NY-16: 'We just need a win': The left unites to take down Eliot Engel
Desperate for victory after watching the presidential nomination slip through their fingers, progressives have found a new cause to rally around.
Across the country, they’re channeling their grief, volunteer muscle and small-dollar donations into Jamaal Bowman, a left-wing candidate in New York trying to oust decades-long incumbent Congressman Eliot Engel.
Bernie Sanders, Elizabeth Warren and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, all of whom have shown caution in the past about backing primary challengers to incumbent Democrats, have endorsed Bowman. Justice Democrats and the Working Families Party, two left-wing groups that took different paths during the presidential race, announced they are coming together to spend more than a half-million dollars to elect Bowman. Former aides to Sanders and Warren have also publicly lined up behind Bowman.
The all-hands-on-deck strategy is a striking show of unity after the presidential campaign ended with deep rifts on the left — and it’s had a catalytic effect on Bowman’s bid in the run-up to the June 23 primary. But their efforts have also exposed party fissures, spurring Democratic establishment powerhouses such as Hillary Clinton, Nancy Pelosi and Jim Clyburn to throw their support behind Engel.
“What is that left phrase? We just need a win,” said Andom Ghebreghiorgis, another progressive candidate who challenged Engel this year but recently dropped out and endorsed Bowman. “People are investing a lot emotionally in this race because they see it as a down-ballot race where the policies of a Bernie, for example, which weren’t able to achieve victory on a national level, can at least be achieved on a congressional level.”
https://www.politico.com/news/2020/06/16/eliot-engel-progressives-election-324102
= new reply since forum marked as read
A GOOD idea???
If the other party advocated for lifetime tenure, we would be losing or heads over how undemocratic that is 
would be replacing him, right
are some DUers losing their shit over it 
have a voice! They have barely been given a shot at governing. 
opposed to Democratic primaries, i.e., actual primaries wherein incumbents have actual opponents 
For starters, you actually join the party in your hometown and become a district leader/precinct captain/precinct committeeperson and learn the doings of the political process at the local level.
You also get to know the constituents in your district, usually by pounding the pavements and canvassing.
You might then decide to run for office.
You usually start at school board, library board, town council, city council, etc.
Then maybe for county positions.
Later on, you might try for state assembly or state senate.
Then you go federal.
IOW, most who reach the top of the mountain didn't fall there. They did the necessary homework of actually knowing their districts and their constituents.
#newrostrong
CD-16 is not a cookie-cutter version of CD-14 or CD-15 by a long shot. The demographics are different.
Plus. the "Justice Democrats" keep forgetting that moderate and conservative Democrats also vote, and more importantly, they show up to vote each and every time.
#newrostrong
