One of the historically important aspects of the 2016 Bernie Sanders presidential campaign is that it very dramatically put the lie to the Clintonite notion that has dominated Democratic politics for decades, the idea that Democrats must either forever move to the right in order to draw big-money contributions from the oligarchy or they can’t be competitive. Sanders came from nowhere — a few weeks before he announced his candidacy, 60% of respondents told the Gallup poll they’d never even heard of him — and with a grassroots campaign fueled by small-dollar contributions from ordinary people, he was able to match and sometimes even surpass the fundraising of one of the most powerful political machines in the U.S. and nearly defeat its legacy candidate. This campaign has inspired a major wave of progressives candidates, ordinary people who are saying “no” to the corrupt bribery-and-donor-service system, adopting the Sanders-popularized crowdfunding model and jumping into political races all over the U.S.. It has also led to the creation of an array of new organizations (and a reinvigoration of some already-established ones) devoted to supporting those candidates.
These are extraordinary developments. When it comes to this rising army of progressive candidates, this writer, who has been to more than a few of these rodeos, has never seen its like. When wearing my political analyst cap, I’m often called upon, in various venues, to comment on them, and last Summer, I began assembling a sort of informal list of them. Mostly pretty basic information — who they are, some details about their platforms and about the districts in which they’re running, their opponents, etc. I’ve added to it over time as I’ve come across new candidates and have tried to keep it updated. It’s been posted in several places around Facebook — its natural home is a group I admin called “Populist Revolt & Lounge” — and eventually began to draw an enthusiastic response in some quarters and to be treated as a valuable resource. As that kind of resource, though, it’s somewhat limited, in that it’s basically just a random list. I’ve long toyed with various ways to better organize and present it. Twitter offers the most ideal platform capabilities for it but its character limit rules it out. One Facebook group, “Flip the House, Flip the Senate,” organized the information by states, but while that was certainly a big improvement over my original format, it still proved to be somewhat messy within the individual states, particularly as new information continued to be added. I finally just decided I’d put it in order and post it here.
No matter how extraordinary a development these progressive candidates collectively are, the corporate press is largely doling out the usual treatment it affords left candidates, blacking out their existence and trying to ignore them to death while, on the few occasions when they’re mentioned, dismissing or attacking them. Rather than encouraging this remarkable wave of new candidates, nearly all of whom are Democrats, the Democratic party Establishment is up to what has become its usual hijinks, actively trying to monkeywrench them, sabotage their campaigns, push them aside. Party organs like the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee (DCCC), its Senate counterpart (the DSCC) and Establishment-aligned orgs like EMILY’s List have continued their dismal practice of actively interfering in Democratic primary contests, throwing their support behind the corporate-backed conservative Clintonite candidates who are trying to defeat the progressives, even in deep blue districts. These efforts to centrally direct the outcome of these contests rather than letting the voters decide have, in turn, elicited barely a peep from the corporate press. The left press, however, is finally getting hip to this scam, and several good stories documenting these corrupt practices have appeared; I’ve tried to incorporate their information here.
None of these candidates are incumbents in the seats for which they’re running. Some have run before. Some have held other offices. Most are newcomers. Some will burn out quickly, others have long political careers before them, if that’s what they want. Some are near-impossible longshots, others much closer to shoe-ins. I’ve long believed a blue wave is building for 2018, the sort of wave that can carry even some of the least likely competitors to victory. When primary contests kick off — some as early as this month — some will win, some will lose and there will be some surprises both way.
A few more items: While these progressive candidates have appeared in political races at every level, a comprehensive survey is beyond my capabilities, so I’ve focused here on U.S. House and Senate races but the list isn’t even comprehensive when it comes to those contests. There are plenty of other races with plenty of other candidates and I’ll be updating the information here as I go along, or that’s the plan. When I outline a candidate’s platform, I usually just highlight a small handful of marquee items, which, if this needs to be said, aren’t representative of the candidate’s entire platform or necessarily what that candidate thinks is most important; use the links I provide.
The directory I’ve created, which is perhaps a bit too lengthy for a regular Medium article, is here:
Comments, suggestions, contrariness are, as always, welcome.
— j.
