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A Populist Challenge to Hillary Clinton

Washington Post

April 14, 2015 – Hillary Clinton’s decision to “go small” by formally announcing her presidential campaign in a video, before heading off for “intimate” meetings in Iowa, touched off saturation national press coverage that other contenders can only envy. The former first lady, former senator, former presidential contender, former secretary of state has been in the public eye for nearly a quarter of a century. She’s the prohibitive favorite to get the Democratic Party nomination this time, and odds-on to win the presidency.

Yet hurdles remain. Clinton’s biggest challenge probably isn’t in capturing the middle from the Republican nominee. Republicans have already virtually ceded that. Her challenge is to inspire the Obama majority coalition to vote in large numbers, not only to guarantee her election but also to help Democrats take back the Senate, gain seats in the House and capture a clear mandate.This won’t be easy. Historically, after eight years of one party in the White House, voters are ready for change. The Republican base will be roused by venom toward Clinton that is almost as poisonous as that directed at President Obama. In contrast, many Democrats are discouraged by the disappointments of the Obama years. Key parts of Obama’s base — African Americans, Latinos, millennials — haven’t exactly thrived during his presidency. The election of 2014 took place in a low-turnout, by-election year, but it showed how destructive a lack of enthusiasm could be on the Democratic side.

Some pundits suggest 2016 will be a foreign policy election. Some Democrats are tempted to turn it into a culture clash, since Republicans are now on the wrong side of a growing range of concerns — gays, women, immigrants, voting rights and global warming. But as Clinton’s campaign acknowledges, the central question is still about the economy: how to make this economy work for working people once more, to rebuild a broad middle class, increase wages and reduce income inequality. Here, although Clinton has been in the public eye for decades, her views are largely unknown, if not unformed.

And on these questions, a populist temper is building in the party — symbolized by the split between the “Warren” and Wall Street wings of the party, and by the spread of the movement to draft Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) to run for the presidency. And Clinton will find that this movement will force her to decide where she stands early and often. (Continued)

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2016’s Untold Story: How The Election Could Bring A New Wave Of Progressive Warriors

While the presidential contest consumes much of our attention, down-ballot races could power a liberal revival

By Luke Brinker
Progressive America Rising via Salon.com

March 10, 2015 – As America marches inexorably toward a presidential election that will almost certainly feature another Clinton, possibly pitted against yet another Bush, a sense of resignation and fatalism has taken hold among many observers on both the progressive left and the anti-establishment right.

While Jeb and Hillary would trade barbs on such perennial wedges issues as abortion and same-sex marriage, and Clinton may be more supportive than Bush of what passes for a social safety net in this country — just don’t mind that bit about ending welfare as we knew it, and try not to focus on that pesky vote for bankruptcy “reform” — neither Wall Street-friendly candidate poses a threat to the plutocratic powers that be. Indeed, the masters of the universe can’t quite decide which of the two they’d prefer to see elected. Either way, they rest assured, they win.

Dispiriting as the coming national contest can be, however, it should not obscure one of the less-discussed dynamics of the 2016 elections: Across the country, a crop of unapologetically progressive candidates promises to infuse a new populist energy into the fight for the U.S. Senate, and may well transform the terms of debate within a Democratic Party that has spent the better part of the past three decades reconciling itself to the Reagan Revolution and embracing neoliberalism.

Rep. Donna Edwards (D-The Elizabeth Warren Wing) is the latest progressive to toss her hat into the Senate ring, announcing today that she will seek the seat being vacated by Maryland Democrat Barbara Mikulski. Though she has served in Congress for six years now, Edwards is fundamentally an insurgent: The community activist won her seat after toppling a hawkish, centrist incumbent in the Democratic primary, and as a member of the Congressional Progressive Caucus and the Populist Caucus, she’s been at the forefront of the effort to move the Democrats leftward on issues like austerity, a living wage, foreign policy, and civil liberties. Befitting her congressional service, Edwards plans to run as an unabashed progressive populist.

“The corporate interests are gonna come at me with all their money,” Edwards tells voters in her announcement video. “But if you’ll join me in this fight there’s no way we can’t win. and when I step into Barbara Mikulski’s shoes as your next senator, you’ll always know where I stand — with you.”

Edwards won’t enjoy a clear Democratic field: Fellow Rep. Chris Van Hollen has already launched his bid for Mikulski’s seat, and he has secured the backing of Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid.

Though Van Hollen has put forth some worthy proposals on economic issues, he’s hardly the most progressive nominee Democrats could field in a race their candidate is almost certain to win: Liberals haven’t forgotten, for instance, that he backed the Simpson-Bowles deficit reduction framework, which would have cut Social Security benefits. Edwards, by contrast, supports Sen. Warren’s proposal to expand the program. The congresswoman has also staked out more civil libertarian positions than Van Hollen; whereas she supported the Amash-Conyers amendment to overhaul the National Security Agency’s surveillance practices, Van Hollen voted against it.

While the Edwards-Van Hollen contest sets up a potentially epic clash, former Wisconsin Sen. Russ Feingold is unlikely to face any serious Democratic challengers as he vies to reclaim his old job next year. Feingold recently stepped down from his role as an African envoy for the State Department, stoking speculation that he’ll seek a rematch with Sen. Ron Johnson (R-WI), the man who ousted him in the 2010 Tea Party wave election. The former senator has done nothing to discourage such speculation, pointedly referring to his “once, current, and I hope future chief of staff” in his final State Department speech and planning a “listening tour” of his state.

Feingold’s return would mark a particularly sweet victory for progressives, whose 2010 defeat ranked among the most devastating blows for Democratic liberals. (Continued)

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How Class Struggle Emerges Under the Democratic Tent

Centrist Dems Ready Strike against Warren Wing

By Kevin Cirilli
Progressive America Rising via The Hill

March 2, 2013 – Centrist Democrats are gathering their forces to fight back against the “Elizabeth Warren wing” of their party, fearing a sharp turn to the left could prove disastrous in the 2016 elections.

For months, moderate Democrats have kept silent as Sen. Warren’s (D-Mass.) barbed attacks against Wall Street, income inequality and the “rigged economy” thrilled the base and stirred desire for a more populist approach.

But with the race for the White House set to begin, centrists are moving to seize back the agenda.

The New Democrat Coalition (NDC), a caucus of moderate Democrats in the House, plans to unveil an economic policy platform as soon as this week in an attempt to chart a different course.

"I have great respect for Sen. Warren — she’s a tremendous leader,” said Rep. Scott Peters (D-Calif.), one of the members working on the policy proposal. “My own preference is to create a message without bashing businesses or workers, [the latter of which] happens on the other side."

Peters said that if Democrats are going to win back the House and Senate, "it’s going to be through the work of the New Democrat Coalition."

"To the extent that Republicans beat up on workers and Democrats beat up on employers — I’m not sure that offers voters much of a vision," Peters said.

Warren’s rapid ascent has highlighted growing tensions in the Democratic Party about its identity in the post-Obama era.

Caught in the crossfire is the party’s likely nominee in 2016, former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, whose husband took the party in a decisively centrist direction during his eight years in office. (Continued)

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