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Edited by Mrph1 on Nov 30th 2023 at 11:03:59 AM
OK, new post because I just had to leave when I was copying the article. Since copying it here in full may get the site fucked by lawyers, I'm putting about half of it here and anyone who wants it in full can PM me. The key paragraphs (Sanders says he doesn't know if Ossoff is a progressive) will be bolded:
Democrats Reload for Georgia Runoff, But Party Divisions Remain
Party’s traditional wing looks to unite with grass roots behind Ossoff’s candidacy, though splits are evident
LOUISVILLE, Ky.—Democrats Wednesday launched the second phase of their fight to capture a long-held Republican House seat in Georgia, but the party’s attempts to unify remain hindered by lingering internal divisions.
First-time candidate Jon Ossoff, who had raised more than $8 million in a matter of months from Democrats across the country, garnered 48.1% of the vote in a crowded open primary Tuesday, just shy of the 50% threshold needed to capture the seat outright.
Now, he faces a June showdown with Republican Karen Handel, a former secretary of state whose 19.8% of the vote topped the field of 11 GOP candidates, in an election to fill the seat vacated by newly appointed Health and Human Services Secretary Tom Price.
While Mr. Ossoff’s candidacy is drawing national attention and has been a rallying point for many grass-roots activists, he has run as a traditional Democrat without adopting the fiery tone powering the liberal resistance to President Donald Trump across the country.
Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders, in an interview Tuesday in Louisville, Ky., said he didn’t know much about Mr. Ossoff, a 30-year-old former House staffer. Mr. Sanders said he isn’t prepared to back Democrats just because of a party label.
“If you run as a Democrat, you’re a Democrat,” he said. “Some Democrats are progressive and some Democrats are not.”
Asked if Mr. Ossoff is a progressive, Mr. Sanders, an independent who challenged Hillary Clinton in the 2016 presidential primary, demurred. “I don’t know,” he said.
Mr. Ossoff’s campaign didn’t respond to requests for comment.
The Georgia special election is just one stop on the Democrats’ course for a comeback after losing the White House in the November election and it isn’t an easy path.
They need to take 24 seats to regain the House majority. The next contests are in Montana and South Carolina, which are also GOP strongholds.
Democratic National Committee Chairman Tom Perez took the strength of Mr. Ossoff’s campaign as the latest signal that Democrats are making headway.
“They’ve pulled out the heavy artillery, they have Donald Trump making robocalls,” Mr. Perez said. “My main message from this is swing the bat, swing it early, swing it often and swing it with your best shot.”
Mr. Ossoff did draw more votes on Tuesday than the Democratic candidate in the 2014 midterm. About 92,300 people backed him, compared with 71,400 who voted Democratic four years ago.
Still, the runoff with Ms. Handel will be daunting, given the partisan leaning of the district and that Republican votes won’t be splintered by multiple candidates. The open primary on Tuesday featured 18 candidates, and most were Republicans.
“Republicans are united,” she told CNN Wednesday. “We know this is an important race and it is going to stay in the hands of a Republican.”
Messrs. Perez and Sanders are in the midst of a coast-to-coast tour titled “Come Together and Fight Back,” but Mr. Sanders remains just as uninterested in coming together with the Democratic Party as he did while fighting its leaders during last year’s presidential primary campaign.
Mr. Perez, who plans to stump Thursday for Mr. Ossoff, sees electing Democrats as the key to recovery.
Mr. Sanders told a Maine crowd Monday night that “our job is to radically transform the Democratic Party.” He put the onus on Mr. Perez and other party leaders to adopt his aggressive power-to-the-people worldview.
“It can’t be just symbolic, it has got to be real,” Mr. Sanders said. “It has got to be that those ideas are allowed to become the dominant theme of the Democratic Party, and that’s the choice that Democrats are going to have to make.”
Remember this is half the article, and you can PM if you want the other half.
edited 19th Apr '17 5:48:56 PM by IFwanderer
1 2 We are what we pretend to be, so we must be careful about what we pretend to be. -KVIt's to be expected. He still pitches for Team Obama from my point of view.
That said, I've warmed up to Perez a bit more. He's at least a big improvement.
"Health care is absolutely a right in this country, or should be," Perez said. "We believe that as Democrats. Republicans don't appear to believe that."
Sanders railed against "the ruling class" and said voters needed to hear that.
"Your greed is destroying this country, and you know what? We're going to take you on," Sanders said.
Asked about that kind of message, Perez demurred and said Democrats needed to campaign on "hope" and later called it a "false choice."
"When we put hope on the ballot, Chris, we win," Perez said.
He went on to attack President Donald Trump's economic message.
"Donald Trump's vision for America is a vision for the top 1% of the 1%," Perez said. "Part of what we have to do is expose the fraud of Donald Trump."
http://www.cnn.com/2017/04/19/politics/bernie-sanders-tom-perez-unity-tour/
@Mad Skillz in Post 183742- I'm not sure if you realize this, but the part you quoted is exactly why some of us are peeved. The people who love Sanders hate Perez/Democrats and Sanders being with them seems to have the effect of making them like Sanders more and hate Perez/Democrats more- I guess because they view it as Sanders making nice with Democrats and Democrats' cynically attempting to exploit Sanders' popularity.
edited 19th Apr '17 5:52:35 PM by Hodor2
I'm sorry to keep bringing this up, but can you guys please read this. It's the summary of a presentation by a professional organizer, and lays out a strategy for how we can win the midterms, and beyond. It helped me think more strategically about where and how we direct our resources. I would also suggest watching the entire video.
https://www.resistanceschool.com/summary-session-two/
edited 19th Apr '17 6:01:38 PM by megaeliz
This. This exactly. No matter how great a guy you may think Sanders is, the Democratic Party should not be in the business of endorsing messianic politics. Doesn't even matter what they can get out of it—embracing that view is bad for the country in the long run.
We should be trying to break people of the notion that any one person can provide the solution. Because if we don't, sooner or later it will be the left's turn to get taken in by a Trump style conartist. We see the beginnings of that potential future already with the likes of Gabbard and we need to put the brakes on it.
edited 19th Apr '17 6:05:54 PM by AmbarSonofDeshar
@Mad Skillz Have you every been to an event like that? I can pretty much guarantee that the people who came just for Bernie weren't listening to anything else.
edited 19th Apr '17 6:17:26 PM by SophiaLonesoul
@wanderer Huh. I just read that article. Sounds an awful lot like Sanders is instigating a takeover of Democratic Party from the inside while he tries to steer the ship from the outside.
This goes with another article I read:
Perez praised Sanders' ability to energize voters. Sanders did not shy away from discussing reforms he still thinks the party needs to make.
"We need to transform the Democratic Party," he told the crowd, slipping into familiar lines from the campaign. "We need to make the Democratic Party not just a party of the East Coast and the West Coast but a party for all 50 states."
And then there's this:
"We'd have a rally with five or ten thousand young people out, a great deal of energy," Sanders said between bites of a steak sandwich. "Then I'd walk into a room and there'd be a thousand people from the Democratic Party. You were in two different worlds - one full of energy, one full of idealism. And the other, full of good people - I don't mean to put 'em down - who are the bedrock of the Democratic Party."
edited 19th Apr '17 6:26:16 PM by MadSkillz
That's not what an echo chamber means. The fact Mad Skillz, Cap and Armbar can't seem to agree on anything in fact is pretty much the opposite of a echo chamber.
"All you Fascists bound to lose."![]()
Unhelpful commentary...
Unhelpful commentary...
Unhelpful commentary....
Yeah, that's the kind of comment we shouldn't be making, Megaeliz. It's entirely content free.
Also... how exactly are biases clouding judgment and whose judgment is being clouded? Because it appears that there is a fundamental disagreement over the usefulness of Sanders, and discussion of his various actions, but otherwise I'm not even sure what you're talking about dude. That statement is so generic as to be useless.
My commentary: I don't think anyone isn't going to convince Madskillz that Sanders isn't the best thing since sliced bread. Likewise, Madskillz isn't going to convince that the guy is as great as he thinks he is. (And frankly I think Warren has all the good points of Sanders without having nearly as many downsides.) This is all a bit academic for me though, as I live in Texas and will vote for nearly anyone as long as they've got the D in their title.
Basically what
said. Now, circle jerk of an argument might be an accurate descriptor, but echo chamber is used to refer to when people are just constantly reaffirming and reinforcing each other's beliefs, not arguing and failing to be persuaded. And I repeat the question about whose biases are clouding whose judgment and what even it is you're concerned about regarding this whole subject.
edited 19th Apr '17 6:36:43 PM by AceofSpades
Sorry, just trying to break up this argument, as it goes the same way every single time, and is frustrating to deal with. I meant echo chamber in the sense that it felt like they were having the same conversation a over and over, and never changing positions.
edited 19th Apr '17 6:39:08 PM by megaeliz
Then maybe take a break for an hour instead of posting unhelpful comments and skip over the argument. Because, again, "biases clouding your judgment" is kind of a useless descriptor here when, really, the usefulness of Sanders isn't a thing that's going to be decided by us, here. I can't even tell what you mean by that, in the context of the current conversation, and you did not bother to clarify.
Or, even, a polite request to move on to something else, instead of, again, unhelpful commentary. That would have been much clearer.
edited 19th Apr '17 6:39:05 PM by AceofSpades
@Captain Capsase: In retrospect it probably would have been better for Tom to take Ellison on the Unity tour instead of Sanders.
For better or worse Sander's is probably too independent to make for a useful unifying figure at the moment, where as Tom Perez's and Keith Ellison's amicability during and after the election was something genuine that people could believe in I think.
On the other hand the reason Ellison probably isn't out there may well be that he's busy organizing the 50 state strategy for 2018.
edited 19th Apr '17 6:41:22 PM by Mio

@Physical Those guys exist in small quantities and are probably full on Trump supporters now.
When the leader of the Maine Young Democrats asked the crowd what brought them to the rally, the audience erupted in "Bernie" cheers.
The leader followed up by asking, "Maybe you came through because you are curious about the new DNC chairman and the future of Democratic politics?" — and the crowd cut her off with boos.
He's still a rockstar to most people.
If anything, he came out of the 2016 elections stronger and more influential than everyone else that participated besides Trump.