I agree with the strategy of going into places where you may be in a decidedly minority place. How else are you going to move your agenda forward? Besides, the Great Plains have a long history of prairie socialism and fought bloody battles to keep slavery out. Reignite those memories.
Kansas? Ocasio-Cortez won a primary in a Congressional district (711k population) with 15k votes. I like her but can we wait on sending her to Kansas?
Cool.
Kansas in particular has a weird progressive streak that pops up from time to time – usually when bible-thumping Republicans overreach, historically. Before Brownback’s disastrous reign, two of Kansas’ prior three governors were Democratic women (not counting Sebelius Lt. Gov., who took over after she joined the Obama administration).
That was my reaction— Ms. Ocasio-Cortez, your Congressional Distrct is in NYC, not Kansas. Let’s focus on that before you fly to other districts to campaign for others. You have a long career ahead of you — plenty of time later on to wield your influence.
Another exercise in being delusional by Sanders supporters.
You can always rely on AP to put a complete bullshit spin on a story
First, the pair is not descending on ruby red KS, they are going to two specific district, one of which is competitive in general. Second, they are meddling in the Dem primary, not rallying Democrats as the headline says. If history is any guide, if the Sanders backed candidate loses the primary, as is often the case, he will nowhere be there supporting the Dem winner against the Republican.
Ocasio-Cortez’s primary win was not a surprise. It was expected. Why is she in Kansas, when she has her own race to run?
She is taking her future constituents for granted. Spiking the football before she crosses the goal line.
She is jinxing herself, and there is still a non-zero chance that she will lose.
TPM, Please change your headline. It is misleading, if not dead wrong. Sander and Ocasio-Cortez are not going to deep-red Kansas “to rally Democrats.” They are going to “to divide the party” (of which Sanders is not a member). There are some very capable progressives running in Kansas’ 3rd district. Sharice Davids – native American lawyer who has worked on civil rights for native Americans and a former fellow in the Obama White House – is one of them and she has a very liberal platform. Brent Welder is not. He endorsed Jill Stein for President in 2016 when Sanders did not get the Democratic nomination. Sanders and Ocasio-Cortez are using the Democratic primaries in Michigan and Kansas as a last ditch effort to gain control of the party. (Nancy Pelosi is the scalp they’ll call for in the House.) I never thought to get involved myself in Democratic primaries in other states but now it’s feeling existential. I’m a pragmatic progressive. I like candidates who have great ideas and know how to put them into practice. Neither Sanders nor Ocasio-Cortez have shown how they would implement their ideas. This bothers me.
Only if he’s dragged kicking and screaming to do it.
Wait for what, Hillary to go to Kansas? No thanks. We have waited long enough to bring a progressive agenda to the South.
if the Sanders backed candidate loses the primary, as is often the case, he will nowhere be there supporting the Dem winner against the Republican.
Right. And if the Sanders’ backed candidate, up against a 50,000 registered Republicans disadvantage, makes it a competitive race and loses, Democrats, led by Pelosi, will simply dismiss the results and progressives as being counterproductive. And losers of course. It’s the Democratic Party that will be the loser, once again, if they think they can dismiss progressives with their typical bullshit excuses.
What if there are candidates running who are just as progressive and are arguably more prepared for governing than the Sanders-backed candidate? Would you dismiss them out of hand because they didn’t have Bernie’s imprimatur? Several of the candidates running in KS-03 are dyed-in-the-wool liberals. Would you support them if they won the primary even if they didn’t have Bernie’s seal of approval?
If she convinces Hispanic voters in particular and working class voters in general that Democrats aren’t just a bunch of Subaru-driving upper-middle-class killjoys, it will help. Would I send her to Salina? Probably not. Wichita, Wyandotte County, or some impoverished small town where the Republicans have knifed the local schools in the back and la migra cuts off legitimate work visas and chases the local farmers’ workforces away just for the hell of it? It definitely has possibilities. She smiles a lot, talks tough and sounds like Rosie Perez. People here in the Midwest in “flyover country” find that interesting, especially from a Democrat.
Two people who (AFAIK) have never held elected office as Democrats. I mean, I’m not going to turn down any good-faith efforts to rally Democratic voters anywhere in the country, but it seems like an odd choice.
All this back-and-forth about the wisdom of Sanders and Ocasio-Cortez coming to Kansas aside, this article understates the present state of things here. Even among most Republican voters, Brownback’s legacy has tainted that way of doing things, to the point that, when Brownback took office, he had had hopes of running for President one day, until in 2016 more Dems and moderate Republicans were voted into the legislature and drove out those conservatives who had rubber-stamped his agenda; proposals to expand Medicaid have broad support; properly funding education has traditionally been a bipartisan concern until Brownback took office and showed breathtakingly open hostility toward court-mandated orders to increase funding; etc. Here in Wichita, Ron Estes is more vulnerable than one might think; Estes has been all but invisible, and his bootlicking of Trump isn’t an especially attractive look for him.
None of this is to say that Kansans will be celebrating Labor Day on May 1 anytime soon, but the political tide is shifting in quiet but significant ways. To borrow Trump’s verbal tic about the future, “We’ll see what happens” come November.
That’s ok. Many elected Democrats have not acted like Democrats since 1992.
Let’s turn the tables a bit: Will Sanders or Ocasio-Cortez make a campaign appearance for the eventual Democratic nominee in this contest, even if it’s someone they didn’t initially back? That, for me, is the real issue, and it will be the test whether Sanders’ and Ocasio are true progressives, justice Dems and whatever other terms they have hijacked for themselves, or just a cult of personality, loyal only to those loyal to them. Can they support Democrats broadly speaking? If not, I’d prefer they go away. We can’t afford their my-way-or-the-highway approach when facing a fascist GOP.
Good, because those people were screwed bigtime by Brownback and his enablers in the legislature. I thought it was really hopeful when the Kansas Supreme Court ruled against the state last year, finding its plan to fund schools to be unconstitutional.