Cenk Uygur of TYT summarizes what happened in the OH-11 race; it’s concurred to a certain extent by Jordan Chariton of Status Coup.
More news, tweets, etc in comments below. See you there!
Cenk Uygur of TYT summarizes what happened in the OH-11 race; it’s concurred to a certain extent by Jordan Chariton of Status Coup.
More news, tweets, etc in comments below. See you there!
Two Weeks ago, I read an op-ed by Maureen Dowd, “Still Feeling the Bern. ” It’s a favorable interview and review of Ari Rabin-Havi about his book on working for Bernie Sanders as a staffer, later as “Earl’s” deputy campaign manager and close political adviser. The memoir is entitled The Fighting Soul: On the Road with Bernie Sanders.
Dowd supplies some good leads about the book, but I will include for brevity only this summation:
When Sanders met with Barack Obama at his Georgetown office in 2018 to tell him he was thinking about running for president again, Obama offered this advice: “Bernie, you are an Old Testament prophet — a moral voice for our party giving us guidance. Here is the thing, though. Prophets don’t get to be king. Kings have to make choices prophets don’t. Are you willing to make those choices?”
Rabin-Havt (whose brother, Raphi, worked with me at The Times for a spell) writes: “Obama continued, making the point that to win the Democratic nomination, Bernie would have to widen his appeal and convince the party to back him — which would mean being a different type of politician and a different type of candidate than he wanted to be. Bernie listened to Obama, but it was clear to me he never accepted that premise. He has a fundamental belief that he could lead an uncompromising movement that would challenge those who ran the Democratic Party while also leading that same institution, one he steadfastly refused to join.”
The author sums up with a trenchant point: Bernie may never see “the promised land,” but he did win.
“While Bernie Sanders will never be president, his two campaigns have transformed the Democratic Party and this country. Old orthodoxies about government spending and foreign policy have crumbled as a result of the unceasing efforts by an old socialist.”
I labeled this post part one for a good reason. Thanks to Dowd’s op-ed, I decided to buy a Kindle edition of the book and it arrived yesterday. I’m about 20% of the way through. It’s very relaxed in its prose, and candid at times about the frustrations in creating work arounds to make the trains run on time. Some of it has surprised me, such as learning that Bernie is a football fan. I thought he liked baseball and basketball, hereto alas, he likes football and roots for the New England Patriots. (The author is a Giants fan and finds the Pats annoying) I enjoy reading about Bernie’s proclivities and use of foul language when away from microphones. Dowd put it this way in her piece:
I relish hearing about what Rabin-Havt calls “Bernie’s natural impatience” with the frivolous — pretty much everything except the sweeping changes he wants in the country.
There are some happy moments with co-chairs of the campaign, such as Nina Turner’s great effort of personally adopting SC for one of the first primary states in campaigning for the senator. Rabin-Havt shared more of the strategy in the book, which political historians will appreciate. Much of it we knew from reports in the news and all of us who attended rallies, but Rabin-Havt reveals the thinking behind it.
Thus, this is my part 1 since I’m only a 1/5 of the way in the book. It’s a pleasure so far to read. I’ll give my own review later.
I’m posting some videos and reviews in the comments. feel free to add your own. I’ll be reviving this later in the week.
More news, perspectives, etc the comments. See you there.
The infrastructure deal was passed.
Numerous senators and house members have purchased millions in infrastructure stocks BEFORE the deal was announced.
Includes $BLNK, $TSLA, $OSK, $PLUG, and many others.
What did they know?
Link: https://t.co/raMqfkXmWj pic.twitter.com/Djch9OkoAy
— unusual_whales (@unusual_whales) August 4, 2021
Last night’s special election was indicative. Shontel Brown will likely become a member on that list.
More news, tweets, perspectives, etc in the comments. See you there.
Greetings Birdies!
Today is the Dem primary in OH-11, although early voting started July 7th.
Nina Turner and Shontel Brown face off in a high-profile Ohio special House election
Former state Sen. Nina Turner and Cuyahoga County Council member Shontel Brown are the frontrunners in a multicandidate Democratic primary for the special election in Ohio’s 11th Congressional District.
In March, the seat was vacated by then-Democratic Rep. Marcia Fudge, who stepped down to become the Secretary of Housing and Urban Development under President Joe Biden.
The racially diverse, reliably Democratic 11th district stretches from Cleveland’s east side to Akron, with a mix of working-to-upper-middle-class suburbs including Euclid and Shaker Heights. The district backed Biden by a margin of 60 percentage points, 79.8 to 19.2%, over former President Donald Trump in the 2020 election.
The winner of the Democratic primary will be the overwhelming favorite to win the Nov. 2 general election.
Turner, who served on the Cleveland City Council from 2006 to 2008 and was a member of the Ohio Senate from 2008 to 2014, became a nationally-known figure as president of the political organization Our Revolution, which was spun off from the 2016 presidential campaign of Sen. Bernie Sanders of Vermont and has led the largest outside grassroots mobilization effort for her campaign.
Last year, Turner was a national co-chair for the 2020 Sanders presidential campaign, and she has been a leading voice for progressive issues, including a $15 minimum wage and student loan debt cancelation. She has attracted the support of progressive stars such as Reps. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York and Cori Bush of Missouri, who view her as a like-minded ally who will demand real accountability in Congress.
Brown, who also chairs the Cuyahoga County Democratic Party, has promoted herself as an ally of Biden who would not shift the agenda of the narrow Democratic majority too far to the left. Her more moderate stances have attracted the support of party stalwarts like former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and House Majority Whip Jim Clyburn of South Carolina, the highest-ranking Black lawmaker in Congress.
The race has become increasingly heated in recent weeks, with Brown seeking to use Turner’s national profile against her, portraying the former state lawmaker as a Democrat who wouldn’t be a reliable partner with the White House. Turner has rejected such assertions and recently released a pointed television advertisement that questioned Brown’s ethics.
While some groups have deemed the race as a proxy between moderate and progressive Democrats, the race is much more nuanced on the local level.
Turner and Brown have deep roots in the community, and both have indicated that issues such as poverty and criminal justice reform would be major priorities if elected to office.
Turner spoke to Insider in March and explained the need to combat economic inequities, a huge issue in the Rust Belt district.
“Having one job should definitely be enough and we’ve got to work to make sure that’s the case,” she said. “COVID-19 has only exacerbated social, economic, racial, and environmental fissures, and we need to center poor people and working-class people in a way that gives them a shot to live their measure of the American dream. This is going to require us to see the system through a different lens.”
Polls will close at 7:30 ET.
TYT will have live coverage. Likely Politico, AP, Cleveland.com, and NYT will also cover the race the live. I will post some live links after we open Benny’s Tavern.
Benny’s Bar Midtown 2020-11-03 171651.jpg
This also serves as an open thread.
Who do you think he's supporting in the #Ohio11 congressional primary? pic.twitter.com/aGdLVJr27k
— 📸 Bryan Giardinelli (@BreatheNewWinds) August 3, 2021
Bar is open!
Update:
.@AyannaPressley endorses @ninaturner for Congress.
“If we are going to make real progress on the urgent crises facing all of our communities, we need lawmakers who are committed to legislating boldly – that's Nina.” pic.twitter.com/HXRyVxSAZV
— Daniel Marans (@danielmarans) June 29, 2021
Nina Turner Is Running to Join the Squad
Before there was the Squad, or even the glimmer of a movement by insurgent progressives to challenge incumbent congressional Democrats, a progressive Black woman legislator in Cleveland contemplated what to many Democrats was unthinkable at the time: challenging a respected Black congresswoman from the left in a primary, in this case Representative Marcia Fudge of Ohio, in 2012.
In the end, Nina Turner didn’t run against Fudge, but even announcing she was considering it made her an outsider to establishment Democratic Party politics. In a way, she’d always been one. She had come up as a college professor, city council member, and state senator, always a Democrat. But one of her earliest moves was backing a 2009 ballot initiative to reorganize the Cuyahoga County government that many local Democrats strenuously opposed. It passed overwhelmingly.
Turner again made establishment enemies when she went from publicly supporting the Ready for Hillary super PAC—the unofficial stalking horse for the presidential candidacy of the former senator and secretary of state—to becoming a top surrogate for Senator Bernie Sanders in his 2016 primary campaign.
The Political Revolution Comes to… Buffalo?
Now Nina Turner may be poised to actually join the Squad. In her run to fill the seat vacated when Fudge became the Secretary of Housing and Urban Development, the former Ohio legislator has the endorsement of Representatives Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Rashida Tlaib, Ilhan Omar, and Cori Bush, four women of color who either defeated an incumbent or ascended after an incumbent stepped down. She’s also backed by Progressive Caucus chairs Pramila Jayapal and Katie Porter, Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison—and, of course, Bernie Sanders.One of 13 Democratic candidates in the race, Turner is leading in campaign funding—her campaign announced in mid-June that she had raised over $3 million—thanks largely to her ability to tap into Sanders’s movement. Her volunteer events often brim with die-hard supporters of the Vermont senator. At almost every gathering, Turner tells her audience that her focus is on “‘the least of these’—the poor, the working poor and barely middle class.” She’s running on Medicare for All, free college, a $15 minimum wage, criminal justice reform, and voting rights.
The key to this race, though, will be winning over her district’s many Biden supporters—the president won roughly 80 percent of the general-election vote here last year, as did Clinton four years earlier—without losing her admirers on the Sanders left. She’s already drawn fire from a leftist fringe for her perceived betrayals, most notably for defending members of the Squad who declined to “force the vote” on Medicare for All earlier this year. “For the love of God, do not throw away the Squad members!” she told a lefty podcaster. Meanwhile, her leading rival, Cuyahoga County councilwoman and Democratic Party chair Shontel Brown, is running on her ties to the president. A recent ad includes a photo of Brown with Biden and features a cable host telling Turner, “You’ve been highly critical of President-elect Joe Biden.” The ad closes with: “I’m Shontel Brown, and I’ll work with Joe Biden.” (By press time, Clinton had endorsed Brown.)
“Highly critical” of Biden might be an understatement. A July 2020 Atlantic feature on how Trump could win in November featured this colorful quote from Turner about how, despite Sanders’s endorsement, she still wasn’t keen on voting for Biden. “It’s like saying to somebody, ‘You have a bowl of shit in front of you, and all you’ve got to do is eat half of it instead of the whole thing.’ It’s still shit.”
Turner has praised Biden as president, especially his Covid response. But will those earlier attacks hurt her? “I think it hurt her in the beginning, but I think people have gotten past that,” says Turner backer Samara Knight. “People are hungry for change. Nina brings hope.” Knight, an executive vice president of SEIU 1199, is a Biden supporter and also backed Clinton in 2016. Her union endorsed Turner after interviewing both her and Brown. “She’ll fight for us,” Knight says.
Brown has recently floated tributes to Israel at the top of her campaign website, as she’s welcomed support from the PAC Democratic Majority for Israel, which spent $1.4 million on ads attacking Sanders in 2020. The group is attacking Turner now for past statements conditioning US support for Israel on justice for the Palestinians.
“I’m a Democrat,” Turner tells me flatly. She runs through her party bona fides: as a city council member and state senator representing the city of Cleveland; as a Barack Obama delegate, twice, to the Democratic National Convention; as the Democratic nominee for Ohio secretary of state in 2014; as the engagement chair of the Ohio party. No one can take that away from her just because she supported Sanders, she says. “Sometimes, challenge isn’t pretty.”
Democratic voters will decide in an August 3 primary. An internal poll released on June 1 showed Turner at 50 percent and Brown at 15 percent, trailing “undecided.” But observers say the race could tighten, given Brown’s access to outside money.
Not a lot of news as the Senate and Congress are on recess. But still plenty of things to discuss! Place your comments below.
Friends,
If you were adopting a 13 mo old kitty, which looks like this, what would you name it?
Update: “Nino” as a name has 2 votes.
Bar is open for cocktails and mocktails! Nina Turner is running for Congress!
WI Old Fashioned Brandy 2020-10-07 212822.jpg
Mocktail 2020-09-08 213703.jpg
See you in the comments! Look forward to hearing your replies!
It’s official! I am running for Congress. I am asking you to join me today as part of a historic grassroots campaign–one that centers the voices of everyday working Ohioans. We have so much to do and I hope we can do it together!
Please donate 👇🏾https://t.co/BXxAz1pNDt pic.twitter.com/Hw5ENHR7LI
— Nina Turner (@ninaturner) December 15, 2020
Former State Senator Nina Turner to announce bid for Ohio’s 11th Congressional seat on Tuesday
News’ Mark Naymik has learned that on Tuesday, former State Senator Nina Turner will announce her bid for the 11th Congressional District seat being vacated by U.S. Rep. Marcia Fudge.
Fudge was tapped by President-elect Joe Biden to serve as secretary of the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development. Turner, who co-chaired Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders 2020 presidential campaign, filed federal paperwork last week establishing a campaign committee for the run but has not commented.
If Fudge is appointed, Gov. DeWine will set a date for a special primary and general election to fill the seat.
Turner filed federal paperwork last week indicating her interest in campaigning for the seat, and is expected to formally announce her intentions soon. The 53-year-old John F. Kennedy High School grad has earned a national following for her progressive politics and blunt commentary, often at the expense of the Democratic establishment.
Shontel Brown, the Cuyahoga County Democratic Party Chair and a county councilwoman, who considers Fudge a mentor, is also expected to vie for the open seat.
Other local Cleveland officials as well as civic and religious leaders are also reportedly considering a bid, though they lack the backings of party insiders that Brown and Turner have already locked up. Those reportedly considering the run for the seat include State Rep. John Barnes, Pastor Jawanza Colvin, Cleveland Councilman Blaine Griffin, former Cleveland Councilman Jeff Johnson, and former State Sen. Shirley Smith.
The Republican Party will likely field a candidate, but the GOP historically has been crushed in this district. That means the special Democratic Party primary will most likely decide who heads to Washington.
Several factors will influence who wins the primary. First, whomever Marcia Fudge endorses will have an advantage. She’s proven she can sway party insiders, who play a big role in endorsing a candidate. Brown remains close to Fudge. But the progressive wing of the party will matter, as will money. On these fronts, Turner could have an edge. Tapping a national progressive base, she could raise money more easily.
I hope she shines a light on Cleveland not getting any doses of the vaccine, despite having more cases n the hospitals than in Columbus and Cincinnati. Cleveland was on the wait list. One of my comrades at TOP says Cleveland finally got some doses.
More news, tweets, videos, etc in the comments. See my comments about the Zoom announcement call. Come join us for this momentous occasion!