are afraid to do it. They're afraid they'll seem disloyal. They're just, afraid. They have loyalties to their mainstream Dem candidate. They have personal pet projects they want to keep funded. A new rep. will go to the end of the line in terms of committee assignments.

This is the next VITAL front in our efforts. It'll be interesting to see which organizations/persons begin to take the leadership here.

[wilsonbooks]

6. It could be modeled after DFA which doesn't have a litmus test.

They choose the best candidate running in a given election and support candidates down to the city council level. I fully expect that Senator Sanders will form such a group whether he is elected or not. As he has said many times this is not mainly about electing him but building a lasting movement for change. It will take time and lots of hard work but I am more hopeful than I have been in forty years of political activism. We are the ones who will have to make it work. The New Deal did not happen by accident. It was in response to a mass movement of millions of people demanding change and working to make it happen.

[Vincardog]

5. What needs to happen now, is we need to organize stay organized and force the political class to

Represent US.

[Admiral Loinpresser]

4. KnR! n/t