North Carolina Is A Canary in the Electoral MineSHORT TAKES: Filibuster Killing More Working Class Dreams; The Voice of A Minimum Wage Worker; Cleaning House in Nevada
LONG TAKE:I don’t want to spend too much time in the abstract on electoral politics but I will raise elections when there is a very clear point to be made about policy. So…in the wreckage of the abhorrent vote to block a hike in the federal minimum wage to $15-an-hour by banning it from being included in the relief bill (for truly arcane, bad reasoning), consider this as an element: if Chuck Schumer had not meddled in the North Carolina Senate primary in 2020, promoting, and directing huge gobs of cash to, the corporate shill and dumb-as-a-brick Cal Cunningham who, then, crashed and burned in the general election (partly because, it turned out, he couldn’t keep it in his pants for at least, say, until after the election), letting Trump acolyte Thom Tillis win re-election—then, there would have been a very good chance that the progressive candidate, Erica Smith, would have won the Democratic primary and, then, the general election. That would have given the party 51 seats outright (in other words, not requiring the vote of the Vice President to break 50-50 ties) and reduced a tad the influence of Fifth Columnist Joe Manchin—and, perhaps, changed a bit the dynamic in the debate over whether to end the filibuster and/or include the minimum wage hike in the relief bill (yes, I recognize that Manchin isn’t the only Fifth Columnist who might have blocked the minimum wage hike—8 Democrats in total sided with the '“keep starving workers” view). Having Erica Smith as the candidate might have proven, again, that progressive policies are smart and winning politics IF you have a good candidate carrying those messages. Which brings me to observe two factors that combine to be the Achilles heel of the progressive moment. First, too often, people run for office who are just not very good candidates (and, bless them, I’m not saying they shouldn’t run)—and the progressive movement has yet to develop the internal strength to honestly vet candidates. A good candidate is not JUST the person with the right profile. A good candidate is also someone who is a good campaigner—who likes people, who can engage voters, who can project some basic charisma in media appearances—AND someone who is willing to do the unglamorous work, principally sit on the phone for six-eight hours a day and make fundraising calls. Hey, fundraising is dirty work and sucks but if a candidate won’t do that work, s/he should not run because s/he will just be wasting their own time and the energy of a lot of other people—and will end up losing, adding to the tally of unsuccessful progressive candidates…which, then, turns into a metric that isn’t helpful to arguing for more progressive candidates. Second, I don’t simply rely on polling to argue the point about the popularity of progressive ideas: I part with my progressive allies who only wave around a poll showing the popularity of, say, Medicare for All because poll questions are traps—polls are not campaigns, and only good, solid campaigns can turn support into real victories. To wit: as a I pointed out right after the election in this long analysis, while Joe Biden was losing Florida in November, the ballot initiative to raise the state minimum wage to $15-an-hour was romping to victory—and over-performing Biden’s vote in virtually every county. That minimum wage victory happened because it was a good campaign—and part of a larger movement that has embedded itself in the brains of millions of people. What people were saying was pretty clear: give me a policy that puts money in my pocket and isn’t about supporting the rich over regular people, and I’ll vote for it whether you call it “progressive” or “a loaf of bread.” So, it was policy people could understand and it was a good campaign. So, Erica is back—running for the Democratic Party nomination for the U.S. Senate seat that is up for grabs because Republican incumbent Richard Burr is retiring. Hopefully, Schumer will keep his hands off the primary choice and not screw it up again. Erica joined me on this week’s Working Life podcast (SUBSCRIBE!!!): SHORT TAKES:
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