Could Berniemania Vault Jess Scarane To The Senate?
Answer: Yes, it could. Follow along with me here:
It’s September of 2020. Bernie Sanders is the Democratic nominee for President, having been anointed on Wednesday, July 15 in Milwaukee, two months prior. At that point, the landscape for November has completely changed (I think a lot of people have not yet considered the face of the electorate in a post-Bernie environment). A hugely enthusiastic progressive movement becomes the engine for the Party. Chris Coons goes on Morning Joe and (presumably) dutifully says: “I will support the nominee of the Democratic Party”. Or, he doesn’t. Or he says he’s focused on his race, you know, he barely has time to even think of the Presidential contest.
Meanwhile, AOC and progressive stalwarts come to Delaware to campaign on behalf of a true progressive D candidate for the Senate and a raft of rising progressive challengers throughout the state.
Meanwhilemeanwhile, a disheartened group of corporadems do, what exactly? Show up at photo ops with Chris holding giant checks? That’s about the best they can do.
My point being, the Democratic Party would now be in the hands of motivated and mobilized progressives. Ironically, what I mean by ‘progressive’ is a return to what the vision of the Democratic Party was during the New Deal era–a Party that genuinely looks out for those who are most at risk and those who need a hand up. That’s not radical at all. It’s just a rejection of the Corporate Democratic Party that made a mockery of what the Party stood for. The corporadems have always relied on a discouraged or uninterested party electorate. Ain’t enough bank executives and their, wait for it–ilk, to outvote a motivated Party base. Especially not with progressive challengers going after insiders in primaries in D strongholds.
I haven’t even mentioned Jess Scarane’s name in the body of this piece yet. But she’s down-to-earth, has a great vision, one which is largely in concert with Bernie’s vision for America, and she will have been working for close to a year on her campaign by the time Delaware’s Sept. 15 primary rolls around.
Which side will be more motivated to vote on that date? An enthusiastic grassroots, or the dutiful corporadems? BTW, there’s more of us than there are of them.
If you side with the enthusiastic grassroots, you can help by contributing to Jess’ campaign. No, she won’t come close to matching Coons’ blood money, but she doesn’t need to. She can win by building that grassroots machine one voter at a time.
Yep. This could happen, all right!
Question. Does this vast army of progressives only get motivated to vote for progressive candidates if Bernie Sanders is running a campaign? Because this vast army apparently did not show up to vault Kerri Evelyn Harris into office in 2018. So either this vast army is vastly overestimated, or they found Kerri Evelyn Harris to be a neolib corporatecrat shill, or they only show up when Bernie is on the ballot.
Hey, I hope it happens. Experience, however, tells me a different story.
Kerri ultimately got 35% against a 40 year stalwart of the Delaware Democratic party. She spent $5 per vote to his $55 per vote. Her campaign also didn’t launch until February of that year and didn’t aggressively start knocking doors until June of that year.
She performed incredibly well despite all those disadvantages. Jess is doing even better in this cycle.
If you want it to happen, volunteer or donate. Can you commit to a canvass shift?
I have already donated a lot of money to Jess’ campaign and am a supporter of her, and will be voting for her in the primary.
The fact that it was a midterm primary explains a lot.
I understand the skepticism. Let me say that it’s not necessarily just, or even primarily (I LOVE that word), the Bernie Boost.
It’s the fact that, after two cycles where we focused mostly on Eugene Young and Kerri, we have an incredible array of progressives challenging out-of-touch incumbents. All of them trained and supported by people who know their shit. I wish you could have attended the WFP/Leftward Delaware event b/c these are legit challengers with great messages and already running solid campaigns.
Meaning, the progressive activists are already engaged on behalf of one or several of these candidates. Each of these candidates is already knocking doors.
If it turns into a turnout primary, who, other than the corporadems, is coming out on behalf of Chris Coons?
I’m in no way arguing that it will be easy. But I see a realistic path to victory for Jess.
“Who, other than the corporadems, is coming out on behalf of Chris Coons?”
The unions. The same people who turned out 50,000 votes for Tom Carper against Harris.
So you need, say, 55-60,000 progressives to vote for Scarane. Difficult, but not impossible.
Then it demands how much Working Families can sway the unions.
One thing is for sure. The DLC, Third Way, Coons Style Corporate Democratic Party is on the run.
Moderates with Democratic sensibilities, are going to have to suck it up or allow Trump to win.