The premature death of Our Revolution.
Our Revolution, Bernie’s Sanders organization/ PAC was launched on August, 16, 2016. Its goal was to get progressive candidates elected to Congress and also to push for certain ballot initiatives. Or, as Sanders said at its launch: to move the center of American politics to the left, and back “over a hundred candidates” and “seven key ballot initiatives” around America[1].
“We have the guts and the energy to take on the special interests, win critical battles on the most important issues of our time, and redefine what’s possible in this country.”[2]
Our Revolution started with an ambitious slate of candidates who were running for election but also a number of ballot initiatives.
Almost two years later now, I think it’s a fair assessment that Our Revolution has completely failed to get any important candidate or ballot initiative elected/ approved.
The list of candidates endorsed by our Revolution and often by Bernie Sanders in person, who have lost their primaries/ elections is ever growing. All the important ballot initiatives Bernie fought for in 2016 were rejected by the voters: from California’s proposition 61, to Colorado’s Amendment 69, which would have introduced single payer healthcare in Colorado (defeated by 79 to 21%).
Important Our Revolution endorsed candidates one by one lose their elections/ primaries.
To name just a few for 2016/ 2017:
Lucy Flores, John Fetterman, Zephyr Teachout, Tim Canova, Dwight Bullard, Russ Feingold, Arturo Carmona, Wendy Carrillo, James Thompson, Gabriel Costilla, Paul Clements, Peter Jacob, Deborah Ross, Keith Ellison (DNC chair), Misty Snow, Thomas Nelson, Vincent Fort, Tom Perriello, Rob Quist.
The reality is that in none of these races, Bernie Sanders’ or OR’s endorsement led to a victory or electoral success, on the contrary.
Note: this list does not include state senate or city council seats. OR tries to up its success number by listing city council and state senate candidates who would have won anyway, with or without OR’s help. I have not included the ones they claim as wins, but also not the ones they list as losses.
So far 2018 also doesn’t look very promising for Our Revolution:
Important endorsed candidates who lost their primary/ election so far are: Carina Driscoll (the stepdaughter of..), Tim Burns, Brianna Westbrook, Mary Newman, Derrick Crowe, Daniel Bliss. In the first week of April 2018, two OR endorsed candidates were destroyed (received only 10% of the vote) in special California primaries: Patel and Dunwoody.
Now let’s look at a typical race where Bernie Sanders and Our Revolution decided to get involved and endorse a candidate: the Wisconsin Supreme court race. While there was a perfectly qualified candidate running in Dallet, Our Revolution decided to endorse Tim Burns[3].
Why, is anyone’s guess, but an extensive social media campaign followed in which OR went all out for Burns.
When the primary results came back, it turned out Tim Burns received an ‘impressive’ 17,87% of the vote[4]. Even in his own home district Burns only received 18% of the vote, while Dallet (the Democrat against who Burns ran) received 36% there.
Another recent example is of course the stepdaughter of Bernie Sanders, Carina Driscoll who ran for mayor of Burlington. She was endorsed by Our Revolution, received their campaign support/ money and…lost.
The list of Our Revolution endorsed candidates who all lost their elections is huge by now.
So far, not a single important race has been won by OR.
While it is not to be expected that an organization like Our Revolution sees all its candidates rush to victory, it is not exactly a secret that Bernie’s electoral appeal/ power seems to have disappeared entirely.
In fact, to hide their complete lack of electoral successes, Our Revolution now proceeds to support moderate Clinton/ Obama Democrats and claims their victory as their own.
A Perfect example of this is Randall Woodfin, the Alabama State Director of Hillary Clinton’s campaign, who was endorsed by OR and, when he won his election for Birmingham mayor, celebrated as a typical OR victory.
A more recent example is the late endorsement of Stacey Abrams for Georgia Governor. Abrams, whose campaign started in June, appears to do very well in recent polls after which OR jumped on board and endorsed her. In a typical attempt to make it appear as if Our Revolution is doing fine, OR now endorses moderate/ centrist candidates.
Another peculiar fact about OR’s endorsement policies is that strange, even conservative politicians are endorsed, based upon personal relations with Nina Turner, OR’s president.
Example: Dennis Cucinich who is running for governor in Ohio. There is literally nothing progressive about this candidate, who regularly goes on Fox News to defend Trump, who visited Assad in Syria and defended this mass murderer, and so on. Yet he won the endorsement of OR, most likely because his running mate (Tara Samples) is a close friend of Nina Turner[5].
So far, the electoral power of Our Revolution seems to amount to 0,0%.
Mind you, this is a movement of which Bernie said he was going to use it to fill Congress with progressives.
The Bernie effect simply does not exist, yet the media keeps talking about Our Revolution as if it is a threat to ‘establishment’ candidates[6].
The most amazing fact however, is that not one journalist so far has taken the time to actually research Our Revolution. How does it function? How successful are its candidates? Before one writes an article, you would at least expect a journalist to study OR’s success rate, fundraising or basically its viability.
But nothing of the kind happens. It seems the MSM blindly copies any pro Bernie stuff without even asking one critical question.
Jeff Weaver who was appointed as OR’s president, left the organization a few months ago. Why? Is it because Weaver realized OR was dead before it even began? Is that why Bernie suggested he’d concentrate on smaller, down ballot races from now on? It’s very strange that none of this is discussed/ investigated in the media.
Another way to judge how OR is doing would be to look at its fundraising. Unfortunately it is impossible to get any info on this due to the form OR has chosen: it is a 501(c)(4) organization, meaning there is no need to disclose any numbers/ facts regarding its fundraising.
But the fundraising cannot be very impressive when we learn that OR could only contribute a measly 900 dollars to James Thompson’s campaign, while for example Daily Kos contributed millions of grassroots dollars to Thompson[7].
A major issue for Bernie Sanders during the primaries was campaign finance reform. The DNC should not accept any money from corporations but instead use Sanders’ successful model of small private donations. ‘Sanders e-mail list’ has become something of a myth in DC, because Sanders guards it like he’s guarding his crown jewels. The problem is of course that where people might have been willing to donate 27 dollars to Bernie in let’s say January of 2016, there is no guarantee those same people will still be willing to donate to candidate x or y in 2017–2018.
In fact: despite fundraising efforts among Sanders supporters on Reddit for example, Thompson often complained he had no money for his campaign.
While the 2018 midterms are slowly approaching and while not every primary has been held, I think it’s time to conclude that Our Revolution never accomplished much. Its candidates don’t win, Bernie’s endorsement seems more like a kiss of death for candidates than anything else and the whole Bernie myth is basically history.
Since November 2016, when Bernie was all too ready to start cooperating with Trump, his movement has been surpassed by the Resistance and groups like Indivisible.
Bernie’s electoral appeal never existed. Not in 2016 during the primaries, and not in 2016–2018 during down ballot races.
In fact it’s a myth solely based upon C- rated, sleazy pollsters (Harvard-Harris)[8] and bad unprofessional journalism.
Journalism that, as was the case with the constant coverage of Donald Trump, wins by the suggestion Bernie is still a viable candidate. Conflict and suggestions of revolutions, or even a break-up/ split in the Dem party are nice for ratings and readers.
The truth? Meh…boring.
[1] https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/post-politics/wp/2016/08/24/bernie-sanders-launches-our-revolution-with-electoral-targets-and-a-few-critics-left-behind/?utm_term=.b7b4e0bf8888
[2] http://www.newsweek.com/bernie-sanders-will-launch-our-revolution-political-organization-493207
[3] https://ourrevolution.com/press/our-revolution-endorses-tim-burns-supreme-court/
[4] https://www.jsonline.com/story/news/politics/2018/02/20/wisconsin-supreme-court-primary-michael-screnock-rebecca-dallet-advance-april-3-out-tu-3-esdays-wisc/352693002/
[5] https://twitter.com/TaraLSamples/status/954169520750518272
[6] https://www.buzzfeed.com/alexislevinson/progressives-are-determined-to-prove-in-2018-what-they?utm_term=.agJd08Qow#.tbX5eOZV1
[7] https://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/daily-kos-is-back_us_58ee985ce4b0da2ff85de500
