Fresh legs!! But we still have a long way to go to clean the party up.
The White House isn’t going to like this news.
“This is a fight for the soul of our party and the future of our democracy,” she told reporters. “This is a disruptive candidacy, a grassroots coalition. It is broad and diverse and deep. People of every walk of life.”
I hope the DNC understands that these and other similar upsets this year are a direct result of what appears to be a lack of clear DNC leadership as we approach the most important election of my lifetime.
Lead or others will step up when the threat is great enough.
Like now.
Lead or be led.
Lead, follow, or get the Hell out of the way.
“I have been really furious about the constant charges being lobbed against me about identity politics that, by the way, are only lobbed against women and candidates of color.”
Funny how nobody lobs that charge against Republican appeal to “working-class whites”.
GOP politicians – and their base – are the biggest, whiniest embodiment of “identity politics” that ever lived.
The Great White Wail.
I like this outcome.
ummmm, k
I wonder if Lieberman will write an editorial for Capuano.
I hope Democratic Party voters understand that wanting new leaders means that Democratic voters can’t sit on their hands during midterms.
This peculiar delusion that doing so is the best way to influence party bosses needs to stop .
“We” really don’t have to do anything hahahahaha our younger members of Congress are standing up and standing out all by themselves. hahaha
It was mostly our younger Democrats - Cory Booker, Kamala Harris, who went after Kavanaugh to start things off. I love seeing it and we’ll see more of it I think.
Those guys, nah.
This party needs a bold and brilliant, 76 year young version of a North American Jeremy Corbyn.
Yeah that happens and I’ll run screaming to another country I swear to god!
Never ever ever.
Well, the party bosses have been doing a fantastic job, right?
Yes n no, buttttt
If the party wants new leaders, then voters must show.
Now doing so might lead to Clyburn or House being caretaker speakers, but even that is a message.
I guess there will be those who say “well this is just another case of an extra-leftie candidate winning a primary challenge in an overwhelmingly Democratic district and doesn’t necessarily mean much to the outcome of the coming mid-terms.”
And to some extent those folks will have a point. Districts like the ones Pressley and Ocasio-Cortez won in their primary races aren’t the battleground districts that the Dems need to flip to win the House. It remains to be seen what kind of candidate will fare the best in those battleground districts, and it may vary quite a bit by region.
But leaving all that aside, I’m sdelighted to see folks like Pressley and Ocasio-Cortez emerging as winners in these primaries in the Democratic strongholds. The party needs more of their kind of energy, needs the fresh voices and the idealism and the bold, take-no-prisoners attitude.
And in the long run, these wins are bound to encourage other young candidates, and especially more young women and minorities, to step up and run for office. And that, in turn, may help inspire some voters to get engaged and turn out on election day when they otherwise might not have.
It’s like a Cycle of Hope – the opposite of the Cycle of Despair that leads so many to just check out of politics altogether.
’ oh the times …
they are a … changin’ ’ … 
The AP article and comments so far say nothing about Capuano other than he’s older and white, that’s about the only thing he has in common with Joe Crowley, who Ocasio-Cortez beat. Sure, he was endorsed by “establishment” Democratic leaders like John Lewis but he’s been one of the most progressive members of Congress, well representing a very progressive district. In debates, Pressley said she wouldn’t vote any differently than he did. So instead of a progressive with 20 years’ experience and seniority, the district will have a representative with limited experience at the back of the line for positions of influence.
I object to all the talk about the district having become majority-minority, including by Pressley. The implication is that it should therefore have a representative who is a minority. If that were true, it would also stand to reason that a white majority district should have a white representative; that’s not right.
I hope she does well and works well her colleagues in Congress.
Pressley is not cut from the same cloth as Ocasio-Cortez, she is not a democratic socialist for one.
Take-no-prisoners attitude sounds nice but accomplishments in Congress come from compromise. I’m concerned about what Pressley has said in debate, “Pressley has also said she wouldn’t compromise on her opposition to Trump’s proposed border wall, while Capuano says he would’ve been willing to provide some funding for the wall in order to achieve larger immigration policy goals.” She said she would have voted against the 2013 immigration reform bill, a bill that Sentors Warren, Markey, and Sanders all voted for.
I never said Pressley and Ocasio-Cortez were identical, but there are some undeniable strong similarities, including advocating for Medicare for All, being supported by Our Revolution, etc. I would say that as candidates, they’re more alike than different.
I agree that compromise is important in a legislative context. But it’s also very common in politics to say “I won’t compromise on x” and then to end up compromising, at least somewhat, on x. In fact it seems like that’s more the rule than the exception.
It would be nice if everyone could make clear, up front, their willingness to compromise up to point y – without losing leverage – but that’s not how the GOP plays the game. When Dems pre-negotiate like that, the GOP (and to a significant extent the press and the public) just takes the Dem’s proposed compromise position as the new Dem starting point for a subsequent negotiation that moves eventual outcome closer to the GOP position.
So I’m thinking that there’s a useful role in a Democratic majority for a large bloc of (relatively) “uncompromising” Dems who will take a strong stand on crucial issues and keep the party anchored to its values. Doesn’t mean they will never compromise in the end…but it does mean they will put themselves in a position (if there are enough of them) that they’ll have to be won over.
The GOP’s so-called “Freedom Caucus” is a pain in the ass, but there’s no denying they’ve been very effective in bending the GOP leadership to their will on a number of issues. They don’t do that by announcing ahead of time that they’re totally ready to compromise – before the test of wills even starts.