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TexasTowelie

(111,301 posts)
Mon Nov 16, 2020, 08:36 PM Nov 2020

Moderate Texas lawmakers blame progressive issues for election results

If anyone thought the 2020 election results would put a pin in the 4-year internal strife among Democrats of different ideological stripes, they were wrong.

Three weeks after the election, moderate lawmakers in Texas are deadset on warning others that the left-leaning policies of their progressive colleagues are hurting Democrats at the ballot box.

“Defund police, open borders, socialism — it’s killing us,” Rep. Vicente Gonzalez said in a Democratic conference call last week with Democrats, according to the New York Times. Gonzalez said white voters associate socialism with Nordic countries, but Asian and Hispanic voters associate it with “left-wing regimes.”

Gonzalez narrowly won re-election by three percentage points in his South Texas congressional district TX-15. In 2018, he won by a 20-point margin, suggesting real Republican inroads into reaching Latino voters or a weak performance by Democrats in the majority-Latino region.

Read more: https://texassignal.com/moderate-texas-lawmakers-blame-progressive-issues-for-election-results/

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Moderate Texas lawmakers blame progressive issues for election results (Original Post) TexasTowelie Nov 2020 OP
Gonzales is 100% right. comradebillyboy Nov 2020 #1
No...its not the policies...as always, its the messaging. Moostache Nov 2020 #2
One size does not fit all. It never has. TwilightZone Nov 2020 #3
Celina Montoya lost in San Antonio LeftInTX Nov 2020 #4

comradebillyboy

(10,119 posts)
1. Gonzales is 100% right.
Mon Nov 16, 2020, 08:45 PM
Nov 2020

Socialism is an anathema to most Americans, and rightly so given its track record in Europe, Asia and Latin America. Most folks think the police are a necessity, maybe flawed but still a necessity. Slogans like "defund the police" won't win any elections anywhere.

Politicians in D+30 can push that nonsense but it doesn't fly in 90% of the country. It's political malpractice.

Moostache

(9,895 posts)
2. No...its not the policies...as always, its the messaging.
Mon Nov 16, 2020, 08:49 PM
Nov 2020
Defund the Police is too easily twisted to "remove the police".

What is the goal? Racially and ethnically fair policing practices AND getting officers OUT of duty that a gun and a badge are the wrong tools to use on...more councilors and pysch-trained conflict managers instead of always sending in the beat cops. This is a messaging problem that sets Democrats up as adversarial to police instead of being on their side too... It is a tragedy to allow the GOP to coopt police as a core constituency when they could care less how many cops die as long as they win elections...its sick really.

Similarly...

Open Borders is a misnomer for "fair and defined immigration pathways to citizenship"
Socialism needs to be explained better because to too many it means something scary like the Red Scare revived instead of a compassionate safety net for all citizens and a society that cares for its members instead of cutting them loose to old age or infirm status as soon as possible...

Seriously, on policy issues, when explained and illustrated correctly, its not even close people...we need better writers, better speakers and better messaging to combat a professional disinformation machine from the right. THAT is where we fail...

It is as if we are Luke and we're telling Yoda "I don't believe it..." while Yoda is showing us how to lift the goddamn X-wing out of the swamp!!!

TwilightZone

(25,342 posts)
3. One size does not fit all. It never has.
Mon Nov 16, 2020, 10:11 PM
Nov 2020

I don't know why it seems so difficult for some to understand that. We need to run candidates who meet the preferences of the target audience.

Here in the Austin metro, we ran a couple of progressives in gerrymandered House districts that have only recently shown some signs of moving from right/right-center to center/slightly center-left. They got hammered. Had we run more moderate candidates, we might have picked off a couple of entrenched (and supposedly vulnerable) Rs. I would have been thrilled if we'd kicked John Carter out on his ass.

LeftInTX

(24,554 posts)
4. Celina Montoya lost in San Antonio
Mon Nov 16, 2020, 11:02 PM
Nov 2020

She is a moderate, running against Steve Allison.
Allison is in Joe Strauss's old seat.
Celina ran in 2018.
She lost by a bit more this election.

She had good support from TDP because the seat was seen as flippable

I think her district is just too entrenched or the timing of this election messed it up.

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