Agenda Block
Focused Read in about 10-12 minutes
Yes, it's long but, unfortunately, 2020 election strategizing will not happen via 3-minute reads...
Personal Commentary ~
Personally, I find this to be a good article to consider the work of Rachel Bitecofer who seems to be wise enough to recognize there is very little comparison to be made pre-2016 and post-2016 when predicting anything in the realm of the political!
Having said that, as a committed resistor of propaganda and disinformation it's important to note, I am a natural skeptic and I do think there are places in the article where assumptions are made about the thinking of Democrats that are not what I would consider to be more opinion than fact and/or irrelevant to the article and when that happens I disregard them.
I find a lot of what is said in the article to be important food for thought but, I also think, based on my own observations, a highly likely crossover of some voters to Democrats was because of the affordable health care and common sense gun sense cases made by Democrats in 2018 and that might be missing from the analysis here.
None of which changes the underlying assumptions of Bitecofer, which are, in my opinion, that most previous election patters are useless in 2020 and that educated independents are the key perusadables in expanding Democratic Party voters.
As always, read with care and a healthy dose of skepticism and take the best and leave the rest as there is a lot of good thinking here for Democratic Party activists to consider.
g.
"Does anyone understand the 2020 race?
This scholar nailed the blue wave — here's her forecast
Rachel Bitecofer predicted last year's midterms with incredible accuracy.
Her 2020 forecast is ... not too bad
(By Paul Rosenberg)
In July 2018 the most widely-respected analysts were decidedly uncertain whether the Democrats could retake the House—
they were favored, but not by much.
... But on July 1, 2018 — preceding all this cautious uncertainty — newcomer Rachel Bitecofer, assistant director of the Judy Ford Wason Center for Public Policy at Christopher Newport University in Newport News, Virginia,
released her prediction of a 42-seat "blue wave," while also citing the Arizona and Texas U.S. Senate races as “toss-ups.”
Her startling prediction was numerically close to perfect;
Democrats will end up with a gain of 40 or 41 seats, depending how the re-run in North Carolina's 9th district turns out. (Democrat Kyrsten Sinema won the Arizona Senate race, in a major historical shift, and Beto O'Rourke came close in Texas.)
Furthermore, she even strutted a little, writing on Nov. 2 that she hadn't adjusted her seat count, but that “the last few months have been about filling in the blanks on which specific seats will flip.” Her resulting list of those was also close to perfect.
With a record like that, you’d think that Bitecofer's explanation of what happened would have drawn universal attention and become common sense — but you’d be sadly mistaken.
She’s barely beginning to get the recognition she deserves,
and more troubling for the country,
the outdated assumptions her model dispensed with continue to cloud the thinking of pundits and Democratic Party leadership alike..."
( 📎 Note: Rachel is getting more attention. In recent days, she been on MSNBC on more than one occasion, which is where I found her! )
"This hampers efforts to counter Donald Trump’s destructive impact on a daily basis, and spreads confusion about both Democratic prospects and strategy in the 2020 election prospects.
... Today’s polarized hyper-partisan environment is the product of long-term historical processes that can’t simply be wished away, Bitecofer argues.
Her case is similar to the one described in detail by Alan Abramowitz in his 2018 book, “The Great Alignment: Race, Party Transformation, and the Rise of Donald Trump" (Salon review here), as both scholars confirm.
... The good news is that so long as Trump is in office, negative partisanship gives Democrats an edge, as electoral realignment continues.
Rather than fearing Trump’s ability to repeat his 2016 upset, on July 1 of this year Bitecofer released her 2020 projection, which shows Democrats winning 278 electoral votes versus 197 for Trump, with several swing states too close to call.
Bitecofer also isn't worried about the Democrats losing their House majority.
On Aug. 6, Bitecofer released a preliminary list of 18 House seats the Democrats could flip in 2020, nine of them in Texas.
(Emphasis is mine.)
The most significant threats that concern Democrats are actually golden opportunities, according to her model.
That’s not to say Democrats don’t have anything to worry about —
especially in 2022, when the tailwinds of negative partisanship may well be blowing in the other direction.
But worrying about the right things, rather than phantoms, is the first step toward deal with them.
So I sat down to talk with Bitecofer, in hopes of bringing some sanity and perspective to what is already a bewildering election cycle. This interview has been edited for clarity and length.
(Emphasis, in the form of underlined sentences, is mine.)
(The interviewer): When I first saw your 2018 midterm projection, I felt two things simultaneously:
First, this really makes sense, and then a sense of dread. "Oh my God, is this just motivated reasoning on my part, that makes me think this is so smart?" I no longer have divided feelings, but I understand the doubts.
Well, I can tell you as a person creating the analysis, I have that same problem. Imagine being the person doing the analysis and having that problem: Is this actually what's going on, or is this just wishful thinking?
... (The Interviewer): When made your initial prediction of a 42-seat wave, other analysts weren’t even sure there would be any blue wave at all, and everybody had toss-ups where you are saying these will flip or are likely to flip.
You were proven right, but the common-sense explanation that Democrats won over moderate Republicans by campaigning on health care was very much at odds with your explanation.
You had this very prescient insight, and then everyone else catches up, but they sort of drop your insight. So how did you know, and how is that explanation mistaken?
I'm really glad to hear you frame it that way. I haven't heard it framed that way, even in my own brain, but you're exactly right. I am way ahead of everybody, they finally catch up as we move into the final two months before Election Day — certainly that last month — and then the election happens and it happens exactly that way, and then they abandoned my explanation.
Now I’m out there trying to fight to get the explanation accepted.
The explanation, of course,
is that it was this giant turnout of core constituencies, that either are Democrats or favor Democrats —
they’re independents who favor Democrats —
and they have a huge turnout explosion.
So it's not the same pool of voters changing their minds and voting Democrat after voting Republican because of the issue of health care.
It's a whole different pool of voters.
... (The Interviewer): In your look back, you actually said that there was a Republican surge, but it wasn’t a match for the Democratic surge.
The truth of the matter is Democratic turnout, particularly in midterms, is so bad that with the giant surge the Democrats managed to put together, what they were able to do is come close to matching Republican turnout.
(Emphasis is mine.)
Which is good, that's a major victory.
But in many districts, especially where the candidates were focusing on being moderate,
the Democratic turnout still underperformed its potential,
and still underperformed turnout among Republicans,
according to this analysis that I'll be releasing after Labor Day.
(Emphasis is mine.)
But the turnout surge among independents — new independents, not ones who voted in 2014 — was so large combined with that turnout surge of Democrats to flip the district. If Republicans had also voted for Democrats, then these margins by which Democrats won would be much larger.
(The Interviewer): What factors predicted the turnout that allowed your model to be so accurate?
This model was built in the wake of the 2016 election.
It was built as a response, answering why the models were off in 2016, and it was based on this belief that polarization has changed the behavior of voters.
It has decreased the efficacy of things like the economy and increased the predictive power of things like partisanship.
So the main predictor in my model is partisanship,
the party competition of the state or the district, if were talking about my 2018 model, and that really sets the frame of the debate.
It has to be within a realm of possibility.
To illustrate that, in 2018 when we look at the Senate map, Arizona was an R+5 state — that meant it had a partisan advantage for Republicans of about five points.
Tennessee was an R+15 state, and of course, as I predicted, Arizona flipped to the Democrats but Tennessee didn't even come close, despite multiple millions of dollars spent by Democrats in that effort.
The second thing that's most significant and influential — and this is totally unique and new — is the percentage of college-educated residents residing in the state or in the district.
This is what I said would be unique and new in the Trump era.
This was why I was able to look at maps, at these races that in 2018 people saw as toss-ups, and say, "No, no, no, no. These are going to flip."
In this new era that we’re moving into, we have college-educated voters moving towards the Democrats, and white working-class voters moving away from them.
That allowed me to look months and months ahead at polling and say, these are the races where Democrats are going to do really well.
(The interviewer): Circling back to something you already touched on, you argue that the "midterm effect" is misunderstood and that the old model — the movement of independents’ support from party to party — was a mistaken way of thinking about it. What sort of evidence was there for this prior to 2016, and then afterward?
We have thought of the midterm effect in this way:
You have the president, you’ve got two years of performance. For a long time we’ve had a chunk of the electorate that's partisan. Those conditions have just gotten worse, especially the last 20 years in what we call hyper-partisanship. But then we have these independents.
The independents must be the referees, basically.
(Emphasis is mine.)
In this theory, they are free of partisanship, they're able to look at a person and see them as they are without these blinders of partisanship and judge their actual abilities and make a referendum upon their performance in office.
So there's this idea that in the midterms they look at the incumbent party.
And if they're not doing great, like, say, Obama overreached with Obamacare, there's this giant backlash of independents and they have this revolution because, God help us all, Obama modestly tweaked health care!
What I'm saying is no, the Democratic base collapsed, basically, from what it looked like in 2006, which was the last midterm when they had been out of power [and won].
It just literally collapsed among Democrats and because of that, it looks like the electorate has this giant recoil effect, driven primarily by these independent voters who are rejecting the party in power.
But what we’re really looking at in much of these elections are the surge and decline of certain voters entering and leaving the electorate.
(The interviewer): Could you going into a little more detail about how recent election results have advanced or refined your model?
The way it helped refine the model is — refer back to what happened in 2010, when Democratic participation just collapsed once the anti-Bush sentiment disappeared.
Before that, the 2002 midterm was completely different because of 9/11, so we only had 2006 to look at, and we had this huge wave.
Democrats flipped 35 seats in the House, Nancy Pelosi became the speaker, and then they doubled down that with Obama's victory in 2008, and then they had this turnout collapse.
So I expected, even though Trump and Republicans are just better at voting, and especially Trump with his messaging — people sneer at it, but it touches people’s base emotions.
So I expected it would be pretty good at getting people to vote, though I expected some kind of decline in turnout among Republican voters.
If that happened, then we would've seen participation rates in the 40s, and we probably would have seen a better night in the Senate for Democrats, probably very similar to what we saw in the House.
But the reason that didn't happen is that Republican turnout surged just as much as Democratic turnout surged, and that was something I did not expect to happen.
It certainly did not happen in Virginia in 2017, and that taught me that negative partisanship can be artificially created with very good strategy, and the Republicans have that.
Some people sneered at it. You'll even hear really smart GOP analysts, political pundits, say "Oh, Trump's caravan strategy was so stupid."
Well, the 40-seat loss was locked in, and it didn't matter, but what he probably did was save a couple Senate seats.
So my 2020 model has been refined to account for my belief that Republican turnout is going to be extremely high too.
(The interviewer): As a corollary to that, would you say concerns that "We shouldn’t do X because Trump will exploit it to rile up his supporters" are off-base, because that's going to happen anyway?
Absolutely.
(Emphasis is mine.)
In fact, in the district-level analysis of the voter file in California and Virginia that I'll be releasing after Labor Day, I have competitive districts in those states.
The data shows the turnout surge and how much different the composition of the electorate was between 2014 and 2018.
I'm also able to show that even in these districts where Democrats ran Blue Dog candidates who were as unobtrusive as possible — with, exactly as you stated, the goal of not riling up Trump voters — the turnout for Republican voters in those districts was huge.
In fact, not only did Democrats not get the benefit of not stirring up the Trump base — the Trump base was stirred up and showed up in huge numbers — but by not tapping into anti-Trump sentiment in their own campaign strategy, by not intentionally activating that Trump angst, they paid a price in terms of their own base turnout. It was depressed, compared to other districts.
(The interviewer): This year you released your presidential prediction on July 1, showing the Democrats winning a bare majority of 278 electoral votes, just above the 270 needed to win. Trump is at 197, with four toss-up states.
But Pennsylvania, Michigan and Wisconsin are not toss-ups in your model.
You write that Trump is in trouble in the Midwest and that there's a profound misunderstanding of how we won those states in 2016.
What's at the heart of this misunderstanding, and why does it matter for 2020?
When we hear the punditry talk about what happened in the Midwest, generally speaking they'll say the Midwest swung toward Trump, right?
Well, that's only true in two states. In Iowa and Ohio, where Trump cracked 50%, you can genuinely say he won over voters in those states.
The others — Michigan, Wisconsin and Pennsylvania — Trump won those states by carrying only a plurality of the vote, and I would categorize that as a win by default. He won somewhere around 46 or 47% of the vote.
The reason that neither candidate was above 50% was that a huge numbers of voters in those states cast what we call protest ballots, and in the polarized era, the average that goes to a protest ballot is about 1.5%.
The famous Ralph Nader election, the spoiler in Florida in 2000, that was about 1.5%.
In Wisconsin, 6.2% of voters cast protest ballots in 2016. That's an extraordinary amount.
So when you understand the role that third parties made in Trump's victory there in the Midwest, and his inability to crack 50%, you realize that it's a path to victory which was very complex.
It becomes heavily tied to the fact that he was up against not just a Democrat, but that particular Democrat the GOP had managed to cause a public opinion backlash toward.
That’s certainly not going to be the case in the 2020 cycle.
(Emphasis is mine.)
(The interviewer): So what about 2020. What does your model say?
My model for 2020 starts off with Democrats at 278 Electoral College votes, and that's a problem for Trump, because of course you need 270 to win.
It does that because of my model's prediction, based on turnout and predicted vote share, that Pennsylvania and Michigan will slip back to the Democrats.
I'm uncertain about Ohio, but even if Trump wins Ohio, he can't win the other three Midwestern states.
Then as you point out I have four tossup states: Arizona, North Carolina, Florida and Iowa.
Even if he wins all four of them, the Democrats have already won the election — and the idea that he would win all four is pretty unlikely.
I will have a much better sense about this once we see the participation rates in the Democratic primary.
But I think what we’re going to be looking at is Arizona, Texas, North Carolina and Georgia as states where Trump is forced to play defense to hold on.
I think by the time we get into September [of 2020] — I don't think we’re going to get to the point where Democrats are comfortable in the Midwest.
I think we'll see a full-bore campaign and spending press in the Midwest all the way through to Election Day.
But I think coming into September and October, they’re also going to be spending resources in the Sun Belt and other states like that.
(The interviewer): You say that if Joe Biden is the nominee, he needs to consider a running mate who will motivate base voters, and that if a progressive is the nominee, there could be a self-reinforcing dynamic of misguided questioning in the media.
While neither of those things should cause Democrats to lose, they are concerning, and they reflect a lack of understanding of what your model and analysis provides.
The Democratic leadership — the way they’ve chosen to navigate the Trump impeachment stuff, and certainly the way they talk about their House victories and how to maintain their House majority, it tells me that they’re still living in a understanding of the data that is outdated.
If you don't understand how you won, and what the concurrent political data environment is telling you, that is concerning. So I do see a lot of evidence that Democrats don't get this. I'm not sure why.
I do know there is an increasing voice within Democratic politics that is leaning toward seeing the environment through my lens, and we saw that play out in 2018, in the campaign strategies of Beto O’Rourke and Stacey Abrams.
What they were able to do in terms of their contests in both those deep red states was absolutely remarkable, and it speaks to the efficacy of a turnout-based approach, a strategic approach.
In Texas and Georgia, O'Rourke and Abrams both carried the votes of independents,
whereas in Missouri and Indiana, where [incumbent senators] Claire McCaskill and Joe Donnelly positioned themselves much more in the Blue Dog camp in terms of issues positions,
both of them lost independents.
So you might think, "Why is that? If one group of candidates took more liberal issue positions, why did they win over independents?"
It seems counterfactual, and the reason is what mattered was turnout.
O’Rourke and Abrams carried independents because turnout surged, with different independents showing up to vote, motivated by the targeting strategy deployed by those campaigns, which were run under my suggested model rather than the old playbook that used to work back in the '90s and '80s.
(The interviewer): Democrats remain very worried about their freshman class, based largely on the notion of a static electorate, rather than one that's still realigning.
But you recently released 2020 projections citing 18 Republican-held House seats as top targets, nine of them in Texas. What are you seeing here that others are overlooking, and what will it take to realize that potential?
I see a couple of things.
No. 1, I want to point out that these are possible targets. It's not my official 2020 House forecast, because I don't include all house races. It's just 18 targets for pickup opportunities.
And you're right, because the realignment is still in progress, conditions are improving for Democrats.
My model identified many districts Democrats did not even weaponize as competitive because they are still operating under this assumption that what makes an election competitive is a candidate like Amy McGrath [who is running against Mitch McConnell in Kentucky].
I'm arguing, no,
it's conditions like the suburban areas with a lot of college-educated voters.
No matter how great a candidate, if you put them in the wrong electoral condition, no matter how much money you throw at them, they're not to be able to overcome those conditions.
(Emphasis is mine.)
So here's the other thing that both parties’ leaders should come to understand. In these swing areas, your power time is limited, so you should probably use the power when you have it, because the idea that you're going to hold it indefinitely is totally wrong.
Under my research assumptions, under my model, Democrats win the White House in 2020, and then in 2022 they're going to have a very tough electoral cycle, because turnout for Democrats will go back to normal.
And because Democrats have poor electoral strategy, they’re going to compound that problem, probably by not appealing to Democrats to get them to the polls.
So no matter how moderate you keep your Blue Dogs' legislation, they’re all going to get wiped out anyway. So use your power where you have it.
No. 2, there are ways to keep them in office, but the ways they’re choosing are not the ways to do it.
(The interviewer): Turning to the Democratic primary campaign, on Twitter you been repeatedly warning that name recognition is the primary thing the polls are measuring this far out. How can folks be more realistic about thinking about the 20 candidates in the race right now?
People reading your article, people following me on Twitter — we forget how atypical we are, even in terms of those who are going to vote in the Democratic primary.
Primary voters are already more active and aware and more typically engaged than average Americans, but still not like us.
They’re not paying attention at all, not watching the debates, they're not reading news stories, they're not on political Twitter, reading political news sites, but they will vote.
So multiple blue-check reporters on my feed have said, "Oh it's interesting that Bernie Sanders voters choose Biden for their second choice."
No, that's not interesting at all.
That's the only other person that voters have ever heard of.
So the problem is the proliferation of analysis that's happened that's completely analyzing shit that's totally wrong.
It’s in the data, okay?
But it’s being driven by this name ID problem. ... "
You can read more here
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Focused Action in 30 seconds
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(Full disclosure: It's an event created by me.)
Virtual Support Event for Kamala Harris on Twitter from 6 A.M. to 9 P.M. Thursday, September 12!
As of this writing, the debate is scheduled to take place on one night only and the start time is 8 p.m. EST.
( You can check for updated debate information here )
Kamala will be on stage! And, all you need is an electronic devise and a Twitter account to back her up.
Much of media seems to be struggling in its coverage of more than three top candidates for the Democratic Party Presidential Nomination so let's take advantage of this great opportunity to promote our candidate and give her the name recognition she needs to compete.
We know she is the best choice for President and social media messaging on her behalf at a time when millions of Americans will be anticipating the debate and all of their eyes will be on social media can really help!
As we speak, I am using Tweetdeck to schedule positive, informative Kamala tweets to pop every half hour from 6 A.M. to 9 P.M., EST. (I'll schedule one every 15 minutes if time allows!)
Everyone can do something and this action can be taken at home, at one's convenience and/or in real time and it doesn't cost a dime! The amount of time and effort one invests is a personal decision!
... Although this is a virtual event, please RSVP so she (and I) will know how many of you will messaging for her with me and please keep in mind we are citizen supporters of Kamala and our public behavior should follow her lead: Tough, Principled and Fearless, with a touch of Grace.
Please also confirm your “attendance” when you get your email inquiring as to your participation in the event so we know you were there.
Thank you!
📎 Note: I am a Tweeter but this plan can be adapted to any social media platform. If you favor another platform, take the plan and run with it!
... I look forward to seeing you there! And. If you've participated in the first two Virtual Events for Kamala and you have not heard back from me: Thank You!
( Not affiliated with any candidate, candidate's committee or PAC. )
You can sign up here
You can find more information on the debate here
Focused Monthly Inspiration
( #itsNovember2020Now )
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THE next Democratic Party 2020 Presidential Nomination Debate will be held July 12, 2019 at 8 p.m.!
And the best candidate for the 2020 Democratic Party presidential nomination is Kamala Harris, IMO...
You can find more information on Kamala Harris here
You can follow her on facebook here
You can follow her on Twitter here
You can follow her on Instagram here
→ Some of my favorite Direct sources & resources for Democrats:
* ( My personal favored and most informative follows are also shared here, below, with the understanding that readers will always apply their own critical thinking to any information provided anywhere by anyone. #StrongerTogether does not share sources of information lightly but -- no one is perfect! -- so always #DistrustAndVerify -- even if it's me. I am using a "star" rating that is strictly based on my situational experience with the work of the media personality specifically in relation to issues of interest to me. )
Democratic Party Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi, representative of The People at home & abroad while the President of the United States is MIA...
There is no better way to get your information than to #Go2TheSource
You can find the Speaker's website here
You can find the Speaker's Twitter feed here
You can find the Speaker's Facebook Page here
The Democratic Party Website
Also, NOT exactly a Democratic Party specific source under a GOP majority but a good place to hear and to watch speeches & hearings directly, i.e. #Go2TheSource C-SPAN
+
→ Some of my favorite, most active organizations:
(Full disclosure, I am a member!)
"Women are already the majority. Now Let's build a Supermajority.
Women are on the cusp of becoming the most powerful force in America. But to fundamentally transform this country, we need to work together. That’s where Supermajority comes in.
LET’S GET ORGANIZED
"Meet the people behind the politicians.
You can email your two Senators and your Representative in Congress in one email here
"Postcards to Voters are friendly, handwritten reminders from volunteers to targeted voters giving Democrats a winning edge in close, key races coast to coast.
What started on March 11, 2017 with sharing 5 addresses apiece to 5 volunteers on Facebook...
Now, we consist of over 20,000+ volunteers in every state (including Alaska and Hawaii) who have written close to 3 million postcards to voters in over 100+ key, close elections."
You can find Postcards to Voters here
Town Hall Project empowers constituents across the country to have face-to-face conversations with their elected representatives. We are campaign veterans and first time volunteers. We come from a diversity of backgrounds and live across the country. We share progressive values and believe strongly in civic engagement. We research every district and state for public events with members of Congress. Then we share our findings to promote participation in the democratic process.
This movement is diverse, open source, and powered by citizens. We are proud to be a part of it.
"Born from conversations between Governor Howard Dean and Secretary Hillary Clinton in the aftermath of the 2016 election, Onward Together was established to lend support to leaders — particularly young leaders — kicking off projects and founding new organizations to fight for our shared progressive values." here
Organizing for America and the Democratic National Redistricting Committee have merged in "All On The Line":
"Barack Obama Throws All His Weight Behind ‘Issue Of Singular Importance’
" Since #StandOnEveryCorner has grown, it’s become a stand by all of us to protect our democracy from corruption and treason...A stand not at your State Capitol, but in your own backyard. Not once every few months, but as often as you can here "
→ Fact checking organizations courtesy of the Society of Professional Journalists
in alphabetical order...
→ Some of my favorite, most informative
follows on Twitter include:
⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ US Intelligence | Author | Navy Senior Chief | NBC/MSNBC
⭐⭐⭐ Federal Government Operations | Vanity Fair | Newsweek | MSNBC Contributor | Author
⭐⭐⭐⭐ Voting Rights/Voter Suppression | Author | Mother Jones
→ Some of my favorite, highly credible media -- at the moment:
→ Some of my favorite Talking Heads -- at the moment -- and their Twitter handles:
→ Some of my favorite media/panelists -- at the moment -- and their Twitter handles:
✅✅✅ Jonathan Lemire White House reporter for AP; Political analyst for MSNBC & @NBCNews
✅✅✅✅ Joan Walsh national affairs correspondent for The Nation; CNN political contributor
✅✅✅ Heidi Przybyla USA TODAY Senior Political Reporter
✅✅✅✅ Jennifer Rubin Conservative blogger at @ WashingtonPost's Right Turn,MSNBC contributor
Intel community. @ NBCNews/@ MSNBC contributor
✅✅✅✅ Betsy Woodruff Daily Beast reporter, federal law enforcement.
→ Some of my favorite legal analysts in the context of Putin attacked America to install Trump investigations, primarily seen on MSNBC:
→ Some of my favorite Democrat Party Leaders to follow on Twitter, not in elected office but proving knowledge & experience are positives & not negatives are:
Former First Lady Michelle Obama
Former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton
Former Labor Secretary/Today's DNC Chair Tom Perez
Note: I rarely get involved in primary races -- outside of those in my own area and unless there is a glaring reason that can not be ignored, I support Democratic Party nominees in general elections. I don't support bashing Democrats.
→ PARTY Informational
(Full disclosure, I am a life-long, registered Democrat!)
"To Whom It May Concern: By authority of the Democratic National Committee, the National Convention of the Democratic Party is hereby scheduled to convene on July 13-16, 2020 in TBD at an hour to be announced, to select nominees for the offices of President and Vice President of the United States of America, to adopt and promulgate a platform and to take such other actions with respect to such other matters as the Convention may deem advisable. ... "
"PREAMBLE We, the Democrats of the United States of America, united in common purpose, hereby rededicate ourselves to the principles which have historically sustained our Party. Recognizing that the vitality of the Nation's political institutions has been the foundation of its enduring strength, we acknowledge that a political party which wishes to lead must listen to those it would lead, a party which asks for the people's trust must prove that it trusts the people and a party which hopes to call forth the best the Nation can achieve must embody the best of the Nation's heritage and traditions. What we seek for our Nation, we hope for all people: individual freedom in the framework of a just society, political freedom in the framework of meaningful participation by all citizens. Bound by the United States Constitution, aware that a party must be responsive to be worthy of responsibility, we pledge ourselves to open, honest endeavor and to the conduct of public affairs in a manner worthy of a society of free people. Under God, and for these ends and upon these principles, we do establish and adopt this Charter of the Democratic Party of the United States of America."
What is the CPD? The Commission on Presidential Debates (the “CPD”) is a private, nonpartisan 501(c)(3) organization. As a 501(c)(3) organization, it is eligible under federal law so serve as a debate sponsor. The CPD's primary mission is to ensure, for the benefit of the American electorate, that general election debates are held every four years between and among the leading candidates for the offices of President and Vice President of the United State. The CPD is an independent organization. It is not controlled by any political party or outside organization and it does not endorse, support, or oppose political candidates for parties. It receives no funding from the government or any political party, political actions committee or candidate. The CPD has sponsored general election presidential debates in every election since 1988. Although its plans for 2020 are in the developmental stage, it looks forward to bringing high quality, educational debates to the electorate in 2020 ...
You can read more here
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(Linked) "...is our 2016 platform...a declaration of how we plan to move America forward. Democrats believe that cooperation is better than conflict, unity is better than division, empowerment is better than resentment, and bridges are better than walls.
It’s a simple but powerful idea: We are stronger together."
Owned, Created and Curated by Gail Mountain, this blog is often gently edited and/or excerpted for quick reading, with occasional personal commentary in the form of the written word and/or in the form of emphasis noted. Network For #StrongerTogether ! is not affiliated with The Democratic Party in any capacity. This is an independent blog and the hope is you will, at a glance, learn more about the Party and you will, with a click or two, also take action on its behalf as it is provided!
( * As a privately owned blog, I reserve the right to edit or remove inappropriate comments such as hate, vulgarity, threats of violence, racism, anti-Semitism, spam, advertising or personal/abusive attacks on other users.)
A long time Democratic Party activist, Gail Mountain is a former community organizer, journalist & personal planning coach with a focus on single moms working toward careers able to support them & their families, while working toward changing the systems that once served them through leadership training. She is a former Affordable Health Care for America Act advocate (2009!); a Hillary supporter who volunteered as a Grassroots Tweeter for Hillary, a Women's Outreach for Hillary member; an OFA Truth Team member; & a DNC Factivist member...currently a media influencer, digital activist/strategist, blogger and head of curation, editor and co-Founder of The People for Kamala Harris; an editor for Progress for Democrats on Facebook; a member of a closed group supporting Speaker Pelosi & her agenda, a member of Supermajority and a volunteer for Kamala Harris for the 2020 Democratic Party Nomination for President of the United States.
You can follow her Blog
at https://networkstrongertogether.blogspot.com & you can follow her on Twitter at GKMTNtwits
( find her on Twitter
*** Sometimes life gets in the way, and it has for me right now, delaying the release of my updated ebook but "How to Influence Media in Real Time!"is coming soon and in time to begin your conversation with media as we head into primary season.
What's in the book?:
( My updated ebook, "How to Influence Media in Real Time," will be ready soon. It will include updated examples of the conversations I have with some of my “media friends” and some updated indications that media can hear us! If you have left a donation toward my effort to help Democrats win in 2020, I will send you an updated copy as soon as it is ready. New donors who leaves a name and an email on my GoFundMe Page will get one as soon as it is ready to go! Thanking you in advance for your interest. I hope you will join me in helping media be the best they can be -- by being a media influencer, too, in your own way and at your own pace. )
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See the League of Women Voters website:
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...for Networking for Democrats today!
g. (Unapologetic Democrat)
✊ Resisting "Fake News"
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