There was a good discussion in the comments yesterday about El-Sayed and the difficulty of electing him in Michigan, which I certainly don’t deny or minimize. My take, for what it’s worth, is that Stevens would have been a poor candidate in her own special way, so let’s see what El-Sayed can do.
For a more concrete example of the baggage that non-leftist candidates drag around let’s look at the “safer” choice in Wisconsin (via a reader on BlueSky):
In the early days of the general election campaign for Wisconsin governor, Republican U.S. Rep. Tom Tiffany has tried to paint his Democratic opponent as too supportive of the data center industry.
Tiffany’s campaign released a new TV ad Monday, labeling Milwaukee County Executive David Crowley as “data center David Crowley.” In the ad, Crowley is seen saying Wisconsin has the opportunity to be “an AI and a data hub not only for the entire country, but for the entire globe.”
Democrats should own the data center issue, lock stock and barrel. If you’re still for data centers, and you’re a Democrat, you shouldn’t get anyone’s vote. It’s simple political malpractice to let a Republican exploit an opening on this issue.
Moving on to Florida, I posted this in the comments yesterday, but the “safe” candidate for Senate in Florida, Alexander Vindman, sure didn’t seem to have good political judgment:
Vindman spent much of the primary behaving as though November, not Nixon, was the only race he needed to worry about.
He refused to debate Nixon and rarely addressed her campaign.
Vindman was so "arrogant" that he "literally laughed at Angie Nixon. Said he didn't even think he was in a primary," veteran Florida political consultant Jacob Perry, who had been in discussions with Vindman to join his campaign at one point, told Axios.
How it happened: Nixon had less money, but she had something Vindman's national fundraising couldn't buy: an organizing base and years of relationships inside Florida.
She was already well known in Jacksonville, a major media market packed with Democratic voters, and ran up the numbers, winning 80% of the vote.
Her strength traveled farther than expected. She posted big vote totals in liberal college towns as well as in Orlando and South Florida, including — most surprisingly to Florida's political hands watching the returns — in Miami-Dade.
Vindman got trounced by Nixon, but his campaign apparently had no idea that she was coming. Where was he? Relying on airbombing the base with ads, and disrespecting them by not showing up. Adios, “safe” candidate Vindman.
Nixon might be a socialist but she knew how to organize her campaign, which is one up on Vindman. Also, yeah, she’s going to answer questions about being “DSA” but she did a good job here:
Nixon is clearly a fighter. Might as well see what she can do.
Then we have this maroon:
My god. Let’s not “juice the virality” of any of our messages. Instead, let’s make sure that nobody fucking hears them. This is supposedly the great political mind who got Obama elected — my take is that he’s another waterboy who thinks he was the quarterback (to steal Oliver Willis’ phrase). Dave Karpf has a good take on Axelrod’s stupidity.
I also agree with this:
Jamelle Bouie had a good video about the whole Natalie thing, where he contrasts Ossof’s deftness with the usual Democratic “res ipsa loquitur” messaging.
Beating Trump and MAGA will take us all out of our comfort zones, nobody more than the leaders like Jeffries and Schumer who want business as usual after winning a “Trump bad” election. If that happens, we’re doomed. So, bring on the “unsafe” candidates, I say, because “safety” has gotten us where we are today.
