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Before fighting the latest Republican attempt to undo the Affordable Care Act, progressive Democrats had a tiff with former president Barack Obama and the ethics of his two $400,000 paid speeches, including one at a health-care conference put on by the investment firm Cantor Fitzgerald.

It just speaks to the power of Wall Street and the influence of big money in the political process, Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) said in an interview with Bloomberg News.

I was troubled by that, Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) said in a radio interview. The influence of dollars on this place is what scares me.

Locked out of power in Washington and most states, Democrats have shaken off the stupor of their 2016 defeat. Theyve fought Republicans to a stalemate on some of President Trumps campaign pledges. In special elections, theyve turned out voters and forced the GOP to spend millions of dollars defending once-safe seats. Their most vulnerable senators, facing a daunting 2018 map, have broken their fundraising records.

But like Republicans after Obamas victories, Democrats are in a state of constant tension. An energized left-wing base is waging and winning arguments about messaging and strategy. Like the tea party in 2009 and 2010, that base quickly determined the congressional partys style of opposition; like the tea party, it sees messy public fights as the way out of the doldrums.

Democrats have to have an argument, said Robert Borosage, a progressive organizer whose Campaign for Americas Future merged last year into the new group Peoples Action. What Sanders has made clear is that there be a real debate on the left about what our agenda is, and as we debate, we drive that into the Democratic Party.

The Obama speaking gigs were bound to start a fight. Hillary Clintons fees for speeches between her State Department career and presidential bid were a point of contention throughout the 2016 campaign, fueling the primary with Sanders and letting Trump portray his opponent as a corporate puppet. In defending Obamas speeches, the former presidents team used language that had not worked for Clinton.

Regardless of venue or sponsor, President Obama will be true to his values, his vision, and his record, Obama spokesman Eric Schultz said in a statement Wednesday evening. In 2008, Barack Obama raised more money from Wall Street than any candidate in history and still went on to successfully pass and implement the toughest reforms on Wall Street since FDR.

With few Trump victories to celebrate, Republicans are highlighting intra-Democratic spats over abortion, accusing the party of being run by its fringe, and taking solace in its lack of leadership. As Trump and congressional Republicans punted on their health-care bill, the Republican National Committee and several party surrogates insisted that it was the Democrats fresh off a Democratic National Committee unity tour with Sanders and DNC Chairman Tom Perez who were listless.

I have no idea who the leader of the Democratic Party is, scoffed White House counselor Kellyanne Conway this past week, on the Trump-friendly morning show Fox and Friends. Is it Tom Perez ... who was booed routinely through his profanity-laced appearances last week on his disunity tour? Is it Bernie Sanders who won 22 states last year in the Democratic Primary but refuses to call himself a Democrat?

To Democrats, the mockery sounds like projection. Trump won 46 percent of the popular vote last year; according to CNNs polling, House Speaker Paul D. Ryans favorable rating has fallen from 46 percent to 38 percent since the start of the year.

But Democrats have not gained much from the contrast. A Washington Post/ABC News poll released last week found that just 28percent of Americans say that the Democrats were in touch with the concerns of most people, 10 points below the number who thought that of Americas wealthiest president. Three years ago, 48percent of Americans thought the party was in touch.

The Democrats messaging problems were visible throughout last week, when leaders in Congress held meandering news conferences to attack Trump on his broken promises. The muddle started with House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.), who used a Meet the Press interview about the use of her image in Republican attack ads to haltingly set up the Democrats campaign against Ryan (R-Wis.).

I think its really important for the voters in those districts to know who the candidates will be voting with, she said. Will they be voting with Paul Ryan, who wants to eliminate the guarantee of Medicare, who has voted to privatize Social Security, whos there to dismantle Medicaid?

The rest of the weeks messaging events made few headlines, apart from an intraparty argument about whether to demand health-care money in the resolution to fund the government. Yet as Republicans had done for years, Democrats in the first 100 days lost faith that mainstream media and Washington news cycles could be fair or worth winning.

Ultimately I just dont believe a voter in a competitive district is going to be turned out by a leader in Washington that they dont see on the news, said Guy Cecil, the chief strategist of the Democratic super PAC Priorities USA.

Boxed out of the national headlines by Trump, Democrats have grown more concerned with what animates their base. Republicans had a field day mocking the Perez-Sanders speaking tour, with cable networks playing footage of Perez being booed by loud minorities of audience members, and abortion rights groups coaxing an apologetic statement out of Perez after Sanders campaigned with an antiabortion candidate for mayor of Omaha.

But Democrats spent much of 2016 watching a Republican Party that looked hopelessly divided, hyping every instance of a Republican criticizing Trump.

Sometimes things get bumpy, said Rep. Keith Ellison (D-Minn.), who narrowly lost the DNC chairs race to Perez despite being backed by Sanders.

Todays energy, however, comes from a left that continues to challenge the Democrats to move. Last Tuesday, Connecticut Democrats, who had nearly lost control of their state senate during the Obama presidency, watched a member of the progressive Working Families Party take a safe blue seat. Sen. Chris Murphy (D-Conn.) said he was hiring staffers not just for his 2018 reelection, but also to work with the progressive resistance groups springing up around the state.

For the most part, Democrats spent the first months of Trumps presidency responding. Republicans hoped that eight red-state Democrats would feel pressure to confirm Neil M. Gorsuch to the Supreme Court; just three did. Smatterings of House Democrats have voted with Republicans to roll back regulations unpopular in their districts; no other Trump agenda item has won bipartisan support.

To the extent that Democrats have a competing agenda, its driven by the left. Last week, while Trump announced his tax priorities, Sanders held a rally with Senate Minority Leader Charles E. Schumer (N.Y.) to introduce the Raise the Wage Act of 2017, which would increase the federal minimum wage to $15 an hour by 2024. It was sponsored by 22 Democrats and no Republicans.

As Sanders criticized Obamas speaking fees, the academic and left-wing activist Cornel West was asking Sanders, in a column, to build on the ruins of a dying Democratic party and start his own third party. West specifically endorsed a Peoples Party that a few veterans of the Sanders campaign are trying to launch, using every Democratic misstep to make the pitch.

Even while criticizing Democrats, and while refusing to join the party, Sanders has refused to abandon the party. If there are places in this country where somebody wants to run as an independent, go for it, he said. But right now, whats absolutely imperative is that the Democratic Party be completely reformed.

Read more at PowerPost

Originally posted here:
Democrats find strength in disunity - Washington Post

MANCHESTER, N.H. Yes, Joe Biden said, the Democratic Party is in crisis. And so is America.

But it's not too late.

Story Continued Below

Returning repeatedly here to the combined 172,000-vote margin in the three states that decided last years presidential election, the former vice president said Democrats need to face how deep the problem is not a fluke, not just about Hillary Clintons performance, not just about a campaign by Donald Trump that clearly disgusted him.

The cadre of people who were all ours for so long they doubted whether we still remembered, the former vice president said, in his first major political speech since the inauguration. Im absolutely positive they want to be with us, but we have to prove again that we understand that hopelessness. We have to show them, we have to be the source of their hope.

I know it seems like were hopelessly divided. I know it seems like were in a political death match we just cant figure out how to get out. But were better than that, he added later. We have to come together. The American people are ready.

Biden took the stage first with his wife, Jill Biden, thanking the crowd for their support over the years, especially after the death of his son Beau.

He quickly tried to pierce the tension in the air.

Guys, Im not running, Biden insisted at the beginning of his speech, acknowledging with a smile on his face the speculation stoked by his appearance in the first-in-the-nation primary state a declaration met by the crowd leaping to its feet for a brief Run, Joe, Run! chant.

Biden didnt mention the conversations he and his staff are having about building a strategy so that hell be best positioned to run if he decides to at the end of next year or his longtime consultant Mike Donilon, who was perhaps most in favor of his running in 2016, who watched the speech from the side of the room.

I dont think Donald Trump can hear you! New Hampshire Democratic Party chair Ray Buckley called out to the crowd, urging them to cheer more loudly for Biden as the event began.

Biden also stopped at several points to say nice things about Clinton, what a great president shed have been, how she faced a double standard because she was a woman, even as he made clear over and over again how flat he clearly felt her campaign fell in breaking through.

But Clinton doesnt deserve all the blame, he said.

Trump was pretty smart. He made it all personal. It wasnt the presss fault, but they focused on all of that, Biden said. This bile sucked up all the oxygen.

For example, Clinton never got much attention for her free community college proposal, he said.

Biden mostly avoided talking directly about Trump, using his name only in passing asides, and referring to him at one section of his hour-long speech as the new guy. He said the Trump administration has been marked so far by an assault on the things we value so deeply, and pointing to a personal priority, said that the current administration hadnt shown any interest in continuing his cancer moon-shot work, bringing together money and research to try to find a cure.

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Democrats should be angry about Trump, Biden said, but they should be angry too about how much theyve lost their way and what thats meant for America.

What kind of country are we becoming? What kind of country do we believe we want to be and how do we get there? Biden said. How, how do we unite America again? How do we unite this country? How do we end this bitter, bitter political division?

The answer, Biden argued, was in talking more about three core American values: Dignity, thinking big, and optimism.

Scapegoating has become a national political obligation, Biden said. Just build a wall, thatll keep them out. The fears of these people whove been hurt are being played upon, instead of appealing to their better angels.

Contrast that, Biden said, to the events he did for Clinton during the campaign with white union members in the Midwest, when he got them applauding for same sex marriage, stopping violence against women, and immigration.

I was in whats supposed to be those angry white guys, who are supposedly racists, who by the way a guy named Barack Obama won the last two times, Biden said.

Thats wrong, Biden said, but so is what he called the false debate in the Democratic Party right now between appealing to working class voters and appealing to progressive values. Thats just like Democrats, he charged, forgetting who they are.

Remember the core reason why youre a Democrat we abhor the abuse of power, whether it is financial power, psychological power, physical power. Think about what made you a Democrat. Its the abuse of power. Weve got to remember who we are, Biden said.

And then, he said, Democrats need to remember who they care about.

Whether I said it well enough or not, you know Im right. Those 172,000 people we needed, a lot of them wondered whether itd been forgotten theyd been abused by the system, Biden said, referring to the combined margin in Pennsylvania, Wisconsin and Michigan. They wondered whether or not we remembered.

New Hampshire Democrats seemed ready for whatever Biden is going to do next, leaving the room after a roadshow of Biden classic stories, from stories he always tells about certain conversations with world leaders to the night his father told him about having to leave him with family for a while to go find work, to the super-fast turns from stage whispering to booming in the microphone.

I think it is an understatement to say we dearly miss having his voice and leadership in the White House, said Sen. Maggie Hassan, in her introduction, calling him my friend, New Hampshires friend, Americas friend.

We think of him as one of our own, said Sen. Jeanne Shaheen. And boy, do we wish he was still in the White House.

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Original post:
Biden to Democrats: Rediscover what you are - Politico

April 30, 2017 11:44 PM By IanBush

COLUMBIA, SC - FEBRUARY 24: Supporters of Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton make phone calls from a campaign field office to encourage voters in South Carolina to vote in the upcoming Democratic primary on February 24, 2016 in Columbia, South Carolina. The South Carolina Democratic primary is scheduled to take place on February 27. (Photo by Scott Olson/Getty Images)

PHILADELPHIA (CBS) The first day of school in Philadelphia is Tuesday for Democrats who want to run for Congress or serve as higher-ups on a campaign.

For the party stunned by last years election losses, its part of a dramatic new push to regain ground.

These courses are designed to capitalize on what the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee hopes is a surge of interest and participation in the midterms and beyond.

When you have a deeply energized base, when you have a group of independent voters skeptical as to the direction of the country, that usually provides an opportunity for a wave, says Jake Braun, a trainer for DCCC University.

The big effort by the Dems so early in a campaign cycle is indicative of the gravity of their defeat and ambition for turning the tide.

Its no coincidence the DCCC is setting up shop in Philly: the party covets the nearby 6th, 7th, and 8th districts in PA and wants to take a stab at turning them blue.

This is not only to be able to scale up a massive operation where we may have hundreds of campaigns that are competitive but also to be able to find out who the best of the best are, says Braun, who served as deputy field director for Barack Obama in 2008.

Those who show the most promise as politicos or operatives go on to even more advanced courses with the Democrats House campaign arm in Washington, DC. But for all, says Braun, its about learning how to tap into energy and translate that to action in an election.

I dont know how we lost this as a party but we did you do not cede one inch of your district to the opposition, Braun says.

Braun, the CEO of Cambridge Global Advisors, notes thats what his classes will focus on alongside techniques for talking with voters, the press, and using social media.

In 16, Republicans did some truly brilliant things related to social media and targeting that I think the Democrats frankly kind of forgot some of the things that won them Congress and the White House.

The training program, open only to those whove applied and are invited by the DCCC, begins in Philadelphia on May 2.

For more information on this click here.

Ian Bush is an anchor, reporter, news editor, and technology editorat KYW Newsradio. Bush joined the airstaff in August 2005 after serving as a desk/production assistant since October 2002. In 2008, he was named one of national radios '30 Under...

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Democrats Launch Campaign 'School' In Philadelphia - CBS Philly

By Brian LymanMontgomery Advertiser (TNS)

They were hesitant at first. But some prominent Alabama House Democrats are thinking about entering this year's U.S. Senate race.

Winning the contest will be a tall order for a state party that last elected a Democrat to the Senate in 1992; hasn't won any statewide election since 2008 and faces internal divisions. But some members of the party last week expressed hope that voter disgust with scandals that enveloped Republican leadership will make their primary more than a side show to the GOP's big show.

"The timing may be right," said Sheila Gilbert, co-chair of the Alabama Democratic Reform Caucus. "There are enough people who are disgruntled. "There are enough grassroots groups coming out of the woodwork to crack the code and make some changes."

Reps. Elaine Beech, D-Chatom; Chris England, D-Tuscaloosa and Craig Ford, D-Gadsden said last week they were thinking about entering the race. Medical marijuana advocate Ron Crumpton is the only declared candidate for the Democrats so far.

Independent streaks

England a three-term representative, attorney for the city of Tuscaloosa and member of a prominent family in the city, said Thursday he was "seriously considering" a bid for the office. Attempts to speak to him at greater length about his plans this week were unsuccessful.

Beech, a pharmacist by trade, said in an email Friday evening she was considering entering the race, weighing family needs and her current position in the House against it.

"I need to discuss it more with my children and see if I have any support in the state for such a big move," she wrote. "I love the position I have and don't want to jeopardize my seniority in the House."

Ford, an insurance company owner who served as House Minority Leader for more than six years, said Friday he wanted to see more polling data and where fundraising might be available.

Ford also floated the possibility of running as an independent, saying Democratic National Committee chairman Tom Perez's comments that Democrats running for office should share the "Democratic Party's position on women's fundamental rights" angered him.

"You've got Perez coming on a national level saying what he's saying," said Ford, who is anti-abortion. "That ostracizes the Democratic Party even more. You don't want to be the Tea Party where you're against everything and for nothing."

Ford added that he supports the Affordable Care Act and the expansion of Medicaid, long a goal of Alabama Democrats. But Ford has been sharply critical of the current leadership of the Alabama Democratic Party, and said Friday Democrats won't win statewide office unless Nancy Worley, the current chairwoman of the party, and Joe Reed, long a Democratic power broker, step away from the party.

Worley said Friday Ford had not contacted her about his criticisms and suggested Ford was trying to "out-Trump Trump" based on the November election results in his district.

"A person who's just criticizing for the sake of criticizing has not done anything to help the party," she said. "I really don't think their criticism is genuine. It may just be for the sake of getting attention."

Ballot access as an independent would be far more difficult than as a nominee of a major party, but Ford said he believed he could do it.

"We have polled and it's showing that people prefer a third option, and they prefer to vote for the person, not the parties," he said. "Parties are what's disrupted the state government and the federal government."

Worley said Ford running as an independent could violate party rules about supporting Democratic candidates, which she said could lead to a challenge in his House district if he opts to run again.

"If he runs as an independent and tries to run as a Democrat, obviously he has not been supportive of the Democratic nominee on the ticket, and he could be subject to challenge," she said. "I'm not saying it would happen. I'm saying it could happen."

Other candidates say they're still out. Former Alabama Chief Justice Sue Bell Cobb said Friday she would make a decision about the 2018 governor's race soon, but ruled out the Senate race. Tuscaloosa Mayor Walt Maddox said in an email Friday his duties were his focus.

"We are preparing for our fourth term, and that is where I am directing my focus," he wrote. "The future will take care of itself, and I have no announcements planned at this time."

Democrats have plenty of other challenges.

Wanted: Perfect storm

The party has held its own in Birmingham, Montgomery, and the Black Belt, but withered in many other counties. Democrats contested fewer than half of the seats in the Alabama House of Representatives in 2014. And while Donald Trump's presidency has fired up the Democratic base nationwide, it might take gallons of gasoline to erase the GOP edge in Alabama, a state the Republican president won by 28 points last November.

Money is also a problem. The party for years pumped the Alabama Education Association (AEA) and the Alabama Trial Lawyers' Association (now the Alabama Association for Justice) for funding, but those wells are dry. Other sources of money aren't clear. Gambling magnate Milton McGregor has supported Democrats in the past, and the Poarch Band of Creek Indians largely bankrolled Democratic Attorney General nominee Joe Hubbard's 2014 campaign.

But Democrats' best hopes for the seat might lay with Roy Moore. The former chief justice, who entered the Republican field for U.S. Senate last week, commands a strong following in the GOP for his outspoken positions on religion and against LGBT rights, and high name recognition with three three other Republicans already in the race -- and others likely to follow -- Moore has a good chance of making the Sept. 26 runoff.

Yet the former chief justice remains a divisive figure in the GOP. The business community never forgave Moore for two opinions he penned opposing arbitration, and a Moore win could give Democrats an opening.

Despite starting late in the 2012 race, Jefferson County Circuit Judge Bob Vance, a Democrat, managed to raise money and run a strong campaign that brought him within four points of beating Moore for chief justice, the best showing by a Democrat in a statewide race since 2008. Vance raised over $1.1 million in a little over two months, and also benefited from the Republican-leaning Business Council of Alabama sitting out the race.

It may take an even more perfect confluence of factors to elevate an Alabama Democrat to the U.S. Senate.

"It's going to take someone well-known, who has lots of money and great internal and external polling," Gilbert said. "Someone who's done great things in the past, not newcomers. We've got to have support from the state party."

Link:
Alabama House Democrats look at U.S. Senate runs - Gadsden Times

Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein both spoke at the White House Correspondents Dinner last night. Time has posted their speeches in case you were otherwise occupied at the time. They had some advice for President Trump.

In part they revisited past glories covering the Watergate scandal and taking down President Nixon. They have a few loose ends to tie up. For example, they still havent discovered what Nixons guys were looking for inside the offices of the Democratic National Committee. Watergate served its purpose, however, and the boys have moved on.

Edward Jay Epstein asked whether the press had uncovered Watergate in a brilliant 1974 Commentary essay. The fundamental things apply. One can still learn from Epsteins essay as time goes by. In 2015 Pat Buchanan added a few footnotes on the Washington Posts Watergate coverage that have only become apparent in the fullness of time.

Tim Alberta profiles Buchanan at length in an excellent piece in the current issue of Politico Magazine. This is beyond the scope of Albertas profile, but it prompted me to recall that Buchanan was one of the few who emerged from inside the Nixon administration after Watergate with his reputation intact. Moreover, when called as a witness to testify before the Senate Watergate Committee, he gave better than he got. Indeed, Buchanan dished it out.

In his standard account of Watergate, published in 1990, the late historian Stanley Cutler all but passed over Buchanans testimony. Cutler wrote: The Administration got in some last words for itself on September 26 when Patrick Buchanan blasted the committee for its excessive leaks and its treatment of witnesses. Buchanan boldly attacked the committee, but John Deans image and testimony persisted in the nations consciousness, not the mauling tactics of club-fighter Buchanan.

The New York Times published excerpts of Buchanans testimony in 1973. They are accessible online here. The Washington Post was still working its own angle on Watergate and Buchanan in this 1996 story by George Lardner.

In his statement before the Watergate Committee Buchanan was at pains to refute the proposition that the Nixon campaign was responsible for the Democrats defeat of Senator Muskie and nomination of Senator McGovern to be crushed by Nixon in the 1972 presidential contest:

It is being argued that illicit Republican strategy and tactics were responsible for the defeat of the strongest Democratic candidate for President, and for the nomination of the weakest. It has been contended publicly that the Democrats were denied, by our campaign and our strategy, a legitimate choice at their own convention.

It is being alleged that the campaign of 1972 was not only a rigged campaign, but an utter fraud, a political coup by the President of the United States.

These contentions, Mr. Chairman, are altogether untrue. Republicans were not responsible for the down fall of Senator Muskie. Republicans were not responsible for the nomination of Senator McGovern.

Buchanan argued: The McGovern people won their own nomination. And they lost their own election. The underlying theme that Buchanan sought to debunk has a surprisingly contemporary ring. It feels as fresh as todays headlines. I thought some readers might be interested in taking a walk down memory lane with a look at Buchanans argument, courtesy of the Times.

Read more:
When Democrats lose - Power Line (blog)