Harry Bosch
Contributor
Let's see what would happen if the shoe was on the other foot. Like if your favorite candidate lost because an opposing candidate had a massively-funded outside-money campaign that involved horrible smears, like saying that your candidate was for lots of extreme positions.I'm sorry to say but Nina lost because she had fewer votes than Brown. Period. There is no evil cabals of "corporate democratic meanies" conspiring to hold back the far left. The voters in Ohio liked Brown a little bit more than Nina. A tiny majority of dem voters liked Biden a little more than Sanders. A smaller majority liked Hillary slightly more than Sanders. People like Marianne alleging conspiracies to steal the vote are no better than the Trump voter crazies alleging conspiracies.
That's a downside of representative democracy - elections turning into shouting matches.
Also, why not weep for Rep. Joe Crowley in 2018? Rep. Mike Capuano?
Briahna Joy Gray: Nina Turner DEFEATED Thanks To DARK MONEY, Here’s What Progressives MUST Learn - YouTube -- part of iSB was getting a lot of Republican-leaning voters to vote against NT, something possible because Ohio's primaries are open primaries. She also noted that something similar happened in South Carolina -- getting out the votes of Republican-leaning suburbanites.
More broadly, that's a problem with open partisan primaries. People from outside the party might show up and cause mischief. I think that we should make all primaries nonpartisan, with the top-performing candidates continuing to the general election. Something like what CA and WA now do with their top-two system. If nothing else, it's made for some genuinely competitive general elections, with two Democrats or two Republicans up against each other. Like last year, Nancy Pelosi being challenged on her left by a fellow Democrat.
Finally, has SB ever laid out what kind of policy vision she wants? Anything comparable to what NT did? Not that I know of. There is nothing to say that a centrist candidate cannot lay out some policy vision or some agenda, and right-wing candidates often do so.
2016 election was a big reminder that spending dosn't always decide elections. HRC overspent Trump. Mike Bloomberg always dramatically overspends his opponents. He always loses. He just isn't likable. I think that there just a few more voters who liked Brown more than Nina. Brown has charisma and appeals to a broad base of voters that might get her elected against the republican. That's the biggest issue to me: defeat Trump and his henchmen.