Pushing Dean Out And Ending 50 State Strategy Was A BIG Mistake For Democrats.

[tabbycat31]

33. #4

What many in politics don't understand is that there's a farm system (very similar to professional baseball). In baseball you have several different minor leagues where everyone's goal is a call up to the majors. Some will be called up and do well, some will suffer career ending injuries in the minors, some won't make it. There's 6 classes in professional baseball ranging from A ball rookie to the big leagues. I look at politics in the same way. Some teams do better with their farm system than others do. As I stated in another thread, the GOP has done much better at recruiting candidates born after 1960 than the Democrats do (most of the GOP 2016 frontrunners were born after 1960). The Democratic frontrunner was born in 1947 and the other challengers mentioned most on DU were also born in the 40s.

A ball rookie-- school board, precinct level elected positions
Class A short season-- Local council members
Class A long season-- mayors*, county board positions
AA-- County executive positions, sheriffs, etc
AAA-- State Senators, State House members (different terms depending on the state)
MLB-- Federal office (congress, senate), statewide office

I'm using a very general system as how many local elected positions there are depends on the locality and state. That goes with statewide ones too. But it's a good picture of where to start. Is it possible for someone to come out of nowhere and advance in politics? Sure. It depends a lot on the political environment and who that person is. (Might be easier for say Bruce Springsteen to run for a statewide office in NJ than Joe Blow Random Dude). But in general if we want to win races, we as Democrats need to focus on the A ball teams and AA teams before looking at the statehouses and their gerrymandered districts (yes the GOP did gerrymander the shit out of the country in 2010). County and city lines are not gerrymandered. We need to develop a pipeline of progressive candidates with a good track record at winning and succeeding in local offices. By winning these non gerrymandered races, we can show independent voters that we can win.

*Mayors depends a good deal on the size of the municipality he/she is mayor of. A mayor of a big city has a lot more chance at reaching the big leagues from that position than one of a small town.