Former Bernie Staffers Seek To Elect ‘Brand New Congress’ (goal: socialist US House by 2018)

[big_dog]

This discussion thread was locked as off-topic by Omaha Steve (a host of the Latest Breaking News forum).

Source: The Huffington Post 04/27/2016 01:26 pm ET |

While even Bernie Sanders is starting to admit that his chance of winning the Democratic nomination is exceedingly slim, some of his former staff and volunteers have formed a political action committee dedicated to giving the senator “the ability to make real change from the White House.”

Brand New Congress, which was launched Monday, is looking ahead to the 2018 midterm elections to “replace Congress all at once” with lawmakers who agree with the Vermont independent’s policy positions. The PAC won’t be able to fully accomplish that goal in 2018, however, since just 468 of the 535 lawmakers in the House and Senate will be up for re-election.

A timeline on the PAC’s website says that it plans to form local search committees to recruit organizers and candidates who are new to politics. (Sanders, for his part, has served in Congress for 26 years.) The PAC says it will codify various progressive policies in a platform that its slate of candidates must support. “We learned … that the grassroots are better qualified to run electoral campaigns than Democratic party operatives,” Zacy Exley told The Huffington Post in an email. “They just need to be given the tools, the data, the offices and the structure to succeed.”

Zack Exley, one of the PAC’s founding organizers and a senior Sanders adviser until a few weeks ago, said Brand New Congress can accomplish its goals because Sanders has shown that grassroots candidates who weren’t taken seriously in the past can recruit thousands of volunteers and raise tens of millions of dollars online. The senator has out-raised Clinton in each of the last three months, and has now matched her total fundraising haul, helping him stay in the race much longer than anyone anticipated before the primaries.


Read more: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/bernie-sanders-congress_us_5720e608e4b0b49df6a9c933

[JonLeibowitz]

3. Excuse me? Please justify your snark at progressives trying to enact change.

[MelissaB]

16. Is that what the article said?

Where did it say that?

[RoccoR5955]

18. You have to get independents to vote for you

if you want to win congress. It's not all about Damnocrats!
When are folks going to get the idea into their heads that these things are not just about those of their party?
Bernie can get Democrats to vote for him. He can also get independents to vote for him, and when 1/3 of the voters are independents, they should not be ignored!!

[Dont call me Shirley]

7. So you are against the policies of Franklin Roosevelt?

[iandhr]

12. I am against people who think change is easy.

[Dont call me Shirley]

14. Change is easy. Resistance to change is the hard part.

[Cassiopeia]

22. Your disdain for Democratic and progressive principles is clear.

Nothing is good enough for a Hillary supporter except Hillary.

[iandhr]

26. I a proud liberal/progressive Democrat.

And I have been a Democrat for longer then Sanders.

[NNadir]

2. This should be easier after the new states on Mars, Europa, and the Andromeda galaxy are admitted...

...to the union.

[JimDandy]

17. Your fellow Clinton supporters have been pushing for Sanders supporters

to do just this instead of opposing Clinton and supporting Sanders all the way to the convention.

Well, we are multi-taskers.

[dlwickham]

4. are they going to run as Democrats

[jmowreader]

24. Not always, and that's a concern

According to the article, they want Sanders-style leftists in blue states and teabaggers in red ones. It says teabaggers are aligned with Sanders' positions. And you know, except for the part about teabaggers thinking Sanders needs to be beheaded, they might have a point.

[JimDandy]

5. Nowhere in that article does it say that is their goal. You made that up.

It says their goal is to promote and back candidates who agree with Sanders' policy positions.

[mpcamb]

6. Zack Exley seems like a pun on Ex-actly. Still, if this isn't a joke, I'm 100% behind it.

The US needs some FDR era battles rather that the same ol', same ol' brand that's been the party program.
$15/hr. War avoidance. People before corporations.

Gotta say tho, it sounds like a 60s Art Spiegelman take. Mr. Natural was the role model for the character Eggs Axley. (excuse any spelling errors based on 50+ year recall)

[JimDandy]

13. He's real:

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zack_Exley

[mpcamb]

25. Thanks. I remember his GWBush.com site and that campaign's fight against him.

Media savvy before the phrase had much currency.
Sounds like a guy I want to support.

[newthinking]

8. Nice TROLL'bait title. (which breaks the terms of LBN)

[puffy socks]

9. Brand New Congress

will soon find out they cannot do anything "all at once". Building this Progressive movement to the point of really getting legislative accomplishments is incredibly hard and adversaries will stop at nothing to prevent us from achieving our goals.

This is precisely the problem with Bernie's platform. It isn't the ideology Hillary supporters have a problem with, in general, we all want the same things.
It's the expectation that it should be so easy to simply replace all the member you don't like instantly. Change rarely happens instantly for a variety of reasons.

[Retrograde]

11. A good goal

I'd like to see Congress move to the left. Even a quarter of the House would make a big difference.

[clg311]

15. Good start

Hopefully the young people supporting Sanders will take over the party if not by 2018, then in the near future. Not easy since the corrupt neoliberal democratic establishment will try every trick in the book to thwart them and keep their stranglehold on power.

[MelissaB]

19. Link to Brand New Congress website

https://brandnewcongress.org/

[pnwmom]

20. Anything they can do to get the Rethugs out of Congress will be much appreciated.

But I'm not sure what they're going to do about the gerrymandered districts.

[Harriety]

21. I like that idea. Without people working to change there can be no hope.

[fred v]

23. That's not the title of the article

"Former Bernie Sanders Staffers Seek To Elect A ‘Brand New Congress’" is all the headline read.

[Omaha Steve]

27. Locking after a review by forum hosts

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