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Bernie Sanders addresses an audience during a rally in Boston. (AP Photo / Steven Senne)

Politics aint bean-bag, said Mr. Dooley, a character created by the humorist Finley Peter Dunne (d. 1936). But it also aint horseshoesin other words: Close dont count.

For progressives, especially those who see the Democratic Party as the only plausible vehicle for achieving political power, the combination of the Bernie Sanders presidential campaign and Hillary Clintons shocking defeat in November heralded a power shift within that party. Sanders, an out-of-left-field rebel, energized the left, Democratic activists, independents, and many othersmillennials, young single womendisenchanted with the business-as-usual Democratic Party, and he showed that it was possible to challenge the partys establishment and raise hundreds of millions of dollars in small donations on the Internet. Meanwhile, Clintons ignominious defeat seemed to put an exclamation point on the failure of that establishment.

But, as recent elections in New Jersey and Virginiaalong with the hard-fought race for chair of the Democratic National Committeeshow, that establishment isnt going down without a fight. Even Hillary Clinton, after a brief pause to wander in the woods, is back. And while the special election in Georgia today could elevate a Democrat, Jon Ossoff, to the House, Ossoff is solidly a member of the Democratic establishment.

Despite an array of new resistance groups, the Sanders-Warren wing of the Democratic Party has yet to win much.

So, despite the emergence of a multi-hued, self-starting array of resistance groups that has emerged since the election of Donald J. Trump, the Sanders-Warren wing of the Democratic Party has yet to win much. In Montana, a Sanders-backed insurgent Democrat, Rob Quist, lost his bid for a House seat on May 25, while getting virtually no support from the Washington-based Democratic Party.

In the DNC race, the Clinton-Obama establishment closed ranks to guarantee that the Sanders-allied Representative Keith Ellison was shut out, getting the consolation prize of being named to the powerless post of deputy DNC chair.

And in the two most important contests this year, the twin races for governor in New Jersey and Virginia, progressives mounted strong challenges to the partys anointed onesand lost. Each of these races had earlier been touted as a possible turning point in the establishments ability to control the party after the 2016 debacle, and in each case that turning point, well, turned the other way. These uncomfortable results have crucial implications for the left-liberal challenge to the center-right in the party.

In New Jersey, Phil Murphy won the Democratic nomination on June 6 with 48 percent of nearly half a million votes cast, beating an array of four more progressive candidates, including Jim Johnson and John Wisniewski, who garnered about 22 percent each. Both Wisniewski, a longtime assemblyman whod chaired Sanderss campaign in New Jersey and whod been endorsed by Jeff Weaver of Our Revolution, the organizing spinoff from Bernies presidential campaign, and Johnson, an African-American lawyer whod served as a US Treasury under secretary and whod chaired the Brennan Center for Justice, drew enthusiastic support from many progressives. But both knew it was a steep uphill climb.

Murphy, who spent 23 years as a banker at Goldman Sachs, is a multimillionaire, and he spent lavishly over the two years before the race to scare off other establishment challengers and secure the support of the New Jersey Democratic organization. Every single prominent state politician, including both US senators and all 21 county chairs, dutifully lined up behind Murphy. The support of the county chairs gave Murphy the regular Democratic organization line on every ballot, considered to be worth as much as 20 percent of the vote right off the bat. And Murphys own cash overwhelmed the resources of his opponents, a task made easier by the fact that the two leading progressives split the anti-Murphy vote.

In Virginia, Ralph Northam, the designated heir of current Governor Terry McAuliffethe crony of the Clintons who got his start as the Macker, a fast-talking fundraiser among millionaires and billionaires in the late 1980shandily beat (56 to 44 percent) an upstart challenger, Tom Perriello. Northam, a throwback to the courtly old Virginia gentlemanwho had voted for George W. Bush, twice!scrambled to present himself as a progressive of sorts, even running an ad calling Trump a narcissistic maniac when he finally twigged to the fact that the Democratic base was fired up in opposition to the pussy grabber in chief.

Perriello, meanwhile, a former member of Congress who angered the state party pooh-bahs by deciding to run late last year, secured the backing of Sanders, Elizabeth Warren, and Our Revolution. As in New Jersey, the party smartly saluted. Every Democratic member of the Virginia legislature endorsed Mr. Northam, as did county chairmen in the states 95 counties and 38 independent cities, The Wall Street Journal reported, adding that voters rejected the extreme elements that have animated their [party] since Mr. Trumps election.

Supporters of Perriello, Wisniewski, and Johnson may have comforted themselves by pointing to the fact that neither Murphy nor Northam ran as center-right, New Democratlike politicians. Indeed, in 2017, to do so might have been political hara-kiri, since the Democratic electorate isnt in the mood to buy it. But its specious to claim that well-lubricated, moneyed, establishment pols have adopted anything more than protective coloration when it comes to support for various planks in the Sanders-Warren platform. In 2016, some Sanders supporters and various pundits correctly noted that Clinton began to mimic Sanders on some issues, sort of (see: minimum wage, college costs, etc.).

But in the end, a neoliberal is, well, a neoliberal. When neoliberal push comes to economic-downturn shove, Clinton, Murphy, Northam, and their ilk usually resort to talking about tax cuts, budgetary restraint, shared pain, and so on. (For instance, back in 2005, when Murphy led a state panel designed to come up with solutions to a burgeoning state budget logjam, his solution was straight from the neoliberal playbook: pension and benefit cuts for state employees.) They dust off the old Democratic Leadership Council handbook and reread Bill Clintons Era-of-Big-Government-Is-Over speech.

Sanders himself, properly eschewing any talk of an independent or third-party option, in speech after speech since November has consistently sounded like an Old Testament prophet is saying that theres no alternative to the complete transformation of the Democratic Party. In his June 13 op-ed in The New York Times, he wrote, the Democratic Party, in a very fundamental way, must change direction. I may be wrong, but I dont think Sanders means that the Murphys and Northams of the party have to join Our Revolution; instead, Sandersand the myriad parts of the resistance, the millions whove joined march after march since January 21, who flocked to airports spontaneously to protest Trumps Muslim ban, who have created 6,000 Indivisible groups and thousands of other grassroots movementswants a bottom-up insurgency to take control of the party and move it leftward.

The Democratic establishment views grassroots activists as both a potential ally against the GOP and a potential threat.

The outcome of the Sanders-Clinton battle, the DNC race, and the votes in New Jersey and Virginia show how hard that will be to accomplish. And we have to acknowledge that a defeat is a defeat. An entrenched establishment, with vast funds at its disposal and a self-perpetuating, bureaucratic flowchart at the national, state, and local levels, wont go down without a fight. As the grassroots, anti-Trump forces move toward 2018, they had better realize that the Democratic Party establishment views them in equal measure as a force that can help knock off Republicans and as an alarming insurgency that might knock them off, too.

A recent survey by In These Times concluded that in six statesKentucky, Nebraska, Colorado, Wyoming, Oregon, and Washingtonthe state party is in the hands of leaders backed by Our Revolution. In Californiayes, another defeata party organization rapidly moving left nearly elected Kimberly Ellis, effectively representing the Sanders-Warren wing, over Eric Bauman, a party insider, as state party chair. In state after stateand, less noticed, in county after county, congressional district after districtits a war with hundreds of fronts. Going into 2018, 2020, and beyond, the real question is: Will insurgents take over the party, and run progressives in local primaries, or will the party co-optor crushthe insurgency?

In New Jersey, as elsewhere, the insurgents are hardly giving up. On June 14, a loose, ad hoc coalition of some 30 groups across six South Jersey counties convened a Flag Day Summit outdoor picnic and rally in Mays Landing, organized around a challenge to Representative Frank LoBiondo, a longtime incumbent Republican member of Congress in New Jerseys Second District, which spans most of the states southern half. Among the groups represented were Atlantic County Young Democrats, We the People of Salem and Cumberland Counties, Our Revolution South Jersey, Down Jersey, Indivisible Cape May County, Long Beach Island Progressives, Women Get Shit Done, Egg Harbor Indivisible, and many others, representing thousands of people. One of the groups, Progressive Coalition for NJ-2, is actively seeking to recruit a challenger to LoBiondo in 2018, whos looking increasingly vulnerable. (President Obama won the district twice, and in 2016 it barely went to Trump.)

But looming over that race is the Democratic establishment, most notably represented by George Norcross, widely acknowledged to be South Jerseys political boss, whose brother, Donald Norcross, is the Democratic congressman representing the district just to the north, NJ-1. On June 1, George Norcross led a fundraiser, joined by Alec Baldwin, which pulled in a neat $5.1 million for Norcrosss General Majority PAC. The insurgents, organizing county by county, might soon find themselves face-to-face with a well-financed, Norcross-backed party hack. If that contest happens, it and countless others like it across the country will determine if indeed the party will change direction in the way Sanders suggests.

Read more here:
Why It's So Hard for Insurgent Democrats to Defeat the Party's Old ... - The Nation.

Capitol Hill Democrats escalated their broadsides against President Trumps role as businessman-in-chief on Tuesday, accusing the billionaire president of profiting illegally from private dealings with foreign dignitaries.

Led by Sen. Richard BlumenthalRichard BlumenthalDemocrats tout suit on Trumps foreign business connections Overnight Finance: Ryan seeks manufacturing muscle for tax reform | Warren targets Wells Fargo board | Senators raise concerns over Russian takeover of Citgo | Pelosi hits GOP for budget delays Live coverage: Senate Dems hold talkathon to protest GOP health plan MORE (D-Conn.) and Rep. John Conyers (D-Mich.), the Democrats contend that Trump, by refusing to extract himself fully from the global business empire he commanded before taking office, has violated a section of the Constitution barring federal officials from accepting gifts from foreign leaders without congressional approval.

On Tuesday, a handful of lawmakers gathered in the basement of the Capitol to press their case. If there was any mystery about the direction they were headed, the sign on the podium quickly put it to rest.

The bottom line is that we have no clue as to most of the investments and partnerships of Donald TrumpDonald TrumpDaily Mail editor pulls out of talks for White House job Pavlich: Trumps best speech Trump: China 'has not worked out' on North Korea MORE around the world because he has made no disclosures, said Blumenthal, the ranking member of the Senate Judiciary Committees Constitution subcommittee.

The American people have a right to know if the president of the United States is putting the national interests before his own.

Last week, almost 200 Democrats representing both congressional chambers filed a lawsuit accusing Trump of leveraging his political stature to churn profits, including payments from foreign dignitaries newly eager to stay at Trumps name-branded hotels around the world.

That arrangement, the Democrats charge, violates the Constitutions emoluments clause, which proclaims that no Person holding any Office shall, without the Consent of the Congress, accept of any present, Emolument, Office, or Title, of any kind whatever, from any King, Prince, or foreign State.

Blumenthal, the lead plaintiff in the suit, said Trumps refusal to disclose his taxes has made the suit necessary.

We cannot consent to what we dont know, he said.

Also last week, the attorneys general in Maryland and the District of Columbia filed a suit contesting what they consider to be similar conflicts of interest by the president. A third suit, filed earlier in the year on behalf of businesses alleging they compete with Trumps own, is also working its way through the courts.

The Democrats in Congress think their challenge may stand the best chance, because the Constitution grants the legislative branch the explicit responsibility of sanctioning any foreign gifts.

The suit has attracted the endorsement of 196 lawmakers 166 House members and 30 senators, according to Conyers. None of them are Republicans.

Trump was right when he said theres a cloud over his presidency, Conyers said. But its his own cloud.

Read more here:
Democrats tout suit on Trump's foreign business connections - The Hill

SANDY SPRINGS, Ga. Democrats are closer than they ever could have imagined to winning a House seat in the Republican suburbs of Atlanta, and dealing a resounding blow to Donald Trump.

But theyre also gripped by anxiety about what happens if they fall short Tuesday.

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A loss in Georgias special election here could leave the party demoralized, with little to show for all the furious organizing, fundraising and spending in a handful of congressional special elections in the early months of the Trump administration. As a result, Democrats are now straining to throw everything they have at Georgias Sixth Congressional District to push Jon Ossoff over the top against Republican Karen Handel, aiming to prove they can win the suburban districts that may pave the way to a House majority in 2018.

"Just like any sporting event, however unlikely it is that you're close heading into the fourth quarter, a loss is bitterly disappointing and there will be some feeling of, 'when do we get this done if it's not this race?'" said longtime party strategist Dan Kanninen. "You'll definitely see some hand-wringing from Democrats wondering when we're going to get over that hump."

In public, the party insists that the mere act of keeping the contest close in a district the GOP routinely wins by over 20 points is a victory in itself. But behind closed doors, operatives and lawmakers expect a withering round of internal second-guessing if they come up short after pumping enough money into the pro-Ossoff effort to make it the most expensive congressional race ever.

And beyond recriminations, theyre worried the fundraising and organizing fire fueling the party in the Trump era could wane after so many resources were poured into Georgia especially with no other big-ticket races looming to re-energize the base until the off-year gubernatorial elections in November.

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"There's a lot of anticipation that Democrats could do better than Hillary [Clinton] did, but it remains to be seen if Democrats can turn these so-called red districts into something purple," warned former Democratic National Committee chair Donna Brazile.

With just hours left in the race to replace now-HHS Secretary Tom Price, Democrats' internal polls mirror the public ones, suggesting Ossoff holds a slight lead over Handel, though the gap between them remains within the margins of error in the surveys.

According to Democrats close to the contest, the high early voting turnout has rendered Tuesdays result less predictable than expected. And that unpredictability has party leaders stung by criticism from liberal activists for not spending enough money on earlier special elections this year in Kansas and Montana urging activists not to be disappointed by a tight race that ends in defeat.

Their concern is that anything less than victory could dampen the partys torrid energy and cash flow, with the next round of House races still nearly a year-and-a-half away.

From the start, the [Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee] understood that winning the Georgia 6th special election would be a monumental task. Simply put, virtually every structural advantage benefits Republicans in a special election in this traditionally conservative district, wrote DCCC Executive Director Dan Sena in an expectation-setting memo circulated to a group that included donors and friendly groups last Tuesday.

He reminded them that the committee has spent more than $6 million to fundamentally transform a traditionally Republican electorate, turn out low-propensity voters, channel the unprecedented grassroots energy, and communicate with swing voters.

But the Tuesday vote comes after the race basked for months in the national spotlight, during which Ossoff raised over $23 million and every DCCC briefing to progressive groups and donors included an update on the committee's activities in the race.

Party consultants have already been invited to a Sena-led briefing on Wednesday after the election, part of an effort by top Democratic operatives to try and calm nerves about the implications for 2018 of a potential Ossoff loss. Theyve already pointed to previous examples of special elections failing to serve as midterm bellwethers, and circulated analyses like one from the Cook Political Report noting that 71 GOP-held districts are expected to be even more competitive than Georgias Sixth, when Democrats only need to win 24.

I remember in 2011, Kathy Hochul won a special election in an historically Republican district in Buffalo and everyone prophesied that the Democrats were on track to recapture the House majority, said former DCCC Chairman Steve Israel. Winning or losing a special election doesnt get to the overriding challenge Democrats have, which is a map that the Republicans have rigged, and redistricting.

Still, no House race in recent memory has been as closely scrutinized as the one in Georgia, both because of the unprecedented spending and Trumps shadow. With Democrats hoping to use the president's weak approval ratings as fuel to power them back to a House majority, the affluent suburban district has become a testing ground for both parties, a recognition that is resembles the kind of electorate that could end up swinging control of the House in 2018.

Democratic leaders in Washington believe a win would not only re-invigorate their own grassroots, but would likely lead to a round of Republican soul-searching and finger-pointing. Against that backdrop, they expect a handful of top recruits to step into the fray against vulnerable GOP House members.

Victory is always much easier to embrace than defeat, so Jons victory on the 20th will make a lot of longer-shot races more viable, said Stacey Abrams, the Democratic Georgia House minority leader who is now running for governor another long-shot race itself. But if hes not successful, its a question of margin, and the most important conversation is going to be to look at the landscape and focus on how Jon Ossoff, a political neophyte, made this very competitive.

Campaign signs are piled in a vehicle as Democratic candidate Jon Ossoff visits a campaign office on April 17 in Marietta, Georgia. | Getty

Democrats have found that an anti-Trump message only carries them so far. Ossoff initially gained attention as a potential warrior against the administration, but now rarely talks about the White House. Instead, hes pushing a message about reforming Washington. While GOP polling shows that Trumps approval rating has dropped within the district, Ossoff has had to expand his focus to try and win over moderates and some Republicans the day after the DCCC finished conducting local focus groups that revealed moderates' complicated views of Trump, Ossoffs campaign stopped going after the president in its paid ads.

Trumps political operation has, in fact, given Ossoff more trouble than Democrats anticipated: when the pro-Trump America First Policies group first jumped into the race with advertising, it was viewed as a turning point by DCCC operatives, who saw the move as evidence that an entirely new piece of the GOP infrastructure was swooping in to save the seat for Handel. The DCCC then injected more money into the race than initially planned and intensified its direct mail get-out-the-vote program.

With the race turning away from its early framing as a referendum on Trump, Democratic operatives have instead looked closely at Ossoffs campaign for clues about messaging that other Democrats might emulate next year. Thats been a sensitive exercise: Democratic establishment strategists fret that the partys liberal insurgent wing will take an Ossoff loss as evidence that candidates need a clearer, Bernie Sanders-like message of economic populism, while progressive leaders worry an Ossoff win could encourage the party to recruit more moderates.

The races potential to exacerbate internal divisions is one reason the DCCC has sought to remind its allies over and over about the district's conservative leanings. But it has also been bringing in consultants from all over the party to talk to its staff about how to communicate with various constituencies that will be central to its 2018 efforts among them Sanders strategists including operatives from the Devine Mulvey Longabaugh firm that handled his media and campaign manager Jeff Weaver, who have been through the building to talk about millennial targeting and economic messaging.

For now, in the closing stretch of the race, the party is ratcheting up the level of engagement. They're directing busloads of volunteers from all over the country and scores of campaign pros from Washington in the final days to help turn out voters. House and gubernatorial candidates have joined state Democratic parties from as far away as Oregon in asking for volunteers to join the phone banking program for the special election. This month, the DCCC even urged sitting members of Congress to throw cash at Ossoff, leading to a deluge of donations from his potential colleagues for the last week of the race to the tune of over $55,000, according to federal filings.

This is a laboratory. In order to win the House back we have to win in districts that are gerrymandered for Republicans, so [special elections like this one are] laboratories for us to figure out whats the best way to mobilize this vote, said Democratic National Committee Associate Chair Jaime Harrison, conceding that a loss in Georgia would expose the reality that the party has not yet reached the point of being fully prepared to take back the House.

Its why you have preseason before you start the NBA regular season, he added. We still need to work out all the kinks and figure out the best way forward. I do know we cant continue to do some of the same things weve been doing.

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Democrats sweat the details in Georgia special election - Politico

Dan Henrickson rapped on the door of a stucco townhouse perched on a cul-de-sac in the north Los Angeles County suburb of Santa Clarita and awaited his fate.

The 63-year-old information technology consultant from Los Angeles was volunteering for the Democratic Partys local club and still getting used to the awkward art of door-knocking earlier in the afternoon, he choked on a sip of water just as a voter opened his door.

The man who answered this time looked Henrickson and his door-knocking partner up and down as they started their spiel. He asked them a single question: Are you Democrats?

The man shut the door when he got the answer.

California may offer Democrats a lopsided advantage as a whole, but this patch of the state where the suburban sprawl of Los Angeles comes to an end and the Mojave Desert begins is still a bastion for the Republican Party and the political territory of second-term GOP Rep. Steve Knight.

Knight won reelection by 6% last fall, but because Hillary Clinton was able to beat Donald Trump by about the same margin in his district, Democrats consider the seat as having prime pickup potential. The stakes: control of the House in 2018.

That is where Henrickson and about 90 other liberal activists come into the story, more than a year out from the election.

Christina House / For The Times

Democratic volunteers Pamela Sparrow, right, and Derek Bryson, both from Los Angeles, knock on doors in a Simi Valley neighborhood. The area has been traditionally Republican, but Democrats see an opportunity to make inroads.

Democratic volunteers Pamela Sparrow, right, and Derek Bryson, both from Los Angeles, knock on doors in a Simi Valley neighborhood. The area has been traditionally Republican, but Democrats see an opportunity to make inroads. (Christina House / For The Times)

Follow the campaigns and California politics

Rep. Karen Bass, a Democrat from the Westside of Los Angeles, has been paying for buses and vans to ferry volunteers over the Sepulveda Pass into Santa Clarita, Simi Valley and the Antelope Valley to reinforce local Democrats as they start up voter registration drives. Organizers say they have registered 80 voters over three trips so far.

The volunteers are in no short supply. Many are political neophytes newly invigorated by opposition to President Trump and itching for something to do.

In L.A., you kind of feel like you are in this helpless political bubble, Zoe Ward, a 32-year-old student in UCLAs film directing masters program, said after scouring Palmdale for new voters on a recent Saturday. Coming out here, it feels like my minutes and hours go further.

Two weekend trips into the district earlier this spring show the task is grueling but uplifting work for some Democrats feeling guilty that they did not do enough in 2016 to help their party.

Henrickson came away with nothing to show for his time in Santa Clarita.

I am not a big fan of it, but you got to do something, he said. The next time this is going to be easier.

Organizers said they arent expecting much at first. Part of the program is simply letting locals know there are other Democrats around.

Simi Valley is, after all, home to the Reagan Presidential Library. Knights father, William J. Pete Knight, represented the Antelope Valley in Sacramento for 12 years and was the author of a successful 2000 ballot initiative banning gay marriage in the state. It might be easy for Democrats to feel they are lone liberals given how the district is steeped in conservative Southern California history.

We want to let them know they are not alone, said Christy Smith, a candidate for state Assembly in Santa Clarita who has taken part in the efforts. For a long time they have felt like they need to stay inside their house with the curtains drawn and the doors closed.

Mariah Craven, one of the organizers who also helped Kamala Harris win her Senate seat last fall, said Democrats have to start somewhere.

This entire thing is very experimental, she said. There is no model for doing it this early.

As the party looks to other districts like Knights particularly in Orange County that elected a Republican member of Congress and favored Clinton for president, they see bright spots for Democrats. They say they are ready to replicate the registration and outreach effort elsewhere.

If Democrats want to flip the district, first they have to build up their numbers: 37.6% of voters here are Democrats, 34.8% are Republicans and 22% decline to state a party.

In Knight territory, some volunteers are naturals, even professionals, at the art of building up the base.

Derek Bryson, a 56-year-old film editor from Culver City, sat on a park bench in Simi Valley clad in military-style hiking boots. He slurped down a protein shake. It was going to be in the high 80s that day.

His companion, Pamela Sparrow of Los Angeles, examined a granola bar and tossed it back on the table.

Too salty, she said. That will dehydrate you.

Both worked as paid field organizers for Clinton in Las Vegas, leaving California last year for a swing state that Democrats needed to keep to win.

Joining them were Laura Simon and her 14-year-old daughter Sofia, from Los Angeles. Simon said she stayed out of politics in 2016, and regrets it.

I come for her future, Simon said. We are not going to make that same mistake again.

Bryson and Sparrow jumped out of their car on a tree-lined street in Simi Valley. Nearby a shirtless man washed a raised 4x4 pickup truck.

Every vote counts, Bryson said to himself as they walked down the street.

Kris Rodriguez answered the first door they knocked on. The 25-year-old landscaper, clad in a T-shirt and sandals, squinted through his screen door and told them hed never voted before.

I really dont care, to be honest with you, he said. I dont know what party I am or what the difference is.

Bryson switched to small talk about football, and after a moment Rodriguez took a look at the registration papers. A family member came over to help him. Bryson took a step back. After a moment Rodriguez returned the forms. He had registered as a Democrat.

Around the block, Bryson and Sparrow caught Erick Guillen on his way out the door The 25-year-old lab technician was bashful when he admitted he skipped last Novembers election. Politics makes him uneasy.

I didnt feel like my voice would be heard or make a change, he said. But he re-registered to vote by mail, saying he said didnt like the way Trumps tenure has started. I am gonna vote now.

The two were on a roll.

Pamela Sparrow, left, and Derek Bryson, right, visit Kris Rodriguez, 25. "I really dont care, to be honest with you, Rodriguez said. I dont know what party I am or what the difference is. He finally registered -- as a Democrat.

Pamela Sparrow, left, and Derek Bryson, right, visit Kris Rodriguez, 25. "I really dont care, to be honest with you, Rodriguez said. I dont know what party I am or what the difference is. He finally registered -- as a Democrat.

Tracy Stevens, 52, seemed puzzled when he saw the duo on his doorstep. I thought you were gonna bust out the Bible, he said.

Hed never had political canvassers come knocking and he took the opportunity to express his frustrations with the political system and how it just doesnt seem to matter what people do to try to change things.

I didnt vote for this guy, but you have to support him, he said. A lot of people give up on the system.

Sparrow waited in silence as he spoke. Then she invited him to attend the next meeting of area Democrats.

We participate in the process when we dont participate, she said.

They wrapped up their tasks and met back up at the park to see how it went for the others in the group.

Lisa Newman, a 55-year-old karate instructor from Simi Valley, suggested the outsiders get familiar with hyper-local issues to have better success with their efforts. Two out-of-towners in her group had been asked about vacant business space at the local mall during their rounds. When they were clueless how to answer, Newman had to intervene.

Meg Sullivan also struggled. The 58-year-old retired publicist from the tony Cheviot Hills neighborhood near the 20th Century Fox Studios said most of the doors she knocked on didnt even open.

Were we able to make a difference? she asked. I dont know.

Sullivan said she hadnt as much as lifted a finger since 1972, when her mother took her to knock on doors for U.S. Sen. George McGovern when he ran against President Nixon.

Trumps election changed her passivity. Never again, she said, shaking her head.

I do this for my mental health, she said. Just to have a sense that Im doing something to combat this terrible tsunami thats taking over.

javier.panzar@latimes.com

Twitter: @jpanzar

ALSO:

Vulnerable House Republicans fear political consequences after healthcare vote

Democrats moving staff to Orange County in effort to flip House seats

Updates on California politics

Read more:
These Democrats feel guilty for sitting out the 2016 elections, and they aren't waiting to register voters for the ... - Los Angeles Times

Democrats are seeking to capitalize on President Donald Trump calling the Republican health care bill "mean" ahead of the Senate's vote to repeal Obamacare, seeing it as a pivotal moment in an issue that could drive the 2018 midterm elections.

The comments from Trump, made privately to senators last week, were largely overshadowed by a mass shooting at a Congressional baseball practice and new developments in the special counsel's investigation into Trump and his associates.

Story Continued Below

But a senior Democratic aide said the party plans to revive the "mean" comment part of floor speeches, press conferences and social media, and consultants said they craved the image of Trump celebrating in the Rose Garden with House members over a "mean" bill that hurt poor Americans.

"We will be weaving mean into the broader attack in a prominent way," the aide said.

Democrats see the health care fight as more potent than an investigation into potential collusion with Russia and obstruction of justice -- and a possibly defining gaffe for commercials, according to aides. Hitting Republicans in the House for a bill that "even Trump said was mean" is particularly satisfying for Democrats, considering the president celebrated its passage in the Rose Garden.

In the Atlanta Journal Constitution poll of Georgia's Sixth Congressional District runoff, the health law polled lower than House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, Trump, Republican candidate Karen Handel, Vice President Mike Pence and Democratic candidate Jon Ossoff.

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But Democrats have struggled to come up with a united message on health care and have faced criticism because insurance companies have raised premiums and pulled out of health care exchanges in some states.

Whether Trump's "mean" comment becomes a potent line of attack against the president -- like the Democrats hope -- or unifies moderate Senate Republicans to pass a health care bill that squeaks to a 50-vote margin remains unclear.

I think its unifying, added Sen. Thom Tillis (R-N.C.). At the end of the day, its helpful for us in getting the support that we need for the vote."

Should the Senate pass a vastly different bill, which is then adopted by the House, the scathing internal attack could be blunted.

Sen. Bob Corker, a Tennessee Republican, said the party was already planning to make the bill more generous.

Trump's tendency to make impolitic remarks also leaves such a gaffe as harder to exploit. One person who has spoken with Trump says he has also criticized the Senate health care process and some of their wishes.

This person said Trump had been stung by the non-stop negative news coverage of the House bill, particularly reports that more than 20 million people or more could lose insurance.

"In the list of things he's said, I don't think this one is high up there on the list," one administration official said.

A second administration official said the White House knows the health care push to 50 votes is a difficult one, and the White House has heard more complaints from moderates than conservatives in the Senate. Trump, this person said, was trying to show the path he saw to getting a better bill passed.

But it certainly left some Republicans in the House upset, particularly conservatives who were cajoled and cursed at by Trump, then feted by the president in a Rose Garden party, complete with a jazz band, when the bill passed.

The Heritage Foundation, for example, wrote an op-ed decrying the Trump attack as "not mean," defending the bill as good small-government policy.

"You can almost see the ads being written already," one GOP aide said.

In the Senate, where Republicans are still struggling to craft legislation that can pick up 50 GOP votes, Trumps "mean" comments left the sense that the president wants a health care measure that is easier to defend. Several GOP senators said Trumps comments can only help in putting together a bill that is more politically palatable and substantively improved from the measure that passed the House in May.

For instance, Trumps comments insisting the Senate bill not be viewed as an attack on low-income Americans would seem to shore up arguments from centrist Republicans who want Obamacares Medicaid expansion phased out more gradually a major contention point in the conference that has yet to be settled.

But typical for a president not steeped in policy, Trumps private remarks calling for a more generous health care bill or legislation that is not so mean, according to some accounts left it wide open for Republicans to interpret them in myriad ways.

Im not sure what that means, Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) said of the presidents remarks. Im a very generous person. I help people who dont have insurance. I want everybody to have health care. I think no physician should turn down treatment of people based on that.

Nonetheless, Republicans are at real risk of missing their Fourth of July recess deadline to vote on their Obamacare replacement, with factions of their conference still deeply divided over when to end the Medicaid expansion and how best to lower health insurance premiums.

We keep talking about the same stuff over and over and over and over and over again, complained Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) At some point, were going to have to have votes. And right now -- the reason why we keep talking about the same stuff over and over again -- we dont have the votes.

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Democrats use Trump 'mean' comment to tar GOP - Politico