David, in addition to running everywhere and ending gerrymandering, we could benefit greatly from ranked choice voting. I don’t know that it would rid us of the Mike Johnsons, but plenty of seats would benefit from it.
Please read and share. David Pepper is very clear about the problem (gerrymandering destroys democracy) and the solution—RUN EVERYWHERE. See Blue Missouri, Blue Ohio and Blue CD2 New Mexico re: actions we can all take toward the solution.
David, Many of us on here have been convinced via your work about leaving no district unopposed, and involved in the attempts (in Ohio) to end gerrymandering. I would very much like to hear more about the Precinct work that I think you wrote about once (unless that was someone else) And also about what needs to be done to get the money out of politics. Several important races in Ohio (and I'm sure others too) were dominated by the billionaire Republican cadre.. it almost didn't matter what the candidate stood for that it becomes depressing, demoralizing to continue. Now I'm reading the analyses that seem to show that tRump didn't so much win over more voters, but that many Dems who voted for Biden in '20 didn't show up for Harris. If people aren't showing up to vote for president, how can we expect that we will be able to build our state and local cadre of candidates that can do the jobs..
Great commentary! Please read Jess Piper from Rural Missouri’s Substack as she explains the same phenomenon of uncontested races in every level of State and local elections in her state. She helped get the abortion initiative on the ballot that won in 2024 but now the Missouri State Legislature is trying to overturn it. She explains it takes more than one election to get it across to voters that they can make a difference by electing Democrats that will represent them and their interests. The DNC must support state and county level Democrats running for office. Ben Winkler is currently running to lead the DNC and he is on fire to make these changes happen.
To me, an "empty ballot" signifies an empty party. At a bare minimum we need at least "filing fee" candidates. Individuals willing to put their name on the ballot knowing that it will be impossible for them to win in gerrymandered districts, but they still step up to give people a choice and plant seeds of hope. They win by losing, causing the other party to spend money, time and other resources in defense of their seats. I also believe it is disingenuous for party leaders to try and convince these candidates that they can actually win and try to get them to have very active and time consuming and emotionally draining campaigns. Start small by having names on the ballot, and by just having a candidate that will likely reduce the other party's winning margin.
In AZ we are one of the states that has an independent redistricting commission that draws/redraws the legislative districts every ten years. It’s fair with exceptions (LD17 in Pima County). I can’t imagine what they’d look like if we left it up to our right-wing lawmakers. Funny how Arizona turns out to be quite progressive in this area yet we slid backwards this election and are further away from turning state house and state senate blue. Headline in Nov 2022 “Purple Reigns”. Now? Not so much.
I wondered how all these ignorant, selfish, extreme and hateful individuals ended up in office. I, of course, knew about gerrymandering, but this goes further into why, and is such powerful information that seems to be held in secrecy. If only we had real journalists like David Pepper to spread truth throughout our country, what a different world we’d be living in.
Such important information in this piece David . The question is : after this election with Democratic leaders supposedly doing a deep dive into what went wrong , will there be a decision to stop ceding virtually whole states to Republicans by not supporting candidates there. It will take a lot of hard work for a long time to make progress but the alternative is that more than half the country is being abandoned. Anderson Clayton, the North Carolina Dem Party Chair is determined to change that and she is making progress.
We also need a national ongoing messaging campaign on the accomplishments of the Democrats. The DNC chair never educated the country on the accomplishments of President Biden and the Democrats the past 4 years. A simple educational commercial listing the problems President Biden faced when he took office in 2021 and a list of how he lead America to confront these problems resulting in the strongest economy and economic recovery from COVID would have gone a long way. Americans need an education on the results of Citizen United and how we can legislatively combat this outrageous decision and the result. Americans need an education on our tax system where the wealthy pay less than 8 % in Federal taxes. The DNC never put together a national education strategy.
Thanks tons. ( and thanks Jess Piper for forwarding )
The DNC wants my money. I want an all new DNC.
And where is Carville ?? Yapping, not getting his network to run candidates in his home state . . . not even talking about this fundamental point.
The prior Louisiana governor was a Democrat !
thanks again, b.rad
ps to keep this other fundamental point out there <uswealthclock.com>. We have $160 Trillion net wealth; we can afford the best for all citizens. We are way solvent; we are not anywhere near being ‘in debt.’ Heard that recently? Check the numbers and sources.
Two of the people running for Democratic chair were adamant about running in every state, contesting every election. We need to build at the local levels as well as making sure we get our message out there
When Trump won the first time in 2016, we were angry, anxious and rudderless. We didn’t know where to turn or what to do. This time we have hundreds of pro-democracy organizations and millions of grass roots activists ready and motivated to resist Trump and his Project 2025 agenda.
In the past 8 years or so, we have built the largest pro-democracy grassroots coalition in the history of this country and we’re not about to give up.
While we had a disappointing election result in the Presidential race, we actually made some solid progress in state and local elections. The progress was a result of the hard work of these grassroots organizations and their volunteers.
Run For Something is an organization that has been working hard to solve the uncontested political races problem. Their mission is to have Democrats contesting every Republican legislator up and down the ballot even in deep red MAGA country.
Since launching in January of 2017, they have recruited nearly 100,000 people across all 50 states to run for state or local office.
Run For Something “Provides a safety net for new and existing progressive leaders — at all stages of their journey — helping them run efficient, strategic, grassroots driven campaigns while feeling supported throughout the process.”
Check out their website ( https://runforsomething.net/ ) to get help running for office, recommend someone to run for office, subscribe to their newsletter, volunteer and donate.
I read about Johnson never facing an opponent in any race when he got to Speaker position. 3rd in line for President, and never had anyone running against him. Amazing!
David, in addition to running everywhere and ending gerrymandering, we could benefit greatly from ranked choice voting. I don’t know that it would rid us of the Mike Johnsons, but plenty of seats would benefit from it.
Please read and share. David Pepper is very clear about the problem (gerrymandering destroys democracy) and the solution—RUN EVERYWHERE. See Blue Missouri, Blue Ohio and Blue CD2 New Mexico re: actions we can all take toward the solution.
David Pepper has been laser-focused and we need to do everything we can to share his concerns and solutions widely.
David, Many of us on here have been convinced via your work about leaving no district unopposed, and involved in the attempts (in Ohio) to end gerrymandering. I would very much like to hear more about the Precinct work that I think you wrote about once (unless that was someone else) And also about what needs to be done to get the money out of politics. Several important races in Ohio (and I'm sure others too) were dominated by the billionaire Republican cadre.. it almost didn't matter what the candidate stood for that it becomes depressing, demoralizing to continue. Now I'm reading the analyses that seem to show that tRump didn't so much win over more voters, but that many Dems who voted for Biden in '20 didn't show up for Harris. If people aren't showing up to vote for president, how can we expect that we will be able to build our state and local cadre of candidates that can do the jobs..
Great commentary! Please read Jess Piper from Rural Missouri’s Substack as she explains the same phenomenon of uncontested races in every level of State and local elections in her state. She helped get the abortion initiative on the ballot that won in 2024 but now the Missouri State Legislature is trying to overturn it. She explains it takes more than one election to get it across to voters that they can make a difference by electing Democrats that will represent them and their interests. The DNC must support state and county level Democrats running for office. Ben Winkler is currently running to lead the DNC and he is on fire to make these changes happen.
To me, an "empty ballot" signifies an empty party. At a bare minimum we need at least "filing fee" candidates. Individuals willing to put their name on the ballot knowing that it will be impossible for them to win in gerrymandered districts, but they still step up to give people a choice and plant seeds of hope. They win by losing, causing the other party to spend money, time and other resources in defense of their seats. I also believe it is disingenuous for party leaders to try and convince these candidates that they can actually win and try to get them to have very active and time consuming and emotionally draining campaigns. Start small by having names on the ballot, and by just having a candidate that will likely reduce the other party's winning margin.
In AZ we are one of the states that has an independent redistricting commission that draws/redraws the legislative districts every ten years. It’s fair with exceptions (LD17 in Pima County). I can’t imagine what they’d look like if we left it up to our right-wing lawmakers. Funny how Arizona turns out to be quite progressive in this area yet we slid backwards this election and are further away from turning state house and state senate blue. Headline in Nov 2022 “Purple Reigns”. Now? Not so much.
Hope you don’t lose your D governor and D sec state anytime soon. And electing Gallego to Senate was excellent
I wondered how all these ignorant, selfish, extreme and hateful individuals ended up in office. I, of course, knew about gerrymandering, but this goes further into why, and is such powerful information that seems to be held in secrecy. If only we had real journalists like David Pepper to spread truth throughout our country, what a different world we’d be living in.
THIS
Such important information in this piece David . The question is : after this election with Democratic leaders supposedly doing a deep dive into what went wrong , will there be a decision to stop ceding virtually whole states to Republicans by not supporting candidates there. It will take a lot of hard work for a long time to make progress but the alternative is that more than half the country is being abandoned. Anderson Clayton, the North Carolina Dem Party Chair is determined to change that and she is making progress.
We also need a national ongoing messaging campaign on the accomplishments of the Democrats. The DNC chair never educated the country on the accomplishments of President Biden and the Democrats the past 4 years. A simple educational commercial listing the problems President Biden faced when he took office in 2021 and a list of how he lead America to confront these problems resulting in the strongest economy and economic recovery from COVID would have gone a long way. Americans need an education on the results of Citizen United and how we can legislatively combat this outrageous decision and the result. Americans need an education on our tax system where the wealthy pay less than 8 % in Federal taxes. The DNC never put together a national education strategy.
Thanks tons. ( and thanks Jess Piper for forwarding )
The DNC wants my money. I want an all new DNC.
And where is Carville ?? Yapping, not getting his network to run candidates in his home state . . . not even talking about this fundamental point.
The prior Louisiana governor was a Democrat !
thanks again, b.rad
ps to keep this other fundamental point out there <uswealthclock.com>. We have $160 Trillion net wealth; we can afford the best for all citizens. We are way solvent; we are not anywhere near being ‘in debt.’ Heard that recently? Check the numbers and sources.
Two of the people running for Democratic chair were adamant about running in every state, contesting every election. We need to build at the local levels as well as making sure we get our message out there
Need to get dark money and stock trading out of Congress as well.
When Trump won the first time in 2016, we were angry, anxious and rudderless. We didn’t know where to turn or what to do. This time we have hundreds of pro-democracy organizations and millions of grass roots activists ready and motivated to resist Trump and his Project 2025 agenda.
In the past 8 years or so, we have built the largest pro-democracy grassroots coalition in the history of this country and we’re not about to give up.
While we had a disappointing election result in the Presidential race, we actually made some solid progress in state and local elections. The progress was a result of the hard work of these grassroots organizations and their volunteers.
Run For Something is an organization that has been working hard to solve the uncontested political races problem. Their mission is to have Democrats contesting every Republican legislator up and down the ballot even in deep red MAGA country.
Since launching in January of 2017, they have recruited nearly 100,000 people across all 50 states to run for state or local office.
Run For Something “Provides a safety net for new and existing progressive leaders — at all stages of their journey — helping them run efficient, strategic, grassroots driven campaigns while feeling supported throughout the process.”
Check out their website ( https://runforsomething.net/ ) to get help running for office, recommend someone to run for office, subscribe to their newsletter, volunteer and donate.
I read about Johnson never facing an opponent in any race when he got to Speaker position. 3rd in line for President, and never had anyone running against him. Amazing!