It’s NOT really a big fight…
With a new House majority?
Democrats in the House are not in any mood to give it away…
While Progressive/Lefties in the party may want things to be wide open for anybody?
Common sense means you protect those who enable you to even have a majority…
THAT mean’s party unity over pure ideology ….
THAT means the party doesn’t go running headlong to the left for EVERYBODY….
‘Different Strokes for Different Folks’….
What works in a pure Democratic district is NOT gonna work in a district that was won from aa Trump Republican last November….
Liberal’s beating a moderate in a primary only to get blown out in the election is kinda stupid…..
The House Democratic campaign arm is on the verge of open warfare with the party’s rising liberal wing as political operatives close to Speaker Nancy Pelosi try to shut down primary challenges before what is likely to be a hard-fought campaign next year to preserve the party’s shaky majority.
Progressive Democrats were infuriated last month when Representative Cheri Bustos of Illinois, the chairwoman of the campaign arm, the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, moved to protect centrist incumbents by formally breaking committee business ties with political consultants and pollsters who go to work for primary challengers.
Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Democrat of New York, who owes her seat to a successful primary challenge, went so far as to encourage her 3.8 million Twitter followers to “pause” their donations to the campaign committee in protest.
Ms. Bustos’s rule prohibits Democratic consultants and vendors working for a primary challenger to an incumbent from receiving work from the committee. It comes as ardent liberal organizations such as Justice Democrats, emboldened by a pair of high-profile wins in 2018 — Representative Ayanna Pressley of Massachusetts and Ms. Ocasio-Cortez — are aggressively gearing up to challenge centrist or old-line Democrats with liberal candidates.
In the latest swipe in a fight that has erupted into open hostilities, a coalition of progressive groups on Friday introduced an online database of go-to vendors for insurgent candidates emblazoned with the heading, “Despite the D.C.C.C.’s bullying, we’re still going to work on primaries.”
One group, the Progressive Change Campaign Committee, said Friday that it was exploring a challenge against Representative Richard E. Neal of Massachusetts, the chairman of the powerful Ways and Means Committee, because he has not committed to holding hearings on the single-payer health care system known as “Medicare for all.” At the helm of that panel, Mr. Neal has been on the front lines of conducting oversight on President Trump’s finances, and last week requested six years of his personal tax returns.
“We reject the D.C.C.C.’s attempt to hoard power, which will only serve to keep that talent pool — and Congress itself — disproportionately white and male,” María Urbina, the national political director for Indivisible, a progressive grass-roots group, said of the campaign committee. “Incumbents who engage fully with their constituents shouldn’t fear primaries and shouldn’t rely on the national institutions like the D.C.C.C. to suppress challenges before voters ever have a say.”
Party leaders and the campaign arm have stood by Ms. Bustos’s moves, arguing that the committee’s mandate is to protect the new majority by protecting incumbents — and that putting a longstanding rule in writing simply increases transparency. Primary challenges, even in solid Democratic districts, harm the mission of holding the majority, they argue, because incumbents fighting a primary challenge cannot raise money and help other Democrats in more marginal districts.
“I support the notion that the primary purpose of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee is to elect Democrats in tough districts, so we can either win the majority or hold the majority,” said Representative Hakeem Jeffries of New York, the No. 4 Democrat…..