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Young Black Democrats, Eager to Lead From the Left, Eye Runs in 2018 New York Times In states from Massachusetts to Florida, a phalanx of young black leaders in the Democratic Party is striding into some of the biggest elections of 2018, staking early claims on governorships and channeling the outcry of rank-and-file Democrats who ... and more »

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Young Black Democrats, Eager to Lead From the Left, Eye Runs in 2018 - New York Times

Many top Democrats are furious that Bernie Sanders appears to be running for president again, or at least planning to drag out his decision long enough to freeze the race around him.

Hes frustrating alumni of his 2016 campaign, some of whom would like him to run again, by showing no interest in raising early money or locking down lower level staff moves they say would indicate he recognizes the need for a different kind of campaign operation in 2020. Outside of his tighter-than-ever inner circle, friends and staffers whod be happy to back him again say they rarely, if ever, speak to Sanders these days.

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Sanders hasnt made any decision, and he tends to dismiss the discussion about 2020 as dumb. He hasn't even fully committed to running for re-election to the Senate next year.

Weighing on him throughout it all and clouding his outlook, people close to him say, is the toll on his family from the ongoing FBI investigation into potential bank fraud at the small Vermont college where his wife was the president.

But the senator, wholl be 79 the next time the New Hampshire primary rolls around, is continuing to put himself at the center of the conversation. Hes introduced a Medicare-for-all bill this week that he hopes will force others to sign on. Hes joining Ohio Gov. John Kasich for a CNN town hall tonight thats being held on the evening of the Center for American Progress forward-looking Ideas Conference an event Sanders wasnt invited to. Some of his moves, like collecting names and email addresses via RSVPs to his unity tour with new Democratic National Committee chair Tom Perez for his Friends of Bernie Sanders group a mailing list the DNC itself wont have any access to have alienated his allies on the left.

The fact that Tom Perez has given Sanders a platform without Sanders genuinely agreeing to work toward unity has made a mockery of the whole process and literally divided the party more than it was before the tour began. It has been a disaster, said Markos Moulitsas, the founder of the influential liberal Daily Kos site. Yes, Perez and company are clearly afraid of Sanders and his followers, but letting Sanders make a mockery of the party doesnt exactly help it build in the long haul.

"He's a constant reminder. He allows the healing that needs to take place to not take place, said one longtime senior party official, who like others, remains too worried about appearing to oppose Sanders to speak on the record.

Former DNC chair Donna Brazile warned party leaders against relying on Sanders, unless theyre willing to give in on opening the party to more independents like he wants.

"He's not someone who we should go to, to build or rebuild or expand our party unless he's willing," she said.

Sanders, who has re-registered as an independent and made a point of asserting that independence while he was on tour with Perez, is nonetheless the most popular Democrat and the most popular active politician in the country. Hes savoring it, whether in the stops hes planning to make this weekend in Montana for Democratic House candidate Rob Quist, or his trip to Iowa, home of the caucuses he nearly won, on July 15 for the Iowa Citizens for Community Improvement's "action convention.

Jeff Weaver, Sanders 2016 campaign manager and now the president of his Our Revolution group, still speaks with the senator all the time. He dismissed any speculation about 2020 as ridiculously early, but added that the door is wide open, and said those who worry about how he might tilt the party need to wake up.

What is their goal, some kind of defense of the Democratic Partys newfound centrism? If thats what theyre looking to do, I guess that they would consider it a disaster. If they want to win the White House, I think it would be a good thing, Weaver said.

That's a similar message to the one Weaver delivered to a private caucus meeting of Senate Democrats early this year, when he warned those up for re-election in 2018 against centrism, raising eyebrows in the room, according to Democrats present for the presentation.

But at a time other and far less famous potential 2020 contenders are speaking with operatives about what their campaigns might look like and gathering allies by raising money for colleagues, Sanders' push is far more oriented toward defining Democrats' message in public.

In Congress, a number of up-and-comers say theyre glad to see Sanders pushing the party toward an economic focus, and away from the social issues of Hillary Clintons failed Stronger Together. Those voices, and the people who show up by the thousands still at Sanders stops around the country, are the ones the gripers should be focused on, his supporters say not nursing old grudges or complaining that Sanders would torpedo their chances.

Starting with healthcare-focused rallies in January that he encouraged Senate Democratic leaders to do more widely, Sanders continues traveling the country. Hes also using his newfound celebrity to elevate local-level fights like a unionization drive in Mississippi and the candidacy of Virginia gubernatorial candidate Tom Perriello, whose effort is being managed by one of his former top staffers.

Touring the country with Perez, Sanders sought to stamp his economic populism on the head of the DNC. But people familiar with the arrangement said he also spent much of the time traveling with the party chair on their private Gulfstream jet getting to learn about Perezs personal history, which he hadn't bothered to read up on earlier.

For years, our fellow activists on the left have said we need an antidote to the tea party. This is what an antidote to the tea party looks like, said former NAACP President Ben Jealous an Our Revolution board member at the groups meeting in Maryland last month.

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Sanders loyalists say theyre eager to stir up the internal fight that they say the party needs to have. To Sanders, its the natural next step in his pursuit of the 40-year-old goal of upending the established political system, which they see millions of voters having supported last year. And each passing day of the Trump administration, along with the Democrats resistance, has vindicated his belief that substantive change can come when masses rise up.

Our party is divided into various wings, and Bernie clearly represents one of those wings. It is a progressive, activist, economic populist wing to the party, said Mark Longabaugh, one of the top strategists for the 2016 campaign, who said hes among those whod be ready to sign up again. The rest of the party still hasnt wrapped its mind around it.

Longabaugh, who very early into Sanders last run drew up the plan that mapped a path through New Hampshire, Minnesota, a surprise Michigan win and overpowering Clinton in the caucus states, said he hasnt written anything yet for 2020.

First of all, you have to confess were not together. You can have a unity tour until the cows come home, but theres a divide in the party, said former Ohio state Senator Nina Turner, another Our Revolution board member.

Sanders sees everything hes doing as maximizing his sway in the Senate, using the speculation to build his center of gravity. To the extent he has thought about 2020, he hasnt gotten into how different the race would likely be if its a packed field, rather than the binary choice of 2016.

If he were to run again, he would almost certainly be by far the most famous entrant, dominating the left and sucking up far more television coverage than he did before. But he would also have four years' worth of new baggage to contend with, including barbs from Clinton allies who still quietly blame him for her loss.

Staffers and aides are willing to give him time, for now. But they worry that Sanders wont decide until too late for many of them to be able to go to other campaigns if he sits 2020 out, and that frustrates them. They worry that he hasnt processed what really running again would entail, and is convinced it would be lightning in a bottle again.

From the senior leadership on down, one of the biggest problems we faced was not enough middle management who knew that and now he has a real opportunity to lock those people down now, whether through Our Revolution or his Senate campaign, and there doesnt appear to be any effort to do that, said one member of his 2016 campaign.

If he doesnt run, progressives are hoping he doesnt turn the Democratic primary race into a two-year long audition for his seal of approval.

Having that dangling question out there can be a little frustrating, said one Democratic Senate staffer. If hes not going to wind up doing it, is there an issue of an heir apparent, or is it just, This is my thing, Ive built this, I take it with me. Thats kind of disrespectful to the cause that rallied around him.

Every once in a while you realize that he is in fact an independent, with the good and the bad that comes with it, the staffer added.

I would quote Robert Frost, said Larry Cohen, the chairman of Our Revolutions board and one of the DNC Unity Commission leaders, referring to Sanders' attempt to remake the party in his image. We have miles to go before we sleep.

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Democrats divide on Bernie's 2020 plans - Politico

Senator Bernie Sanders and DNC Chair Tom Perez during their Come Together and Fight Back tour in Miami.

Next month Im returning to Marthas Vineyard. Its a lovely place and, for progressives, the ultimate safe space. It sometimes seems that Republicans need a green card just to visit, and that the island only issues 10 per year.

But this creates a problem: What passes for political wisdom can become, shall we say, insular. As a journalistic eminence murmured after enduring a dinner party where, in his view, progressive piety strangled reality by the throat: As Marthas Vineyard goes, so goes Cambridge, Berkeley, and the upper West Side of Manhattan.

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Which puts me in mind of certain Democratic liberals and lemmings.

Hold the outrage, please. I like to think Im as progressive as the next guy, including ardent support for voting rights, LGBT rights, reproductive rights, racial justice, and preventing dangerous people from slaughtering innocents with guns. Over the years, Ive devoted considerable energy to these issues. But, for me, the current ideological fratricide among Democrats evokes the mythic rodents who commit mass suicide by jumping off cliffs.

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This years contest for DNC chair in essence, a tiresome rerun of the fight between supporters of Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders featured lemmings galore. Among them were the raucous activists who booed the liberal Tom Perez for beating the even more liberal, and more controversial, Keith Ellison, perpetuating the ongoing divide between the merely progressive and the truly pure.

Demography as much as geography has determined the Democrats defeat, despite a decided popular vote victory in the presidential election.

Inescapably, this spectacle raised questions. What slice of the populace do these folks represent? At this critical juncture, were Perez and Ellison the best choices Democrats had? What about Pete Buttigieg, the young and appealing mayor of South Bend, Ind. who, having succeeded in a red state, emphasized expanding the partys appeal in middle America? And what does all this fractiousness portend for the Democrats ability to reverse their electoral fortunes?

Nothing good. To heal the wounds, Perez and Sanders launched a unity tour. Quickly, it foundered on their support of the Democratic candidate for mayor of Omaha, Neb., Heath Mello who, it transpired, had taken antiabortion positions as a state legislator. Quickly, abortion-rights groups pounced, asserting that the partys support for Mello was unacceptable.

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Progressives like Sanders and Elizabeth Warren defended the right of a local candidate to hold views at odds with theirs, sensibly distinguishing between a would-be mayor of Omaha and, say, a Supreme Court nominee. But the head of NARAL denounced this as politically stupid. Swiftly, Perez capitulated, asserting that Democrats commitment to abortion rights is not negotiable and should not change city by city or state by state.

Leadership this is not.

Lets be clear. The Democratic Party firmly embraces reproductive rights and should. And, yes, the antiabortion movement is tainted with misogyny, patriarchy, and fundamentalism. But, unavoidably, the debate over abortion includes a genuine ethical issue regarding how we define life. And, as a practical matter, a significant minority of Democrats oppose abortion; some are women who support maternal leave, better child-care policies, and wage equity.

Abortion rights should not, in itself, be a litmus test of decency or of who gets to be a Democrat in Nebraska.

But doctrinal purity is contagious. Shortly, Sanders stumbled, when asked if Jon Ossoff a Democrat opposing an antiabortion GOP zealot in a bright-red Georgia congressional district was a progressive. I dont know, Sanders flatly stated. Really? When did Georgia become Vermont? And when did progressive orthodoxy become so rigid and exclusionary?

But among Democrats, this ideological Stalinism is all too common. A few years ago, a friend and leader in the gun-control movement refused to support the incumbent Democratic senator from Arkansas, deeming him too compromised on guns. He lost to a Republican who opposes everything my friend cares about. Now Republicans control the Senate, and Neil Gorsuch sits on the Supreme Court.

This illustrates the complex relationship between moral urgency and political actuality. The civil rights movement was not driven by political exigency, but by the uncompromising commitment of brave men and women who transformed our national conscience. But translating civil rights into law required a Democratic president working through a Democratic Congress.

Too many activists fail to grasp this or that their desire to thwart Donald Trump exceeds their partys ability to do so. Thus some on the left threaten primary challenges against Democrats they perceive as insufficiently militant.

This is political self-immolation. The Democrats are defending Senate seats in red or purple states like Montana, Missouri, North Dakota, Ohio, West Virginia, Wisconsin, Indiana, and Pennsylvania all of which Trump carried. Do these petulant purists really think that a Warren-style Democrat could win in Montana? Or care that they risk losing the last bastion of legislative resistance to Trump even, perhaps, the filibuster?

Already, Democrats are ceding most of America with alarming celerity. Since 2006, the party has lost 10 percent of its seats in the Senate, 19 percent in the House, 20 percent in state legislatures, and 36 percent of governorships. The 16 percent of counties won by Hillary Clinton resemble, demographically, a cocktail party on Marthas Vineyard urban, affluent, well-educated, and, increasingly, politically homogenous and sociologically isolated. In such circumstances, political antennae rust, litmus tests flourish, and a vision of deplorables sets in that mirrors the intolerance of the right.

No surprise, then, that many middle-class and blue-collar Americans including former Obama voters feel that national Democrats favor the wealthy. Programmatically, this simply isnt so. No doubt this misperception owes much to the GOPs rank dishonesty. But ideological rigidity and cultural condescension surely do not help nor, frankly, do enormous speaking fees from Wall Street.

So what should Democrats do? Some think the party should focus on turning out its core demographic well-educated whites, women, young people, and minorities; others on winning back some of the voters it lost to Trump. But this is a false choice. Nor is it sufficient for Democrats to define themselves merely by opposing Trump. Instead, the party needs to prioritize engaging voters rather than excluding them.

This requires what went missing in 2016: a compelling and unifying vision of how Democratic policies improve the lives of more Americans, helping unleash the potential of every person wherever and whoever they are to lift themselves and their country. This message of inclusion and economic opportunity transcends geography and demographics and, as well, any single issue or constituent group no matter how important. It says, rather, that every American is not merely worthwhile, but valuable.

That is what a national party looks like.

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The Democrats' liberal lemmings - The Boston Globe

Emerging from a meeting on the first floor of the Capitol Monday night, Republican Sens. Susan Collins of Maine and Bill Cassidy of Louisiana told reporters they are attempting to work with Democrats to see if there is a way forward to fix the Affordable Care Act, also known as Obamacare.

"We had 10 or 11 senators who came tonight. I think that's significant," Collins told reporters after a meeting. "What we're trying to do is to get away from the partisanship that has made it very difficult to come up with solution and we're trying to get away from semantics, we're trying to get away from people being locked into a party position and instead raise fundamental questions about how can we move forward."

Collins and Cassidy are authors of their own legislation to repeal and replace Obamacare, but said that their legislation wasn't necessarily the starting point for any negotiation.

"This was really a meeting to look at all sorts of ideas," Collins said.

The moderate Republican senators stressed that the talks are still preliminary, with just a handful of Democrats involved. They estimated there were three or four Democrats in the meeting and a few more interested who couldn't attend Monday night. Sens. Heidi Heitkamp of North Dakota and Joe Manchin of West Virginia -- both red-state Democrats facing re-election in 2018 -- were spotted coming out of the meeting room.

Also spotted at the meeting were Republican Sens. Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, Shelley Moore Capito of West Virginia and Dan Sullivan of Alaska.

When asked if any progress had been made in the meeting, Manchin told reporters, "no, not really."

"There's no way I can vote for a repeal," Manchin said.

Manchin said there were "some good ideas thrown out and talked about."

"It was mostly to see is there a way forward without repealing. Is there a way forward without throwing the baby out with the bathwater?" Manchin said.

The meeting happened as Republican senators charge ahead with their own working group of 13 members who have been tasked with finding a GOP path forward to repeal and replace Obamacare. Collins and Cassidy said their party's leadership, however, was made aware of their bipartisan effort.

CNN's Phil Mattingly contributed to this report.

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Republicans and Democrats try to launch bipartisan effort on health care - CNN

Democratic National Committee Chair Tom Perez plans to meet with pro-life group Democrats for Life of America, amid an ongoing controversy within the party over whether and to what extent Democrats should pursue voters who oppose abortion. Democrats for Life advocates for pro-life Democrats and describes itself as the pro-life voice of the Democratic Party.

The meeting, which the DNC is setting up at the groups request, is one of several conversations that Perez is having with pro-choice and pro-life Democrats, an aide to Perez confirmed to The Atlantic. As part of that outreach, Perez has spoken with Democratic elected officials and party leaders, and held a meeting earlier this month with womens groups. The effort comes at a time when prominent Democrats are attempting to walk a fine line between affirming their partys pro-choice platform and suggesting that there is room in the party for pro-life voters and candidates.

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The partys 2016 platform supports access to safe and legal abortion, and vows that Democrats will oppose, and seek to overturn, federal and state laws and policies that impede a womans access to abortion. The DNC recently named Jess OConnell as its new CEO, the former executive director of EMILYs List, which works to elect pro-choice Democratic women to office.

Earlier this month, Nebraska Democratic candidate Heath Mello lost a mayoral election in Omaha following national backlash over his personally pro-life views, and legislative record on access to abortion. At least some of Mellos supporters in Nebraska believe fallout from the controversy stalled the campaigns momentum at a crucial point in the race.

When news broke last month that Independent Senator Bernie Sanders, the countrys most popular progressive lawmaker, and Deputy DNC Chair Keith Ellison would attend a rally with the self-described personally pro-life mayoral candidate, pro-choice organization NARAL Pro-Choice America went after the DNC, saying that its support of an anti-choice candidate was disappointing and politically stupid.

Perez had previously suggested that the Democratic Party should not demand fealty on every issue, including abortion. After NARALs criticism, however, the DNC Chair put out a statement widely viewed inside and outside the Democratic Party as a demand for unequivocal support for the partys pro-choice platform.

Every Democrat, like every American, should support a womans right to make her own choices about her body and her health, the chair said. That is not negotiable. He added: We must speak up for this principle as loudly as ever and with one voice.

A race against an incumbent Republican mayor in a state Trump won handily would not have been easy for any Democratic candidate, but a source close to the Mello campaign argued that backlash from pro-choice activists and Perezs statement that the party should speak with one voice on the issue of abortion, hurt Mello by opening him up to attack from national progressive groups and Republicans in Nebraska all at the same time.

Perezs comments on the race were used against Mello by his Republican challenger Jean Stothert. The Stothert campaign cited Perez saying it is a promising step that Mello now shares the Democratic Partys position on womens fundamental rights,a reference to the candidates pledge not to restrict access to reproductive healthcare if electedto accuse Mello of having dramatically changed his stance on [the] issue of life as an elected leader to satisfy pro-abortion activists. A mailer urging voters to pick Stothert pointed to the same Perez quote to argue that Mello was closely tied to The Liberal Washington, DC Establishment, warning Heath Mello Will Take Omaha Backwards.

The fundamentals of the race were a challenge to begin with, but the whole situation did a lot of damage, the source close to the Mello campaign said, speaking on condition of anonymity. The DNC chair shouldnt be saying things that can be interpreted as a litmus test that will alienate people from the party.

Red-state and pro-life Democrats denounced Perezs statement as a litmus test on the issue of abortion. And in the aftermath of the controversy surrounding the Mello campaign, prominent Democrats, and the DNC, have suggested that while the party advocates a pro-choice platform, there is room in the big tent for pro-life Democrats.

The party does not believe in a litmus test, Xochitl Hinojosa, a DNC spokeswoman, said in response to a request for comment. Our role is to support state parties and candidates up and down the ballot and thats exactly what we did when we invested in the state party in Nebraska as well as Mellos campaign. An aide to Perez told The Atlantic last month the DNC Chair never said he doesnt support pro-life candidates.

Democratic leaders in Congress, meanwhile, have argued even more explicitly that there is space within the party for pro-life voters and candidates.

House Democratic Leader Nancy Pelosi said last month that of course Democrats can be pro-life, while Senate Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer said that Democrats are a big-tent party. Pelosi later told The Washington Post that Democrats are not a rubber-stamp party, adding that there are people in her family, extended family, [who] are not-pro choice. You think Im kicking them out of the Democratic Party? Pelosi and Schumer both have 100 percent ratings from Planned Parenthood Action Funds congressional scorecard.

Appeals from prominent Democrats to the idea that the party is a big tent, however, and news that Perez is expected to meet with pro-life Democrats have frustrated some pro-choice activists who fear that Democratic leaders are signaling that support for access to abortion is negotiable, despite the party platform.

Its incredibly discouraging to hear what sounds like equivocating on this issue, said Erin Matson, a reproductive rights advocate based in Virginia. Thats what it looks like when Democrats, in Congress or at the DNC, indicate a willingness to support, or set aside time to meet with, anyone who doesnt believe that womens reproductive rights are fundamental human rights. Matson added that the DNC should be transparent about the details of Perezs outreach to pro-life Democrats, including who participates in any conversations with the chair, and what is discussed.

NARAL and Planned Parenthood declined to comment for this story.

For now, the DNC faces pressure to act as a sort of ideological compass for Democrats and show that it the party is learning from past mistakes. Part of the challenge in pulling that off, however, is that there remains widespread disagreement among Democrats over exactly where the party went wrong in the first place, and why its power has so severely eroded at the federal and state levels in recent years. Abortion is just one of the issues at the center of that ongoing debate.

A date has not yet been scheduled for the meeting between Perez and Democrats for Life, but it is expected to take place at DNC headquarters in Washington, DC.

Kristen Day, the executive director of Democrats for Life of America, said her organization hopes to make the case during the meeting with Perez that there needs to be a stronger message from the top of the party on down that we want to include pro-life Democrats in the party. She added: that means the party needs to help find pro-life Democratic candidates to run for office, help raise money for them, and help them win.

According to Day, Democrats for Life met with past DNC chairs, including Terry McAuliffe, Howard Dean, and Tim Kaine, adding that the group made attempts to meet with former chair Debbie Wasserman Schultz, but was not granted a meeting.

In an interview, Dean confirmed that he met with the group while serving as DNC Chair. I dont believe we should exclude people from the Democratic Party just because they call themselves pro-life, he said.

A spokesman for Wasserman Schultz said she does not recall declining a meeting with the organization. As DNC Chair, Wasserman Schultz did, however, generally invoke the idea that the Democratic Party is a big tent. Representatives for McAuliffe did not respond to a request for comment.

Jane Kleeb, the chair of the Nebraska Democratic Party, and a board member of Our Revolution, the progressive organization that formed out of the embers of the Sanders presidential campaign, said she has not been approached by the DNC to talk about Perezs intervention in Mellos race for mayor of Omaha.

Kleeb commented that if the DNC is reaching out to pro-life Democrats that would be a step in the right direction, but added: if the party has learned a lesson, its a shame that one of the rising stars, not only in Nebraska, but in the party, [former Nebraska mayoral candidate Heath Mello] essentially had to become collateral damage for it to be learned.

Kleeb added: I hope that never happens to another Democratic candidate ever again.

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DNC Chair Tom Perez to Meet With Pro-Life Democrats - The Atlantic