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Why Dems should put forth a SOTH list of names that get Dem Support [1]

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Date: 2023-10-06  

Just musing here — with a Hat Tip to TopDog08 — but can’t Leader Jeffries (love that guy) and his crew be both ‘serious in the moment’ and politically tactical for the future at the same time?

Obviously Leader Jeffries is at the top of the list of names — and this shows the consistency and unity of the caucus at a point where the actions of both sides of the House are getting (and will be getting even more) high profile media scrutiny. Consistency and Unity are the opposite of “Dems in disarray”.

Then — you get Dem Caucus consensus on 9-14 GOP Members that would be ‘somewhat / partially’ (a loaded modifier if ever there was one in this arena) politically “sane” with respect to the required approach to running the House. I’m sure our Progressive Caucus members will be among the most difficult to get on board for any f them, but having watched the growth of some of the newer CPC members (looking at you AOC in my adjacent NY district and how much more tactically savvy you’ve become) if anyone can do it, Hakeem is the man for the moment.

The GOP candidate list could almost be a litmus test of “If you don’t want to burn the House down” you make the “first” cut; you’re not on the list just yet. From that list you pick 1 or 2 GOP Members (I saw Topdog story on Brian Fitz) that would actually solve the immediate problem. But you don’t stop there, you then intersect that distilled list of non-Bomb throwers with the Biden districts and add 6 or7 or 11 or 12 of those to the list (musing on a list of a round number of 10 or 15 names).

Publish the list to the media and say — “Here we are as Dems saying that if we can’t get GOP members to vote for the leadership of a clearly qualified statesman such as Mr. Jeffries, we are advising our friends across the aisle that we will vote for anyone on this list. That’s called compromise. That’s called problem-solving. That’s called doing what’s right for the institution.”

That ring-fences the issue of getting to 218 for any SOTH nominee into a completely GOP internal problem — assuming they can’t get there on their own (i.e. a strong bet that Matt Gaetz and company will continue to be the complete pricks that they are — a good bet, me thinks).

That approach simultaneously removes something along the lines of the ‘take-away’ from the vote to vacate that far too many in the feckless American media put forth, the take-away being — why didn’t you Dems stand up for the institution when you could’ve avoided this chaos by voting for McCarthy?

The long game here — which many of the DKos community probably picked up on right away — is that all of those Biden District Goopers that make the list, that very fact that the Dems find them “ok” will be weapons grade attack fodder for primary opponents that run to their right.

Running a Gooper in 2024 even further to the right than the House members currently in Biden districts dramatically changes the odds of flipping those seats back to Dems.

I know, I know…. I’m musing that Machiavelli is a bit jealous right now. ;-).

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[1] Url: https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2023/10/6/2197731/-Why-Dems-should-put-forth-a-SOTH-list-of-names-that-get-Dem-Support?pm_campaign=front_page&pm_source=more_community&pm_medium=web

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