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CNN Projection: Rubio, Wasserman Schultz win Florida primaries

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Hexa

Hexa

Member
Wait. I thought Rubio was adamant he wasn't running. When did that change? Welp. Didn't even notice.
Also boo DWS.
 
H

Hellwarden

Member
The guy Rubio beat, Carlos Beruff, really liked to fashion himself after Trump, and repeatedly referred to Obama as an animal.

That awkward moment where you're happy Rubio won something.
 
T

Tarydax

Banned
Vilix said:
He was one of the more saner candidates IMO.
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Eh, he just wasn't a loudmouth like Trump or hugely unlikable like Cruz. He was more extreme than either of them on social issues (he wanted to make divorce more difficult, among other things), and economically he was just as much of an extremist as every other Republican. Like Kasich, he just appeared to be moderate in comparison to Trump because he (Rubio) brought a dogwhistle to the party and Trump brought an air horn.
 
E

excelsiorlef

Member
Weaver's also a fuck up

The political revolution has let Tim Canova down. Bernie Sanders hasn’t shown up to campaign for his chosen primary challenger to Debbie Wasserman Schultz, the former chair of the Democratic National Committee. Heading into a Florida Democratic primary on Tuesday, Canova is behind by double digits in recent polling and looks likely to lose the race.

But that’s only part of the story. Former staffers at Our Revolution, the organization created to act as a successor to the Sanders campaign, believe the group did not do as much as it should have to help Canova in his bid to defeat the veteran Florida congresswoman.

A number of staffers who resigned from Our Revolution in protest over how it has been run say the organization’s 501(c)(4) status made it impossible to coordinate strategy with the Canova campaign, leaving the campaign worse off as a result. At least some departing staffers believe the organization should be set up under a different legal structure so that it can coordinate with candidates it endorses in the future and do more to help them win.

“I would absolutely say the prohibition on coordinating hurt the Canova campaign,” said Paul Schaffer, the former data and analytics director for Our Revolution. "We have an enormous core of dedicated volunteers. But when Our Revolution was set up as a 501(c)(4), that prevented us from mobilizing that big pool of Bernie supporters to work jointly with the campaign to get out the vote.”

Former Our Revolution staffers emphasize that they don’t fault Sanders for the way the organization has been managed. (Sanders has clarified that he will not be controlling or directing the organization.) Instead, many staffers who resigned blame Jeff Weaver, Sanders’s former campaign manager who was recently brought in to run Our Revolution, for the decision to operate the organization as a 501(c)(4).

The set-up appears to have caused organizational challenges and legal headaches. According to former volunteer engagement manager Ceci Hall, since Our Revolution wasn’t able to coordinate voter contact efforts with the campaign, a task that involved directing volunteers to call voters and encourage them to support the Canova campaign and get out to vote, some voters ended up receiving calls from both the campaign and Our Revolution.

At one point, according to Hall, the Canova campaign even notified Our Revolution that people had started to complain that they were receiving what amounted to duplicate calls, and requested that the organization stop its calls. Our Revolution decided to stop phone banking as a result. “That was really frustrating,” she said. “We were trying, but our help wasn't as effective as it could have been because we weren't able to coordinate directly.” When asked if his campaign notified Our Revolution to let them know that there were duplicate calls, and asked them to stop, Canova said in an e-mail: “Yes, I believe we contacted Our Rev[olution] about the duplicate calls and got them to stop.”

It’s possible that in an attempt to avoid coordination, the campaign and Our Revolution actually ended up violating campaign finance law. “I think this is evidence of coordination,” Larry Noble, the general counsel for the Campaign Legal Center, said after hearing that description of events. Noble noted that “it’s a bit trickier” to judge whether an agreement not to do something would count as coordination, but added “at the very least, the information justifies an investigation into what was actually said.”

“I don’t believe any rules were violated at this point,” Jeff Weaver said in an interview, though he noted that he “can’t attest to anything they did or didn’t do before I came on board here.” Weaver said one reason he had been brought in to help manage the organization was “to make sure things were done completely by the books here,” saying “there was less appreciation of that by people who were then here, who are no longer here.”

“As far as I know, any discussions that anyone in my campaign had with anyone in Senator Sanders’ campaign occurred before anyone was informed that there was a new entity with a 501(c)(4) status by the name of Our Revolution,” Canova said in an e-mail.

Legal scrutiny and controversy over mass resignations at the organization overshadowed its public launch last week. It looks like the growing pains aren’t over yet.

There’s a lot more at stake than the Florida primary race. When Sanders started winding down his presidential campaign, he called on supporters to “start running for school boards, city councils, county commissions, state legislatures and governorships.” First-time candidates are likely to need more help running a campaign than veteran politicians. The question now is whether Sanders, Our Revolution, and his supporters will be able to give candidates inspired by that call to action what they need to win.

“I thought the goal would be to take what we had done on the campaign, and ​continue to do that.”
Our Revolution will have difficulty harnessing the potential of Sanders’ grassroots movement if it can’t effectively deploy volunteers and other recruits to work for campaigns or provide direct support to a new wave of candidates who have never run for office. If the organization fails to live up to the standards set by the insurgent presidential campaign, Sanders supporters are sure to be disappointed.

There are several reasons why 501(c)(4) status seems ill-suited for Our Revolution. 501(c)(4)s are a type of non-profit organization that can accept unlimited amounts of money without disclosing donors—a set up that could put the group at odds with the way Sanders raised money during the presidential election by shunning wealthy donors and relying on small-dollar donations. 501(c)(4)s also cannot engage in political activity as their primary purpose. According to Noble of the Campaign Legal Center, a 501(c)(4) such as Our Revolution would not be permitted to coordinate directly with campaigns it is supporting. That could make it harder for Our Revolution to help progressive candidates win elections.

Former staffers say the way the group has been set up to operate isn’t what they signed up for.“I thought the goal would be to take what we had done on the campaign, and ​continue to do that,​ but helping many candidates instead of just one,” Schaffer said. “How can you do that effectively if you can’t even talk to the campaigns?”

Other progressive advocacy groups that endorse and support candidates have opted to operate as traditional political action committees, in part because of the strategic value of coordinating with campaigns.

"It's vital to be able to work directly with candidates, to know what their internal strategy is and to contribute to it," said Stephanie Taylor, a co-founder of the Progressive Change Campaign Committee, which runs a political action committee that endorses and helps progressive candidates. "Starting up a campaign is like setting up and running a small business in twelve to eighteen months. It can be daunting, especially if you've never done it before. But since we can talk to the campaigns, we're able to come in and help out with that process."
...

He defended Our Revolution’s 501(c)(4) status. “We’re not just involved in federal campaigns. We are involved in ballot initiatives, educational activities, a whole host of activities, and this is just the most appropriate vehicle for doing that in my view,” he said. Grassroots organizing will be “a critical, and indispensable part of any strategy to transform this country,” Weaver said, though “there are other modern tools of campaigning, including television, which also play an important role.” He added that Our Revolution “will have a policy to disclose larger donations” and that “we may in fact establish an affiliated PAC [political action committee]” at some point in the future.
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tl;dr, they set up a political group that can't legally coordinate with and help candidates they might want to see elected and is also rigged in such a way that it can take unlimited anonymous money with no requirement for donor disclosure. So it's an opaque group that can't actually help the people it was set up to help, but don't worry Weaver says it's all according to plan and will someday have a policy for disclosure of large donations (bot not yet)

As for Sanders

Canova certainly sounds like a candidate who has been let down. He has publicly lamented the fact that Sanders hasn’t campaigned for him, despite hinting that he might. “The rule against me and my campaign having contact with Our Revolution and Senator Sanders did indeed make it more difficult to work with the group, and perhaps impeded our efforts to solicit assistance for my campaign,” Canova said when asked specifically about the organization. He added: “We were in the middle of selecting dates for Senator Sanders to campaign for me in South Florida when the 501(c)(4) status of Our Revolution prevented any meaningful communication, and the plans went nowhere.”
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http://www.theatlantic.com/politics...rnie-sanders-debbie-wasserman-schultz/497807/
 
I

Iolo

Member
Sanders installed Weaver in Our Revolution despite the objections (in writing!) of staff so it seems a bit disingenuous to absolve him of any role in the matter.
 
B

BitStyle

Unconfirmed Member
It seems that even Sanders bailed on Canova in the end, so the outcome wasn't unexpected.

Though I'll do my best in aiding Murphy in November against Rubio.
 
K

Korigama

Member
Vilix said:
Isn't that every Republican though?
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The ones who insist on no exceptions for rape, incest, or life of the mother, as is the case with him, are the worst of all. Adding no exceptions for Zika down the line after the primaries were long over was only a bonus.
 
B

Blader

Member
I lol'd when I read earlier that Rubio said he wouldn't even commit to staying in the Senate for six years. The guy is the most fucking transparent ladder climber in recent memory.

BitStyle said:
It seems that even Sanders bailed on Canova in the end, so the outcome wasn't unexpected.

Though I'll do my best in aiding Murphy in November against Rubio.
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Bernie hardly did anything for Canova in the first place.
 
T

Team Alucard

Banned
DWS will be leaving for a high-ranking cabinet position if Hillary wins and her career in regards to any higher aspirations is over if Hillary loses, so the result of her race is more or less irrelevant. Although it would have been delicious schadenfreude to see her lose.

The Clintons always reward loyalty, regardless of how awful and toxic the person in question is.
 
M

Mr. RPG

Member
excelsiorlef said:
Which amounted to *drum roll*

A 14% loss....
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Which is a lot better than Bernie's performance in that district during his primary.

Debbie's performance in the primary is pretty pathetic considering that she was endorsed by Obama, Biden, and Hillary.

I hope she's primaried again.

Team Alucard said:
DWS will be leaving for a high-ranking cabinet position if Hillary wins and her career in regards to any higher aspirations is over if Hillary loses, so the result of her race is more or less irrelevant. Although it would have been delicious schadenfreude to see her lose.

The Clintons always reward loyalty, regardless of how awful and toxic the person in question is.
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There is no way this is happening. Hillary isn't going to do this.
 
A

Aaron Strife

Banned
I'd be all for a more progressive primary challenger to Wasserman-Schultz (DNC antics aside her views on marijuana and crime are frustrating and annoying), but Canova was an opportunistic piece of shit. Not everyone who allies themselves with the Sanders movement is a paragon of purity. In fact, no one is.
 
E

EmpressInYellow

Banned
Canova is also kind of a nutjob who vehemently opposes the Iran deal and, if I recall, had hinted at some conspiracy theories related to same.

I have no particular love for DWS, but as for Canova: good riddance.
 
M

Mr. RPG

Member
Holmes said:
So thrilled. She will be the next Secretary of State!
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Don't give me nightmares.

Aaron Strife said:
I'd be all for a more progressive primary challenger to Wasserman-Schultz (DNC antics aside her views on marijuana and crime are frustrating and annoying), but Canova was an opportunistic piece of shit. Not everyone who allies themselves with the Sanders movement is a paragon of purity. In fact, no one is.
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EmpressInYellow said:
Canova is also kind of a nutjob who vehemently opposes the Iran deal and, if I recall, had hinted at some conspiracy theories related to same.

I have no particular love for DWS, but as for Canova: good riddance.
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It is pretty clear that you guys still have a grudge against Bernie and anyone even associated with him.
 
A

Aaron Strife

Banned
Mr. RPG said:
It is pretty clear that you guys still have a grudge against Bernie and anyone even associated with him.
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Jfc I fucking voted for the guy. Canova sucks and it has nothing to do with Bernie.

You know who else sucked? Alan Grayson, the "liberal" candidate in the Florida Senate primary for the Democrats who beats his wives and keeps all his money in offshore bank accounts. I'm glad he lost too.
 
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