Progressive, minus urban elitism

Kevin Stine

Locally, Kevin Stine has an opportunity.  

He may not want it, and it might not work.

A four-person race for the Democratic nomination for State Senate creates a mixed up mess.  It also means a candidate who gets 35% of the vote might win.

Democratic candidates need to meet a progressive litmus test to prove to their activist base that they are progressive enough. In the midst of that pressure some candidates are winning election in red and purple areas by voicing positions that appear to break progressive orthodoxy, in policy or tone.

Thad Guyer praised those break-away candidates in a Guest Post yesterday.  An attentive political observer, Kevin Stine, disagreed, saying that the winner of those races were all actually quite progressive and he concludes by saying candidates should tack left.  

(My own take was that some views that are called centrist are actually the purer and truer form of genuine progressive thought.  The pendulum of progressive identity politics moved from left to further-left, and has become too narrow, too urban, too contemptuous of traditional symbols, too dismissive of blue collar vocations. Get the tone right, I argue.  Drop the condescending preciousness and elitism. Appreciate blue collar outdoor work.)

Kevin Stine is one of four Democratic candidates for the state senate seat locally.  His positions seem essentially identical to the other three candidates, Jeff Golden, Athena Goldberg, and Julian Bell.  All seem eager to be acceptable to the forward leaders in progressive thought, e.g. Sierra Club and NARAL, and theTeamsters and AFLCIO among unions.  

Kevin Stine has a predicament. How does a pea in a policy pod distinguish himself?  First, he has to want to do it.  

Median  income is $27,523.

Progressive Democratic activists have clarity on acceptable positions, and anything that appears "centrist" is unacceptable.  Politicians like Chuck Schumer are widely scorned, and even Ron Wyden, the 15th most liberal member of the Senate, receives criticism from the left in Oregon.  

Stine should know. He ran against Wyden from the left in the 2016 and got some 75,000 votes.

There is no room for Stine to tack left now.  He would have to be more environmental than the Sierra Club and more feminine than NARAL. Stine does have points of distinction from the other three candidates.  He is younger, he is self-consciously from a striving working family, he is a veteran, and he voices a tone of urgency and indignation in his speech and video. 

Insofar as he is known at all, Stine's brand is aggressive, perhaps foolish, fearlessness, established by his run against Wyden. It is not too late for him to try to flesh out his brand by adding working person authenticity and identification.  He is in fact a young working person.  He is a veteran.  He can claim patriotic symbols if he wants to and do it without embarrassment or a feeling of hypocrisy. He can talk about rent hikes without condescension. His opponents voice concern for housing affordability, access to health care, access to family planning services, the implications of immigration all from the point of view of comfortable upper middle class professionals.  

Working Americans resent those upper middle class professionals. They are their bosses.  

The professional managerial class projects attitudes and virtues that are out of touch with a great many working Americans.  Locally, their neighborhoods are the equivalent of "flyover country," i.e. the "wrong side of town."  Prosperous elites can vote yes on school and library bonds because the extra tax doesn't hurt them and they want a better community.  They don't understand why the people they are trying to help vote "no."  (They vote no because they are poor and don't have money for amenities.) 

The Democratic-progressive solution to poverty is to change jobs and get a graduate degree. The advice may be correct, but it isn't welcome. Blue collar workers are mentally invested in their vocations.  It takes social and financial capital to make big changes and those are middle class assets.

The comfortable upper middle class has the luxury of worrying about local and organic foods and fair trade coffee. Advice to "buy local" strikes a great many people as part of the precious sensibilities of the comfortable. Working people buy the best that is least expensive and they do it on payday. The comfortable upper middle class considers whether buying a hybrid car is good enough, or whether they really should try to buy an electric car.  The comfortable upper middle class sees immigration as welcome diversity, different restaurants, crime across town, and helping immigrants to be fair, compassionate, and honorable.  Stine's Democratic opponents, an author, doctor, and licensed clinician, have less to worry about in job competition from immigrants, and they can afford the virtues of the comfortable.  Kevin Stine's neighbors are in job competition with those immigrants.  It isn't abstract to them. Open immigration is a virtue that causes them problems in their day to day lives. "Across town" is their neighborhood.

Progressive virtues are very nice but here is a reality:  The median income in Jackson County is $27,523.  There are a lot of poor and working people.

Kevin Stine has an opportunity, but he may not want it. It would require he abandon the political security of being a pea in the pod of progressive activists.  

My sense is that he has little to lose. The activists abandoned his campaign. They may like him well enough, but will vote for Jeff Golden because they have known Jeff for years, or for Athena because she got all those endorsements and it is a woman's year, or Julian because he is so dedicated to climate change they owe him. 

Stine has natural authenticity and credibility with 80% of Jackson County households.  He could  position himself as the feisty underdog, pulling himself up by his bootstraps, getting a college degree, fighting for his neighbors. He wouldn't be positioned as condescending to the 80%.  He could disagree with the progressive consensus and say forthrightly that he sees it the problems and solutions up close.  He has the legitimacy of an eyewitness. 

Politically, there is an opportunity.  Presumably Golden, Bell, and Goldberg will divide up those activists and their friends.  Those prosperous and politically active people are the most reliable voters, but they have three good choices. 

Stine can make a strategic argument. In a general election against Jessica Gomez, he is the Democratic progressive working person; she is the Republican business owner.  Little guy vs. the rich boss. There are more workers than there are bosses. 

The question is whether Stine can energize his neighbors.  Will they see him as aspirational and choose a neighbor as a representative?  Trump's election showed there was a lot of working class resentment against politically correct establishment virtue signaling, but will they see Stine as a "man of the people?"  Will they turn out and vote?

A lot more people shop at Food 4 Less and Thunderbird than who shop for organic, non GMO food at the Ashland Food Co-op.  Stine isn't going to get the Ashland Food Co-op vote; surely he knows that by now. The question is whether Stine will find his people.

It is a risk for Stine.  In order to communicate with his neighbors that he perceives himself aligned with them, he needs to imply that the progressive elites have the wrong perspective.   He won't feel comfortable saying there is something wrong with those progressive elites, but he must. Working class populists do in fact see the world differently than do comfortable progressives.  Donald Trump made that point, and so did Bernie Sanders.  It can be said.  Sanders criticized the millionaires, even the "good" ones who aren't racist or xenophobic.  But they are still out of touch.

Those comfortable progressive activists are the people who show up at campaign forums. Does Stine dare say aloud to them that they irritate the voters and cannot avoid being considered condescending, but that he would not?  He may need to.

He needs to make some controversy.

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I have invited other candidates to send thoughtful comments on political messaging and analysis.  So far Kevin Stine is the only one to do so so far.

Comment by Kevin Stine

"With respect to Thad Guyer, that was an off-base post. 

Kevin Stine

A look at Ralph Northam's issues shows he campaigned Medicaid expansion, limits on assault weapons with universal background checks, allowing felons to vote, and removal of Confederate statues, which in the former home of the Confederacy was an interesting stance to take.

A viral Tweet from a former President Obama staffer about Conor Lamb stated he campaigned on such centrist issues as:
1. For universal health care
2. Against Trump’s tax cut
3. For expanded background checks
4. For stronger unions
5. Against cuts to Social Security
6. For a woman’s right to choose
7. For medical marijuana

As far as PA-18, a district is red or blue based on voting patterns, not how voters are registered. This seat voted for Trump by 20 points, but also Mitt Romney by 17 points. No Democrat bothered challenging the incumbent in 2016. It is is PVI R+11, it is a red district

It was a miracle that Doug Jones got elected to the US Senate, but he even stated he is pro-choice and is for universal background checks, along with LGBT rights. He did this in Alabama. He also campaigned heavily on expanding CHIP. He's more centrist than other Democrats, but far more progressive than any elected Senate Republican. I'll take 10 Doug Jones' if it gets us a Democratic Senate Majority Leader.

There will be many books, and already are, about Hillary and Trump, but the fact remains far more people wanted Hillary Clinton to be the President. If anything, a more authentic progressive Democratic Presidential candidate is needed in 2020. Hillary couldn't keep the base happy and lost scores of votes to Jill Stein, Gary Johnson, and people that stayed home.

There are some onesie-twosie issues that progressive Democrats, even in blue states or districts, divide themselves.  Even Bernie Sanders got shredded by Hillary Clinton because of Bernie's votes on gun-related legislation.

All-in-all, these "centrist" Democratic elected officials are far more progressive than even the 2009-10 Democrats. If in 2021 we have more Doug Jones/Conor Lamb-types in a Democratic Congress, we will be passing the most progressive legislation since FDR was President. "