Mediaboss Marketing

Over at Vox, Matt Yglesias shares a new survey from Data for Progress about public support for various progressive policies. Yglesias is able to find a silver lining here, but I sure dont. Heres a breakdown of all the issues that scored at least 55 percent support:

DFP read each respondent an argument for and against each policy, and as you can see this tanked the results: not a single one polled higher than 61 percent. Even vague, feel-good no-brainers like clean air, lead paint cleanup, and stopping Wall Street looting couldnt break the 61 percent barrier, and thats crazy. I mean, whos against any of that?

Of the other five, two are pretty small bore: allowing the feds to broaden the licensing of generic drugs and allowing police or family to petition a judge to take away guns from someone who presents a danger. So that leaves a grand total of three policy proposals that are both meaningful and poll above 55 percent:

Credit card interest rates are, in practice, governed by a Supreme Court decision from 1978, so theres little that a president could do about that. Legalizing marijuana would be hard since its governed by international treaties.

So theres only one thing left: guaranteeing 12 weeks of family leave. This is popular, and as far as I know, its also constitutional.

The DFP list is pretty thorough, which means that this is it. Theres precisely one issue thats (a) popular, (b) feasible, and (c) big enough to be a campaign issue. Medicare for All polls below 50 percent. Canceling student loans polls below 50 percent. A carbon tax polls below 50 percent. The Green New Deal polls below 50 percent. Border decriminalization polls way below 50 percent.

Theres really not much to work with here. I chose 55 percent as a cutoff because I was being generous: the truth is that almost anything below 60 percent is likely to be a loser once Republicans start going after it. I just dont see any progressive issues that look like sure campaign winners.

But this isnt as bad as it looks. There are plenty of issues that are on the edge and might be a net positive with suburban voters that Democrats need. Whats more, policies like this arent likely to be what wins or loses the 2020 election anyway. November is going to be a referendum on Donald Trump, and what Democrats really need is good ways to convince folks on the center right that Trump is even worse than they think. Maybe DFP will poll that next.

Excerpt from:
Progressives Are Short on Popular Campaign Promises This Year - Mother Jones

Progressives in the Colorado legislature lost part of their housing agenda on Wednesday as other Democrats joined Republicans to reject a renters rights bill.

House Bill 20-1141 would have limited the late fees that landlords can charge, and it would have granted an eight-day grace period for late rent.

"Many people are being led to a cycle of debt, and homelessness even, because of exorbitant late fees, said state Rep. Yadira Caraveo, who co-sponsored the bill with state Rep. Serena Gonzales-Gutierrez and state Sen. Julie Gonzales, all Democrats.

Other Democrats skepticism was evident throughout the hearing at the House Business Affairs & Labor Committee.

They signed it knowing what was going to happen on the third day? Democratic state Rep. Tom Sullivan asked one speaker.

An attorney for Colorado Legal Services described one client who was facing $600 of late fees on top of a $2 late fee. Other advocates said they had encountered late fees ranging up to 100 percent of their monthly rent. There are no Colorado laws specifically governing late fees.

We know that evictions create a domino effect, said Aubrey Hasvold of the Colorado Coalition for the Homeless. There's so many of us living paycheck to paycheck, and emergencies happen.

Landlords and property managers argued that the bill would erode one of their most important powers.

Were teaching residents to be late, every single month," said Aquino Cheatem Laughlin, an opponent of the bill. "Once youre paying on the 10th, youre going to pay on the 10th the next month."

Landlords argued they have to meet their own mortgage payments and utility bills on time.

Annemarie Lunde manages properties for out-of-state owners. If late fees were compromised, she warned, they would be forced to sell their investment property, because the cost to hold will be too great.

The average Colorado landlord charges a $79 late fee about 7 percent of the average rent, according to research by Colorado Apartment Association. The revised bill would have cut that to 5 percent, with only one late fee allowed per payment.

Democrats on the committee said they were worried about side effects for low-cost housing, especially mobile home parks. Would they charge higher security deposits instead, or require automatic deposits?

Those are the people on the ground who are providing affordable housing, Democratic state Rep. Marc Snyder said.

The sponsors argued that they were aiming at bad actors who charge exorbitant fees and currently face no specific limits. People with low incomes often have little choice but to sign onto unfair contracts, supporters argued.

The bill also would have changed utility bills by eliminating the practice of landlords dividing up one big monthly bill among all tenants.

That was a reaction to complaints about unpredictable utility billing for example, a neighbor's high water use could drive everyone's bills up. Landlords use the common billing approach for older rentals that don't have individual meters.

Under the bill, landlords could still have passed on utility costs by building them into the rent. That would be more predictable for tenants, while landlords would lose month-to-month flexibility.

Other housing bills are still alive, including:

Read more:
Progressives Just Lost Part Of Their Housing Platform In Colorado - Colorado Public Radio

Michael Huttner has spent decades in the trenches of progressive politics. In the mid-2000s, he co-founded ProgressNow, a network of state-level liberal communications hubs that has 23 chapters and 4 million members and acts as a counterweight to right-wing think tanks and activist groups. In 2010, he organized one of the earliest meetings to push for the full decriminalization of marijuana in Colorado, setting in motion one of the first successful campaigns anywhere in America to legalize pot. Hes worked on Democratic political campaigns, ran the lefty PR agency Fenton, and most recently launched a cannabis-industry consulting firm.

On a personal level, Huttner is a climate hawk who supports a single-payer health insurance model and backed marriage equality well before the broader public came around to it. He once told an interviewer he could never marry a conservative. He did his undergrad at Brown, went to law school in San Francisco, and now lives in Boulder, Colorado, a troika of ultraliberal bastions.

Last month, Huttner surprised some of his progressive friends when he endorsed Mike Bloombergs presidential campaign. Why would a lifelong progressive back a candidate who had only recently joined the Democratic Party, who had used and defended racially discriminatory policies as mayor of New York, and who was spending ungodly sums of money to buy his way into the top tier of the presidential race?

I called up Huttner and asked if he would talk about why he supported Bloomberg. We spoke by phone last Friday and again on Monday.

This interview has been condensed and edited for clarity.

Why are you supporting Bloomberg?Right after Trump got elected, I wrote a book with [Daily Kos founder] Markos Moulitsas, The Resistance Handbook, which offered 45 ways to fight Trump. The first chapter of the book talks about how we have to frame Trump in order to make sure hes a one-term president. Its that he has been weak and hes gonna lose. That hes a loser.

The issue with progressives, with many of my colleagues, is that they keep reinforcing him by saying hes such a dictator, such an authoritarian. Words that make him sound strong. My whole point is youve got to frame him as weak and likely to lose.

Why is it important to frame him that way?Its that old saying going back thousands of years what you say is what becomes. Ive never lost an election that Ive worked on, me along with the current governor (of Colorado), Jared Polis. Weve worked on a lot of elections over the years. Going back to 2000, weve always won. The ProgressNow model was about how wed frame people a message of holding Republicans accountable. In this case, we need to hold Trump accountable.

After the Trump book, I stepped back. Ive been working in the cannabis industry. At the end of last year, I went to Costa Rica with my family, then stayed another week and went to a meditation retreat. I left that retreat with this conclusion: The only person who will beat Trump is Bloomberg. Thats the conclusion I came to. It was almost night and day.

I like all of the folks who are still in the race. but theres no single issue that to me is more important than all of the other issues combined and thats whos going to beat Trump.

My clear conclusion is that Bloomberg is strong, he seems super-organized, theyre building like crazy. And thats why you see Trump starting to attack Bloomberg more and more, because they really think hes a force to be reckoned with. Trump miscalculated. He got the early read that the single biggest threat to him was Biden. Bloomberg will beat the crap out of [Trump].

Youre making an electability argument here. Can you dig a bit deeper into why you think Bloomberg is the one who can beat Trump?Because what people really want is strength, and quite frankly hes building an unprecedented campaign solely focused on not having a lot of fighting right now. His focus is to win the general.

They have the resources and he has the credentials. Hes a self-made billionaire who is 10 times more successful than Trump. Trump is one-tenth the success of Bloomberg. Thats why youre starting to see Trump go after him more and more. He went after Biden, now hes going to start going after Bloomberg because hes scared of him.

Bloomberg deals with billionaires. Hes not scared of Trump; hes going to beat the crap out of Trump.

My expertise is really in the states. When I look at (the race), I was really looking at key states. Obviously I know Colorado well, but also Michigan, Florida. Thats where I think you have these now fairly sophisticated teams that (Bloombergs campaign) is setting up pretty quickly. In Colorado theyve hired 75 people just in the past two months. When you look at it state by state and you look at the investment in these states, thats what really matters.

Why not Elizabeth Warren or Bernie Sanders? Do you think they cant beat Trump?[My decision] was entirely based on who has the best odds of beating Trump. When I came to the conclusion that it was Bloomberg, I didnt have to go issue by issue, vote by vote.

I like them all. Their individual votes and statements pale in comparison to whats most important to progressives: beating Trump. Bloomberg is strong, his team is super-organized, and I believe hes going to be the one to beat Trump in November.

Bloomberg has rightly faced a lot of criticism for his use of stop-and-frisk as mayor, for apparently describing a woman as a horsey-faced lesbian, for using NDAs to silence women who made sexual harassment allegations. How do you respond to progressives who say these things make Bloomberg an unacceptable nominee?Hes definitely made mistakes in the past. And it seems to me that hes genuine in his apology and hes actually willing to listen and learn from folks. I think were seeing that in the cannabis space and elsewhere. To me, I think he needs to continue to listen, to evolve, especially on a lot of federal issues, because he hasnt been a D.C. politician.

But the most important thing to keep in mind is this: All of these candidates, their strengths and weaknesses, the number-one question is who is going to beat Trump. As much as a lot of these issues are important, thats the most important one.

My progressive friends say: How about this issue? Or this incident? You know what? Im not arguing with the issues. Im like, No, I hear you, and look, Im more progressive than most on the issues, but the most important thing to me is that Trump loses.

Do you believe that Bloomberg, once in office, will feel that pressure to work with progressives and follow through on his progressive campaign pledges?Let me give you an example. Im very engaged in the cannabis industry. I helped pull together the first meeting to get adult-use legalized (in Colorado) back in 2010.

Ive been getting a lot of calls from my cannabis-industry colleagues. Ive been sharing them with the campaign. Im just a co-chair. I dont get paid. Im doing this because I believe it. Already, were starting to see Bloomberg and the top people around him become more educated on the industry. The more they get educated, the better for everybody. In the past, to be fair, he hasnt been great on some of our issues.

The way to do this is weve gotta help him, support him, get him there, then well be able to have a real dialogue with him. Hes a science guy, a research guy; hell learn theres a lot of advantages to the cannabis industry.

For how powerful and successful hes been, he relies on a lot of good people around him. Thats part of why hes going to win and Trump lose. Trump is all about himself thats why he turns over so many people and fires people.

Bloomberg has now spent more on advertising than any other presidential candidate in history. Does it make you queasy to see him spending this much money? Hes effectively bought his way into the upper tier of the polls, and onto the debate stage.We absolutely need campaign finance reform. This is a unique challenge where its going to take a massive investment of resources of time, of really top-notch people, and they have to be super-organized to be successful. Thats why I think Bloombergs in the best position to make Trump lose. Thats why Trump is scared.

This is a once-in-a-lifetime circumstance. The biggest, most critical problem that cuts across all the issues we care about is one single problem, and thats Donald Trump.

Whatever issue progressives are concerned about, the real question is [do they want] four more years of Donald Trump on that issue? Thats the question each of us has to ask ourselves. On every issue I can go through, whats clear to me is that Bloomberg would be better than Trump. Thats the question of once he gets into office. The question right now is: Who has the best shot at beating Trump?

Here is the original post:
An Honest Conversation with a Real Progressive Who Supports Mike Bloomberg - Rolling Stone

On Tuesday, Massachusetts and 12 other states will vote in the presidential primaries. The stakes for our democracy this election season could not be higher.

Removal of the impeached president is essential for progressive Democrats, but even then a functioning progressive democracy is a distant pipe dream unless we also rescue the US Senate from the McConnell Republican majority, maintain the Democratic House majority and, wherever possible, elect Democrats to down-ballot offices in the several states.

Lets also understand that progress in 2020 is a relative term not an absolute, self-defined ideological litmus test.

Democrats must win eight presidential battleground states to attain an Electoral College 270 majority and the presidency. We must also win four of eight Senate battleground states to reclaim the Senate. Must-win battleground states are by definition hotly contested centrist political arenas where independent and swing voters are key.

Although Donald Trump was not on the ballot in the 2018 midterm elections, he asked voters to make that election a referendum on his presidency. Swing and independent voters in more than 40 traditionally Republican districts did just that, crossing over to express their disapproval. As a result, newly elected Democrats accounted for the 2019 House majority and its productive legislative record. Most of those first-year members of Congress courageously voted to impeach the president. They will be maliciously targeted and widely outspent by the Trump campaign in November.

Maintaining the House majority will depend on the reelection of these freshman moderates. Their success, as well as the election of progressive US Senate nominees, will depend in significant part on a positive image of the partys presidential nominee as well as a practical party platform acceptable to independent and centrist swing voters who love our democracy as much as progressives do.

Moderate and pragmatic by disposition, those voters abhor hyperpartisan dysfunctional congressional gridlock and have little regard for far-left or far-right proposals that are unaffordable and have no realistic chance of becoming law any time soon. Drawing these independent and swing voters to the Democratic banner in the must-win battleground districts and states in November will be critical to the election of our next president, the US Senate and House, and thus to the future of our democracy.

The Electoral College landslides of 1964, 1972, and 1984 taught us that party tickets and platforms viewed as too far right or left of centrist mainstream thought can be demonized by the opposition as radically extreme and doomed in the Electoral College.

In those worst cases, nominees for the US Senate and other down-ballot offices felt compelled to run away from or against their national party tickets and platforms in order to get even a respectful hearing from moderate potential constituents. Thats not a formula for down-ballot success.

In past elections, identity politics and ideological purity may have been determining factors in choosing a presidential nominee. But not this year; with the stakes as high as they are, 2020 must be a head over heart election.

Here are three pragmatic questions we progressives must answer before Tuesday:

Which candidate will have the best chance to defeat Trump in the centrist must-win battleground states in November?

Which candidate will be the strongest asset to Democratic Senate and House nominees and to other down-ballot candidates in the must-win battleground states and districts?

Which will, by experience and qualifications, be best prepared to preside and lead America forward, restore a spirit of patriotic unity and a culture of public service committed to decency, civility, inclusion, bipartisanship, constitutional order, and, on Jan. 20, 2021, be held immediately in high esteem, trust, and confidence by other world leaders?

If we exercise our best judgment in answering these questions on Super Tuesday, we will have made a significant contribution to a more hopeful and progressive future for our democracy.

Paul G. Kirk Jr., retired chairman of the Democratic National Committee, is a former US senator from Massachusetts.

See more here:
Progressive thoughts for Super Tuesday - The Boston Globe

(Progressive/Facebook photo)

PHOENIX Progressive Insurance is forecasting nationwide growth and new job opportunities for 2020.

Part of that expansion will mean Progressives workforce in Phoenix will grow via 180 new job openings.

The release states that customer sales, service, bilingual Spanish customer sales and service and claims representatives will be among the new jobs available for Phoenicians.

Other cities to be part of of Progressives expansion include Tampa, Nashville, Austin, Cleveland, Colorado Springs, Sacramento and St. Petersburg.

New hires are eligible to participate in the companys annual bonus plan according to the release.

Progressive also offers eligible employees medical, dental, vision and life insurance benefits, as well as four weeks of paid parental leave for moms and dads including same-sex partners, adoptive parents and foster parents.

With total revenues of more than $39 billion, the company intends to hire around 8,000 new employees by years end, according to a press release.

Those interested in learning more can apply online.

Continued here:
Progressive Insurance announces 180 new jobs in Phoenix - KTAR.com