Category Archives: Liberal

My editor says: Would you mind writing a piece about the Leftists at Oxford? I know you moonlight as a historian and I wouldnt want to ruin your career prospects. Goodness me, I laughed, Ill never get a job at Oxford now! Not after working ten years at the Telegraph!

Thats the context to a week of no platforming at Britains second best university. Amber Rudd was uninvited from an Oxford society event just half an hour before she was due to speak, and Prof Selina Todd was dropped from the Oxford International Womens Festival.

Prof Todd, who teaches womens history at St Hildas, has also been threatened with violence and been appointed two security guards for her protection. Her crime? Shes been labelled transphobic, what the Left calls a trans-exclusionary radical feminist or a terf. If I were Prof Todd Id see if I could get a ticket into space so that I could introduce myself at parties as an astro-terf.

Theres a fightback against no-platforming going on, but a part of me wonders whats the point. Who wants to speak at anything in Oxford anymore?

Universities have been dominated by the liberal-Left for decades but this has intensified as conservatives have dropped out of academia and academia increasingly ascribes to itself a cultural identity: in many faculties it is assumed that to be a scholar is by definitionto be Leftwing, an attitude only hardened by Brexit, which the universities overwhelmingly opposed. As is almost always the case with the Left, the louder the virtue signalling the more regressive the institution is.

I cannot think of a career where the pay is more unequal, elitism more commonplace, harassment or bullying a way of life,and the politicsis uglier or more hypocritical. I recently had dinner at high table and endured an hour of being told how progressive and diverse the college is and it took a superhuman effort not to point out that literally everyone around the table, bar one guest from Asia, was an old white man.

There is an element of performance in university culture: whats presented as an ideological contest is often a fight over jobs, resources and authority. If you find the language of the terf v trans battle opaque, with its largely irrelevant arguments about sex v gender, then its because this is an internal identity politics spat that has nothing to do with you, the average woman or even the trans person who just wants to be boring and ordinary. Its Bolsheviks v Mensheviks; trots v Stalinists. It is, quite literally, a turf war.

If it seems particularly unpleasant then that just reflects the wider tone of liberal-Left politics, a politics that, on campus, not only doesnt care for conservative opinion but never encounters it and thus never even considers it beyond a rote denunciation of bigotry. To repeat, the striking character of academia is not intellectual Leftwingery serious Marxists are few and far between but its narrow-minded elitism.

For example, in the last decade, Oxbridge has appointed a number of liberal journalists as masters of colleges, including Will Hutton (Observer editor) and Alan Rusbridger (Guardian editor). This will have been not just on their merits but because the face and name of a journalist lends itself to fundraising, so the primary motivation is pecuniary.

But their appointment also helps reinforce the wall that has always existed between the university and the conservative country beyond it, and given that these liberal-Left figures have spent their career demonising Tories, portraying them as wicked and ignorant, its no wonder that students would feel that a) Ms Rudd does not belong in Oxford and b) that they have a moral duty to keep her out.

Ms Rudd is in fact a soft-Remainer; it would presumably be worse if she were a fullblown Leaver. Will Hutton has, in the pages of Guardian (because there is no other newspaper in elitesville) compared Brexiteers to fascists. You cant argue with that. Its really not worth it.

All I can say is that the day will come when some loony Remainer will decide that Mr Hutton isnt Remainery enough and will call him a fascist, because thats what the Left is like. Having gone to war on the church, the family, capitalism and the Tories calling them everything under the sun many on the liberal-Left now find the spirit of intolerance they unleashed turned against them.

The irony is they can probably count on conservatives to rush to their defence, not only because Tories believe in the free exchange of ideas, but because they are usually very nice people when you get to know them. If Oxford wants to quell student fanaticism and send a message about free speech, it could start by appointing a dozen or so Tories as college masters. Id pay good money to see Mark Francois run St Hildas.

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The University liberal-Left is reaping the whirlwind of its own political intolerance - Telegraph.co.uk

Israel held its third election in a year yesterday and once again the right wing is on top. Netanyahu won a large plurality though he is indicted and about to go on trial on corruption charges. The new left bloc of three parties including Labor and Meretz got all of seven seats.

There is now just one address for liberal and leftwing politics in Israel: the Joint List of Palestinian parties, the third largest vote getter with a whopping 15 seats, up from 10 last April. It is said that the Palestinian parties drew Jewish voters. That is something the Joint List wanted: Joint List for a Joint future!

There is no real resistance to policies of annexation and apartheid except from the Joint List. Netanyahus chief rival, Benny Gantz, hurt himself among Jewish voters by suggesting and then withdrawing the possibility that he could form a government with the help of the Palestinian parties (Oren Kessler said on i24 News just now). While Trumps peace plan, which cements apartheid, was supported by Gantzs party and Netanyahus: so an overwhelming percentage of Jewish parliamentarians over 90 by my count back the destruction of plans to divide the land and measures to annex portions of Judea and Samaria.

Lets be clear about what we see in Israel. This is a Jewish democracy, the advancement Israels supporters in the U.S. are constantly crowing about. It is a country where the worst fears of Arabs are stoked by politicians, even as the government ethnically cleanses Palestinians. It is a country where any Jewish politician who says he is going to work with Palestinians is quickly marginalized.

Likud ad shows Benny Gantz sitting with Palestinian politicians Ayman Odeh and Ahmad Tibi. March 2020. From Netanyahus twitter feed. That image was followed by the one below.

Likud ad shows an Israeli voter reacting to the possibility of Benny Gantz making a political coalition with Palestinian politicians Ayman Odeh and Ahmad Tibi. March 2020. From Netanyahus twitter feed.

The Jewish democracy demonstrates just what liberals and lefties always warned you about nationalism. It is intolerant and racist and paranoid and blindered and fascistic, it builds a security state armed to the teeth against multiple enemies. And three elections inside a year in Israel offer indelible proof that This is what Jewish nationalists want. A society governed by an authoritarian leader, no matter how corrupt. Just so long as there are no Arabs anywhere near power.

Saeb Erekat, the Palestinian leader, said the election was a victory for annexation and apartheid, and Yossi Alpher at Americans for Peace Now says thats the sad math of the Israeli electorate:

Gantz stumbled. He knew a large majority of Israeli Jews were enthusiastic about Trump and his policies. A dove at heart, Gantz tried to persuade voters that he, like Netanyahu, would annex territories, but only after consultation with the international community. Too many potential Gantz supporters got the message: when the smoke clears, he wont really annex because the international community and the Arab world have made it clear that they vigorously oppose annexation.

By the same token, Netanyahu repeatedly hammered away with the argument that without the Joint Arab List, Gantz would have no coalition and that the Arab MKs are a traitorous fifth column. Gantz denied unconvincingly that he would need the support of Arab MKs. Yet he could never point to alternative support Anti-Arab voters did the math.

This political trendline has been in place for 50 years now, since the 1967 war at least: The secular social democrats who founded the state (Labor Zionists) have lost out to the right wing of Revisionist Zionists. Even Meretz cast its Palestinian Knesset member overboard to run this time, in that three-way left coalition that included a rightleaning leader.

The definition of insanity is said to be ignoring the same result when it happens again and again, and we must ask all liberal Zionists: What is your vision of a Jewish democracy? How will it come about?

For years now liberal Zionist organizations have been working against Netanyahu, to their credit; and what do they have to show for it? As a panel at AIPACs policy conference said yesterday, Israeli voters dont care what American Jews have to say about their elections. No, because in the end those American Jews have been completely docile, supporting the Jewish democracy no matter how xenophobic, murderous, and discriminatory. Even liberal Zionist organizations have embraced extravagant aid to Israel and bipartisan political support for Israel and condemned the nonviolent boycott movement as antisemitic. With that sort of acceptance, why would Israelis ever care about some mild demurrals?

Last nights election is yet another wakeup call to American progressives There is only one way forward for a true left/liberal democrat. To recognize that the only hopeful signs in Israeli society come from the Palestinian politicians. They are the leaders who envision a pluralistic society and who hate Jim Crow. They head the third largest party and who knows what they could become if only non-Jews were allowed to vote in territories where Israel is sovereign?

There is a small price to pay for such a political alliance. To stick the idea of Jewish democracy in the dustbin of history.

H/t Scott Roth and James North.

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Two words that strike terror into a liberals heart: Jewish democracy - Mondoweiss

ST. JOHN'S, N.L.

The Telegram

Surgeon Andrew Furey and former deputy minister John Abbott are the two candidates vying to become the next premier of Newfoundland and Labrador.

The Liberal party confirmed Friday that Furey and Abbott are the two contenders in the race, having signed nomination papers and paid the $15,000 upfront portion of the $25,000 entrance fee to be a candidate in the leadership race.

I want to congratulate both candidates on successfully entering the 2020 leadership race. This is an exciting time for Liberals and the people of Newfoundland and Labrador," Liberal party president John Allan stated in a news release.

"This process is accessible to every resident over the age of 14 to participate in and I am proud the Liberal party is leading the charge on this open and modern democratic engagement.

Anyone is able to register as a member or supporter of the Liberal party in order to cast a vote in the leadership race, with registration open until April 4.

Voting will take place in May, with online voting, telephone voting and in-person voting options available.

The Liberal leadership convention will take place May 8-9 at the St. John's Convention Centre.

telegram@thetelegram.com

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Furey, Abbott confirmed as Liberal leadership candidates - The Telegram

It was a clear show of force. As Andrew Furey signed his nomination papers it wasn't just his family at his side. Standing around him were more than a dozen MHAs, cabinet ministers and MPs. You couldn't even fit them all into the photo.

The message: he has a lot of Liberals behind him literally.

He's starting the Liberal leadership race with a big head start, but it's one that's been a decade in the making.Take someone like Avalon MP Ken McDonald.

It was a phone call from Furey that encouraged him to run in 2015, and Furey helped get him re-elected last year.

"Of course I'm going to support him," said McDonald at Furey's Tuesday night launch.

McDonald isn't the only one who owes Furey.

Furey's father is George Furey, Speaker of the Senate and longtime Liberal backroom organizer with a vast network in the Liberal party, in and outside the province. His uncle Chuck was a Liberal MHA and cabinet minister for 15 years.

But for a decade the younger Furey has been doing his own work inside the party.

In 2011, he headed up the provincial arm of the Liberal's "Laurier Club," which brings together the biggest party donors.

He co-chaired the federal election in this province in 2015 and again in 2019.

He was on the provincial party executive heading into the 2015 campaign.

And he's knocked on a lot of doors. When MHA Pam Parsons tweeted out her support of Furey she included a shot of him campaigning with her in last year's provincial election.

Now she's returning the favour.

On Friday she was out with him in her district, this time signing up party members to support his leadership.

And that's where the real benefits come in.

To win the leadership race, you have to sign up members. So far there are only 2,000 Liberal supporters on the list.

Having MHAs and cabinet ministers on board doesn't just help your profile, it gives you access to a network of volunteers across the province, people who will knock on doors, recruit new members.

It's not just the public faces of the party that are behind Furey; one of Dwight Ball's top advisors has taken a leave of absence to help Furey's campaign.

John Abbott, by comparison, is a party outsider. He doesn't have a single current MHA or MP endorsing him. He only had two Liberal MHAs show up to kick the tires

He said he'll have less money to spend than his competitor, but he's banking on one thing Furey doesn't have: experience actually governing.

Abbott has worked as a bureaucrat inside government, and he insists he'll be more equipped to hit the ground running if he wins.

He's also hoping to woo members with a focus on policy. His launch speech outlined improving health outcomes, ethics, environment and balanced budgets.

Contrast that with Furey's speech that relied mostly on anecdotes and optimism.

Never before has someone in this province won the premier's job without being tested in an election first.

It almost happened with the PCs and Frank Coleman, who was set to move from being a business executive to being the premier after no one came forward to challenge him

He found out the hard way that the scrutiny that comes over your personal views (like his opposition to abortion) and business experience (and favours given to his former company you may remember it Humber Valley Paving).

He stepped down before ever making it up to the eighth floor of Confederation Building, citing family health issues.

No one wants another Coleman.

It's better for the Liberal party, and for the province, if whoever becomes premier does so after a full fair fight, not a coronation.

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He has most of the Liberal caucus onside. Can anything stop Andrew Furey from becoming premier? - CBC.ca

The Hechinger Report is a national nonprofit newsroom that reports on one topic: education. Sign up for our weekly newsletters to get stories like this delivered directly to your inbox.

Liberal arts education has two problems. First, no one agrees on what it means some even think its about political indoctrination. Second, the public is skeptical of the value of a liberal arts education.

Never mind that the liberal arts delivers what employers seek as well as what graduates later say helped them build satisfying lives.

My touchstone for a satisfying career and life is shaped by the Gallup-Purdue polling that found graduates who, years after college, expressed high satisfaction with their careers and life. They attributed some of that satisfaction to their college experience specifically:

If we take such insights seriously, well question our focus on expanding access to subject-matter content. Our collective goal instead can be to create more and more affordable educational opportunities across the postsecondary sector that offer access to the elements above.

Related: With enrollment sliding, liberal arts colleges struggle to make a case for themselves

As a part of this broader collective goal, we can identify key components of the liberal arts experience and make them more widely available at lower cost.

Start with a definition. In addition to field-specific knowledge in, for example, computer science or history, sound liberal arts education delivers the development of transferable skills, such as critical thinking. It aims to cultivate attributes empathy is one associated with leadership and civic responsibility.

Its the total liberal arts package deep subject-matter knowledge plus other, sometimes hard-to-define skills and attributes that makes these graduates so marketable.

As currently offered, its labor-intensive, expensive, very dependent on philanthropy and designed for young adults doing it full-time.

Weve effectively offered this package at selective four-year residential institutions through a rich combination of coursework, research, mentoring, internships, community engagement, student-led organizations, athletics and international experiences.

And, despite widespread public skepticism, demand remains high at these institutions, as measured by the ever-growing number of applications and the oft-falling acceptance rates. Individual outcomes, however measured, are generally good. So there is little incentive for the most successful institutions to question the business model, or to examine concretely how liberal arts delivers or which experiences cultivate specific skills or attributes.

Related: Liberal arts face uncertain future at nations universities

This business as usual is no longer defensible, not because well all go broke but because, given our context, strengths and new tools, we can do so much more. And its precisely the most successful, sought-after, financially stable institutions those with the least incentive to ask questions that have the greatest obligation. How does liberal arts education actually work?

What about it, really, is most valuable after graduation? How can we scale some parts of it to serve more people at lower cost?

One example: Among the distinctive components of critical thinking that repeat employers of graduates from Davidson College, where I am president, routinely mention is creative problem-solving. When pressed for specifics, they say things like: your grads never give up and they come up with approaches Id never think of.

In short, these students know how to navigate the unfamiliar. Theyre not intimidated by unprecedented situations. When known approaches fail, they invent new ones.

Students on our campuses may develop this through any number of experiences: defining their own research project, playing a new position, working with a community partner, studying internationally and/or trying out for a musical for the first time. Yet surely there are other ways. How can we affordably give more people the chance to quickly develop this skill?

Institutions like mine have claimed correctly for a long time that we educate students for life, no matter what theyre going to do, and for far more than just a specific job or narrowly focused career. They may not get everything on Day One, but they have what is needed for every day thereafter. Our branding problem, then, may be the result not of ineffectiveness but of a perceived self-serving elitism.

Many people now want what we do. Lets figure out how to offer it to them.

This story about liberal arts education was produced by The Hechinger Report, a nonprofit, independent news organization focused on inequality and innovation in education. Sign upherefor Hechingers newsletter.

Carol Quillen is president of Davidson College.

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OPINION: An education in the liberal arts delivers what employers seek - The Hechinger Report

New leader of the Ontario Liberals to be chosen - Video - CityNews Toronto Rogers Media uses cookies for personalization, to customize its online advertisements, and for other purposes. Learn more or change your cookie preferences. Rogers Media supports the Digital Advertising Alliance principles. By continuing to use our service, you agree to our use of cookies.We use cookies (why?) You can change cookie preferences. Continued site use signifies consent.

New leader of the Ontario Liberals to be chosen

At the Ontario Liberal convention, Cynthia Mulligan shares a preview of what will happen today as the party looks to choose their new leader. The first ballot results are expected at 1:45 p.m.

Mar 07, 2020, 12:05 PM

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New leader of the Ontario Liberals to be chosen - CityNews

In politics, timing is everything.

As provincial Liberals elect a new leader, the partys last premier holds an awkward place in their history: Kathleen Wynne merited an official tribute and informal shout-outs over the weekend, a reminder of her stunning rise and stupefying fall from power.

Her trajectory is a tale of both redemption and rejection that speaks to the partys past and future. In 2013, Wynne became Ontarios 25th premier with exquisitely unexpected timing a woman, a lesbian, a Liberal.

Back then, many wondered if a female could win in Canadas most populous province; some doubted a gay politician could prevail; and most seemed certain that after a decade in power the desperately unpopular Liberals were doomed. Until Wynne won a surprise majority government in the 2014 election.

But its hard to beat the laws of political probability in every election. After five years as premier and 15 years of Liberal rule, weighed down by personal baggage and party barnacles, her time was up.

Wynnes Liberals were pummelled reduced to a rump of seven seats and stripped of official party status. Adding to her humiliation, Wynne was defeated if only by default by an unlikely foe in Doug Ford.

Its fair to say voters didnt so much drink the Ford Kool-Aid as hold their noses. Never mind his right-wing populism, Ford was in the right place at the right time when the Liberals were no longer palatable.

Timing, and the passage of time, are everything: Wynne was unelectable at the end of her days as premier, while Ford is almost as unpopular today, midway through his mandate.

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It is easy to forget that when she first won power, before voters vilified her, Wynne benefited from a reservoir of genuine goodwill from many Ontarians. They thought, as pollsters later explained, that she would do politics differently.

She did and she didnt. Wynne had an unconventional style she could come across as earnest, empathetic, authentic, articulate.

She listened (and made lists) to the point of listlessness. She consulted and sought consensus until the government seemed leaderless.

The public seemed pleased at first. After all, Wynne had inherited a minority legislature that required compromise and consent.

She soon promised to govern from the activist centre, outflanking the NDP and outmanoeuvring the PCs.

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Wynne put forward a bold new Ontario public pension plan, forcing Ottawa and the other provinces to improve the outdated CPP. She emphasized the environment by building mass transit while embracing cap and trade carbon pricing. She liberated beer from the grip of the big brewers who owned the Beer Store, delivering it into supermarkets. She achieved her promise of a balanced budget (until the auditor general, with peculiar pre-election timing, moved the goalposts). And she appointed a new minister of Indigenous affairs to foster reconciliation.

It grew into an ambitious agenda, and then a complicated program, and then a contradictory strategy at cross-purposes with itself. How to balance the budget while investing big money in mass transit without raising taxes? How to reform campaign finance while raising big money for her own party? How to promote renewable energy while preventing electricity rates from rising?

To square the circle, Wynne tried to triangulate. If she couldnt boost taxes or blow the deficit, she would sell off other nonstrategic assets.

Thus was born the big idea of selling off the copper wires of Hydro One, the publicly-owned electricity distributor, to pay for the steel rails of mass transit. Wynne called it asset rotation and broadened ownership, but she got all tangled up.

People confused Hydro One with the defunct Ontario Hydro. Outdated hydro poles were conflated with electricity strategy, even though Ontario Power Generation (OPG) was never on the auction block.

It was Wynnes undoing. Instead of demonstrating her open-minded approach to practical problem solving, the public took it as proof of the premiers betrayal of provincial values of public ownership.

The die was cast. Only by resigning could Wynne have escaped her preordained fate, allowing someone else to lead the Liberals to certain election defeat (though perhaps not such a drubbing if a lesser known leader presented less of a target).

Perhaps Wynne still believed she could reintroduce herself to voters in the last campaign and recapture her aura of authenticity. For a fleeting moment, she won over at least one hardbitten journalist in the person of the late Christie Blatchford, who described Wynne up close in her National Post column of May 16, 2018.

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Its so obvious it hardly bears saying, Blatchford wrote after hopping on her campaign bus. Kathleen Wynne is so clearly heads and tails smarter, better informed and more capable than Doug Ford that it borders on the ridiculousHe simply shouldnt even dare to hope to line up to carry Wynnes briefcase because shes frankly so good.

Weeks after Blatchfords column ran, Wynne lost to Ford, badly. Her time was up no matter what any columnist concluded.

As Liberals reflect on her legacy and rally around her successor, their new leader will have the chance to go up against Fords Tories. He or she will do so free of all that accumulated baggage and barnacles while Ford, in turn, is weighed down by the passage of time and bad timing.

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What can the next Liberal leader learn from Kathleen Wynne's legacy? - Toronto Star

Thecommissioncreated by Secretary of State Mike Pompeo to reconsider U.S. human rights policy, ostensiblyaccording to the principles of unalienable rights anda particular interpretation ofnatural law,held its most recent public meeting at the U.S. State Department on Friday,wheretheRuth Institutes Jennifer Roback Morse used the Q&A time to read a statement and submit apetitionthat urgesPresident DonaldTrump and Pompeo to Make the Family Great Again. Morse claimed that the family itself has human rights.Morse is essentially asking the commission to endorse the idea that the so-called traditional family has fundamental rights that equal or exceed those of individuals.

When the Commission on Unalienable Rights was created last year, anti-LGBTQ activist Brian Browncalled itan extraordinary opening to push for clear and consistent recognition of the natural family,adding thatit gives us a forum to challenge American foreign policy that has in the past advanced the extreme agenda of the left that has been cloaked in the language of so-called human rights.

The Ruth Institute started as a project of Browns National Organization for Marriage, so its not surprising thatMorseshares his view about the potential for the commission to help them advance their anti-equality agenda. Morses petition signers include an array of U.S. and international anti-choice and anti-LGBTQ activists, including Gary Bauer, Janice Crouse, Robert George, Mike Huckabee, Alveda King, Rick Scarborough, and Sharon Slater. Among the signers from outside the U.S. isLevan Vasadze,the businessman and anti-LGBTQ activistwhohostedthe 2016 World Congress of Families global summit in the capital ofGeorgia,the former Soviet republic.

The petition urges the Commission on Unalienable Rights to work for recognition of the following fundamental rights:

Human rights advocates, LGBTQ-equality activists, and othersare concernedthat the commissiondominated by conservative academicswas created to provide intellectual justification for bringing human rights advocacy in line with right-wing complaints about human rights inflation.And they worry that most commission members aim toput a right-wing interpretation of religious liberty into a top tier of rightsthatwould exclude other rights recognized by the U.S. and the international community since the founding of the United Nations. The commission has been holding monthly public meetings,hearing fromspeakersexpressing a range of views,and taking public questions. Its report is expected sometime this spring.

Pompeo and other Trump administration officials have also spent the past year mobilizing a new pro-family coalition of conservative and authoritarian governments designed to resist any international agreements or action by U.N. agencies that recognize reproductive rights, LGBTQ equality (which is deemed to be anti-family), and comprehensive sex education.

Morseclaimeda few years ago that the goal of radical feminists and sexual revolutionarieswastoexpand the power of the state to take control over family lifeand that they were using divorce and gay marriage to do it.

The Ruth Institutebills itselfas a global non-profit organization equipping Christians to defend the family and build a civilization of love. Itpromotesthose who have walked away from a same sex lifestyle and other survivors of the sexual revolution.

Morsesstatementat the State Department was promoted by One News Now, a news arm of the American Family Association.

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Hundreds of Orgs, Political and Religious Leaders Demand Pompeo Abolish His Anti-LGBTQ Commission on Unalienable Rights

Rights Activists Alarmed as Pompeo Installs Anti-Gay Anti-Abortion Activist to Head New Commission on Natural Law

State Dept. Quietly Creates Commission Focused on Fresh Thinking About Natural Rights Code for Anti-LGBT

This article was originally published at Right Wing Watch and is republished here by permission.

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Education Secretary Betsy DeVos Brother Recruited Spies to Infiltrate Liberal Groups Including a Top Teachers Union: Report - The New Civil Rights...

SAN ANTONIO Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren endorsed her, Texas largest labor union is on her side and she surpassed $1 million in donors. Jessica Cisneros, who at 26 would become the youngest member of Congress, is the best shot liberal activists couldve taken for a win in the 2020 election.

But its not clear that on Super Tuesday, itll be what Democratic voters in Texas want.

As Sanders rides high nationally, surging in polls and putting critics on edge about Democrats nominating an avowed democratic socialist to take on President Donald Trump, his success is emboldening a crop of insurgent challengers on the left in Texas. They are backed by more money and bigger names than ever before, and as their rivals taunt them on TV and debate stages ahead of the March 3 primary, its proof that some are not being taken lightly.

It has been the playbook for Democrats that ending the GOPs long hold on Texas would take broadly appealing candidates who could bring in more voters from the center of the ideological spectrum. But about a half-dozen liberals running from the left in Democratic primaries, in races ranging from big-city prosecutors to U.S. Senate, are also testing Sanders calculus that they can energize and turn out more Democrats than the moderates who have failed at the top of the ticket for a generation.

That gambit is attracting heavy doses of skepticism, and invariably, outright dismissal. In Texas, Sanders lost to Hillary Clinton by a 2-to-1 margin in 2016 and voter turnout ranks among the lowest in the U.S., undercutting predictions that a wave of young and minority voters will carry progressive candidates to victory.

But with early voting already underway in Texas, Sanders ascendancy in the polls has armed them with a rebuttal.

Conventional wisdom would say that the most progressive Democratic presidential nominee wouldnt be leading in the polls in this state, U.S. Senate candidate Cristina Tzintzun Ramirez said at a debate last week, referring to Sanders. She is a former labor organizer who has raised more than $1 million, supports a fracking ban in a state where the energy sector is king and is endorsed by Democratic Rep. Joaquin Castro.

One of her moderate rivals, state Sen. Royce West, scoffed. We have to make certain that we have a dose of reality. No Democrat can win by being far left. Its not going to happen, he said.

By the end of Super Tuesday, more than one third of all Democratic convention delegates will be awarded. Texas has 261 delegates and is the biggest prize on March 3 behind California, where Sanders popularity alone could give him enough delegates to hold off centrist rivals before the partys national convention in July. If Sanders beats expectations in Texas, hell emerge even more formidable.

But his allies in other Texas races have their work cut out, even in places where theyre putting their most energy. On the Texas border, Cisneros is mounting one of the nations closest-watched primary challenges against conservative Democratic U.S. Rep. Henry Cuellar who has held an A rating from the National Rifle Association, is a target of abortion-rights groups and was one of the last members of Texas delegation to publicly say he would vote to impeach Trump.

Once an intern in Cuellars office, Cisneros is backed by Justice Democrats, which helped elected Rep. Alexandra Ocasio-Cortez, the progressive firebrand from New York. When she tells Democrats what Cuellar stands for, theyre like, Youre running against a terrible Republican. I tell them no, thats my Democratic congressman, Cisneros said before a living room of supporters in San Antonio, just days before early voting began.

The liberal challenges are giving more attention to a range of progressive proposals, from more expansive health care coverage and education benefits to less punitive criminal sentences, than is customary in Texas.

In Cuellars contest, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi has thrown her support behind the eight-term incumbent and visited his campaign headquarters in Laredo over the weekend. Cuellar, who did not even have a primary challenger in 2018, is now launching attack ads casting Cisneros as an outsider over her work as an immigration attorney in New York and telling voters that he is the only candidate that speaks for us.

Sanders two years ago performed even worse in the district than statewide, trailing Clinton 3-to-1.

Its an unusual race of two Democrats on totally opposite ideological ends of the party, which has moved further left on policies even among candidates who take a more moderate tone.

There was this idea for a long time that Democrats had to be conservative in Texas. And the thing is, weve tried that for a very long time, and it didnt get us very far, said Ed Espinoza, a former Democratic National Committee official who now runs the group Progress Texas.

In Austins affluent and purple suburbs, Alex Dormant, 66, liked what he heard as centrist Senate candidate MJ Hegar, who is backed by the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee, talked about winning over voters on both sides she nearly won a House seat in 2018, and frequently mentions that her supporters two years ago also planted yard signs supporting Republican Sen. Ted Cruz.

Sanders doesnt given him the same confidence.

I think hell turn off a lot of Texans who think hes too extreme, he said, adding, Texas is winnable, in my opinion.

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As Bernie Sanders surges, Texas liberals take their own shot - The Columbian

In other words, Cunningham is a product of the Democratic candidate-selection machine that above all values the right biographical details (moderates with military backgrounds are ideal), along with the ability to pass what the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee calls the Rolodex test (candidates are asked to go through their phone contacts and add up how much money they could raise from everyone in it). Smith clearly failed the Rolodex test.

According to Bitecofers thesis, such tests are irrelevant to the question of which candidate the voters will accept. In fact, it doesnt really matter which Democrat wins the nomination. Both have an equal shot at winning in November. Even if you question the premise that almost any Democrat is equally electable, in this particular case, the man the party chose, Cunningham, has an electoral history that is no better than Smiths. He already lost a Senate primary in 2010. He honestly just looks like the kind of guy who would lose a North Carolina Senate race to a vulnerable Republican.

In short, theres no evidence, despite the certainty of Democratic politicians and operatives, that Smith would be a worse candidate than Cunningham. Those operatives may sincerely believe otherwise. Or they may simply be laundering their own centrist politics through the imagined preferences of voters. Either way, the results would look the same.

Democrats ought to welcome the conservative intervention as a colossal waste of Republican money, if nothing else. When Republicans are weighing in for somebody, Senator Tim Kaine told Politico, theyve made the judgment that theyre worried about Cal, and theyre not worried about her. They seem to be making exactly the same mistake the Democrats are. If Smith wins the primary, which is still an unlikely prospect, their mistake will have given her a positive introduction to North Carolina voters.

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The GOPs Silly Attempt to Boost a Liberal Candidate - The New Republic