It's Harder For Some Republicans To Hop On The Hillary Bandwagon Than It Is For Others

Trump's most recent mail-order bride, the one he thinks would make a perfect First Lady, posing with a gun and a thong... nice boots. Not joining #GOPWomenWithHer

Writing for the NY Times this morning, Patrick Healy makes the point that "Should she win the presidency, Hillary Clinton would quickly try to find common ground with Republicans on an immigration overhaul and infrastructure spending, risking the wrath of liberals who would like nothing more than to twist the knife in a wounded opposition party... Deeply confident that she would perform better as the president than as a political candidate, Mrs. Clinton wants to pursue a whole new approach at the White House to try to break through years of partisan gridlock, according to a dozen campaign advisers and allies who described her goals and outlook. From policy goals and personnel to her instinct for patiently cultivating the enemy, Mrs. Clinton thinks she would be a better dealmaker than President Obama if she finds willing partners on the other side."

Marty Torrey, the head of Republicans for Hillary, wrote on the group's website that "The carnival atmosphere, media coverage, Twitter-based, and cash-crazy nature of this year’s election has thus far managed to avoid addressing what criteria matter most in the selection of our next President: experience, seriousness, intelligence, bipartisanship, global awareness. Yes party loyalty matters, but at this point in what will one day become our history, loyalty to country matters more."

The Republican Party establishment has spent so many years-- decades-- demonizing the Clintons that as much as it's partially inoculated her from even legitimate charges about her corruption and malfeasance in the eyes of normal people, it's made it intensely difficult for Republicans fleeing from the horrors of Trumpism to embrace her candidacy. That said, Ben Howe, a contributing editor of Red State said aloud what many Republicans are thinking: "I am a fiscal conservative and I am a social conservative. That will not change. But I will not vote for an egomaniacal authoritarian. Nope. #ImWithHer." Larry Pressler, a former Republican senator from South Dakota is thinking along the same lines: "I can’t believe I’m endorsing Hillary Clinton for president, but I am…this morning, I woke up and told my wife, ‘Did I really do that?’ But I did…this election is starting to sound like the German elections in the late 1920s, this is a very dangerous national conversation we’re slipping into." Richard Armitage, George W. Bush's Deputy Secretary of State seems to understand that Hillary is more of a mainstream Republican than Trump is. "He doesn’t appear to be to be a Republican, he doesn’t appear to want to learn about issues. So I’m going to vote for Mrs. Clinton." One of the anchors of the Republican foreign policy establishment, Brent Scowcroft, who served as National Security Adviser to both Ford and Bush, is taking the extra step away from Trumpism as well: "The presidency requires the judgment and the knowledge to make tough calls under pressure. I believe Hillary Clinton has the wisdom and experience to lead our country at this critical time."

A few weeks ago Torrey, a retired US Navy Commander, sent out a Country Before Party letter to likely Republicans horrified by Trump and Trumpism, launching the website. "A campaign to pick a President shouldn’t be a made-for-TV brawl," he wrote. "Rather, selection should be about capabilities and experience." In a clear departure from one of Trumpism founding tenets, he declared that "Nobody makes money off www.gop4hrc.com. So if someone is looking to donate, or looking to advertise or make a buck, they should look elsewhere."

Torrey, who had been Chief of Staff for New York Republican Congressman John Sweeney, wrote that "My experience with then Senator Clinton and her staff was very positive and bipartisan. All interaction was straightforward and about getting things done for the people of New York and the country. A lot of the negatives I read and hear about Hillary Clinton during this campaign simply do not match up with my own experiences and interaction with her and those around her for over 15 years."

And that same attitude is inherent in the Clinton endorsement from Hank Paulson, George W. Bush's Treasury Secretary, the TARP guy, who had previously been Chairman and CEO of Goldman Sachs: "When it comes to the presidency, I will not vote for Donald Trump…I will not cast a write-in vote. I’ll be voting for Hillary Clinton, with the hope that she can bring Americans together to do the things necessary to strengthen our economy, our environment and our place in the world."

Yesterday, CNN reported on another group of Republicans backing Clinton, Republican Women for Hillary. Chris Moody wrote about a steering committee meeting over glasses of wine and champagne at the swanky St. Regis Hotel in DC. "Five young Republicans busily brainstormed how they could help Hillary Clinton become the next president of the United States. The group included an unlikely gang of pro-Clinton foot soldiers, including a Mississippi-born Southern Baptist who got her start in GOP politics as an intern in the second Bush White House, a conservative health care policy analyst who has volunteered for anti-abortion causes and a former president of the Cornell University College Republicans." That shouldn't sound like too much of a push. After all, Hillary herself was a GOP activist into her twenties and was the president of the Wellesley College Young Republicans in her formative years. They share a lot of core conservative values with her but their motivation for jumping the partisan fence was to stop Trump.

"It's really important that Republican leaders, especially Republican women leaders, stand up right now and say we're not OK with Trump representing our party," said Jennifer Lim, a group founder who works at the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and has spent much of her life volunteering for Republican causes and campaigns. "This is not a position I ever wanted to find myself in. But it's important that when things like this happen that people speak up."

Lim's role as a leader within the new group is independent of her day job. But earlier this week, the Chamber clashed with Trump over his embrace of protectionist trade policies, which the business group opposes.

Over the next several months, members of Republican Women for Hillary plan to provide cover for Republicans looking to speak out against Trump, whose surprising rise has torn the party apart.

Faced with a choice between Clinton and Trump, some Republicans have begrudgingly agreed to support him while others are simply opting out of the election. But for these women who founded the group, (and one man who has joined in solidarity), Trump's bombastic style, offensive rhetoric toward women and minorities, slapdash policy "suggestions" risk destroying the party.

This is the post-primary Never Trump movement in action. Their new organization, which is not affiliated with the Clinton campaign, is part support group and part activist hub: They intend to host off-the-record social events for like-minded conservatives and sponsor get-out-the-vote efforts for Clinton. They started in May by launching accounts on Facebook and Twitter and are planning to make an appearance at the Democratic Convention in Philadelphia next month.

Making the switch to openly support a Clinton for president wasn't a decision they came to lightly, the group's members said.

"It has been tough for me to come to this point where I can vote for a candidate who has been very against what I've been working for for most of my professional career," said Meghan Milloy, who works for the conservative American Action Forum think tank and has formerly campaigned for Republicans like Trent Lott, Mitt Romney and Haley Barbour. "That being said, I can't vote for someone like Donald Trump because he's overtly racist and misogynist."

Lim said she intends to knock on doors, make phone calls for Clinton and will donate to the Democratic campaign, a step she has never taken in her life.

Which candidate is the bigger liar? It's not even close

Her temporary transition to Democratic volunteer might seem all too convenient at first: She was recently married to Tim Lim, the founder of a media buying firm called Precision that has a contract with the Clinton campaign. But, she said, her reasons for supporting Clinton are genuine and purely strategic. Her current activism is about stopping Trump from winning the general election, preserving the the Republican Party and the conservative values it promotes, she said.

"Our group isn't about selling Clinton. It's about using your vote to keep Trump out of office," Lim said. "We're not going to be in the business of convincing people that Hillary Clinton will be the savior of all of our policy issues. We're trying to convince people that your vote has a political and moral purpose, and it's important to use that."

"This was a long road for me to get here," she added.

It is Republican women like these that Clinton has made a concerted effort to reach during as part of her campaign.

Recent data suggest that it's working. National opinion polls show Clinton leading Trump among several demographic groups, notably women voters. Meanwhile, an ABC News/Washington Post survey conducted in June found that 77 percent of women have an unfavorable view of Trump.

As for policy, there are only a few areas where the group's leaders said they could agree with Clinton, which mostly involves foreign policy and trade. More importantly, however, they see her as a reasonable person-- especially compared with the unpredictable Trump-- and someone Republicans could possibly work with.

"We can put our differences aside to have a safer option that's better for the country as a whole," Milloy said. "The fear of Donald Trump is, to me, more than the fear of Hillary raising capital standards on banks."

These are not people likely to suddenly embrace progressive values and principles or back Democratic candidates beyond Hillary. And if someof them stick to the Democratic Party, they are likely to pull it towards the right the way party switchers like Patrick Murphy, Charlie Crist and... Hillary Clinton have.

Can Trumpf Really Win? Or, Conversely, Can Trumpf Really Lose? Have We Ever Elected A Demagogue President?

OK, so this is the more involved second half of the post from 10 am-- slightly more abstract and something I'd suggest the Trumpf fans not bother trying to grapple with. We're going to do a little mashup of Aaron Zitner at the Wall Street Journal, Patrick Healy and Maggie Haberman at the NY Times and Sean McElwee at Salon. Don't freakout if you never heard of McElwee; he's the research-oriented guy and his Salon piece is something I want to use to bolster my long-held believe that the only thing that might actually stop Herr Trumpf has nothing to do with the lame hopes the GOP establishment keeps floating. If Trumpf loses it won't because he finally says something so dumb and offensive that his dumb and offensive supporters find it too dumb and offensive. To life's losers-- the Trumpf core-- there is nothing too dumb or too offensive to make them vote for anyone else. The chances of them switching to Jeb or Kasich or Christie or Rubio are about as good as them switching to Hillary; it's not going to happen. The question, though, is will they vote for Trumpf? His fans are reality TV viewers, not actual voters. If he can get them to the polls, he'll be the nominee; if not... get ready for an even worse nightmare for the GOP DC establishment: Ted Cruz. This morning on CNN's State of the Union John Kasich speculated that Trumpf's supporters won't even show up to vote in the primaries.

And that brings us to the research by Brian Schaffner and Stephen Ansolabehere that McElwee delved into yesterday. They found that "only 25 percent of Americans voted in all four elections between 2006 and 2012. These Americans, who are disproportionately white, rich and old, have dramatically more influence over politics than nonvoters (who make up 37 percent of the population)." In other words, "far more people voted in zero elections between 2006 and 2012 than voted in all four elections." About a quarter of the non-voters are non-voters because they're not registered and among those who only voted in presidential years, disliking the candidates, lack of information and busy-ness were the top reasons for not voting in midterm elections. This is interesting: "nonvoters were mostly either Independents (30 percent) or Democrats (43 percent). [So 27% Republican.] Presidential-only voters tilt the most strongly toward the Democrats, with 53 percent saying they are Democrats and only 32 percent identifying as Republican. [So 15% independent.]

The first solution to boosting turnout is clear: Registration barriers are the most important factor depressing turnout. Thus, robust enforcement of the National Voter Registration Act, expanded access to same day registration and more states adopting automatic voter registration will all boost turnout. Second, it’s clear that many voters are alienated by parties, and many see very few differences, which can depress turnout. Low-income Americans are the most likely to perceive large differences, possibly because parties overwhelmingly favor the preferences of the rich. Some have advocated Democrats pushing toward the center, but a working paper by political scientist Seth Hill finds that parties are far more successful in pulling in new voters than in converting swing voters.

The data from Shafner and Ansolabehere suggest there are millions of potential progressives who need to be mobilized-- but America lacks strong unions, which tend to mobilize the working class. This leads to a final way to boost turnout: nonprofits. A study released this week by Nonprofit Vote, “Engaging New Voters,” finds that nonprofits tend to engage non-white, young, low-income and low-propensity voters. They find that when nonprofits contacted individuals, those people turned out at high rates, suggesting that nonprofits could dramatically reduce the class, race and age bias of the electorate.

As I’ve noted before, parties have reduced contacts to low-income people and many people of color and young people go ignored by campaigns because they aren’t registered. Nonprofits could step in and fill the void left by parties.

Is Trumpf going to get his mass of slobs and malcontents to register and to vote? His fan base is whiter and older, but not richer and not educated. Some will vote and some won't. He's got a big headstart over his party establishment rivals. But who are they really? Let's start with Zitner's look, at The Journal. He defines them as "an underappreciated segment of the GOP-- blue-collar voters who aren’t especially animated by social issues." They're not really religious and Zitner remarks that his "appeal is a form of secular populism rarely seen in Republican primary races, and one he is pressing in part with appearances in working-class communities in Iowa that include independent voters and even Democrats who may be lured into the caucuses. The celebrity businessman’s message appears to resonate among voters who believe most strongly that political leaders are unable to put the nation back on track." Trumpf's followers, he claims, "don’t have a college degree and don’t identify strongly with the party’s touchstone social issues, such as opposition to abortion rights and gay marriage. What they want is a strong man type-- a fascist dictator to be precise-- but they would never call it that.

These voters care less about a candidate’s résumé or the nuances of policy than a promise to set a direction and follow through-- as when Mr. Trump says he will stop illegal immigration by building a wall on the Southwestern border and make Mexico pay for it.

A Quinnipiac poll this week showed that Mr. Trump’s tone is more important to his supporters than are policy stances. He held a large lead of 10 points over his nearest opponent among Republicans who said the most important attribute for the party nominee is to be a "strong leader." He has a much smaller lead, 4 points, among those who said “shared values” were most important.

Mr. Trump’s backers tend to be more working class than upper income, with a large share with no college education. In combined Journal/NBC News polling this year, Mr. Trump was the top choice of 25% of all GOP primary voters under age 50 who lack a college degree, but of only 13% with a college degree. The same split appeared among older voters: He won support from 23% with no college degree but only 15% of college graduates. No other candidate showed a similar skew.

A national CNN/ORC survey released Friday showed a similar pattern: Mr. Trump had the support of 46% of registered Republicans with no college degree and a much-smaller 18% of those with a degree. His support was also stronger among voters making less than $50,000 than those earning more. Polls in the early-primary states of Iowa and South Carolina have shown the same character to Mr. Trump’s support there.

...At least some of Mr. Trump’s support comes from conservative independents and Democrats who say they plan to vote in GOP primaries, and who account for nearly a third of the GOP primary electorate, Journal/NBC polling shows. Mr. Trump is essentially tied with Mr. Carson for the lead among those voters, Journal/NBC surveys through the fall have found.

[Former Iowa GOP Chairman Matt] Strawn said many of those voters haven't attended Iowa caucuses before, and that Mr. Trump has a challenge in motivating them to attend. His campaign has held calls to train supporters on the mechanics of the caucus. Mr. Strawn notes that Pat Robertson successfully drew new voters to the caucuses to propel his second-place finish in 1988, and that Ron Paul did the same in 2012 on the way to a third-place finish.

One question posed by Mr. Trump’s coalition is whether it creates the greater challenge for social conservatives or for establishment centrists to rally behind a single, favored candidate. By drawing more heavily from less-religious voters than from strong social conservatives, Mr. Trump may most complicate the establishment-wing vote.

Another question is whether Mr. Trump has created a model for building support that future GOP candidates could follow. "Great question," said Mr. Strawn. "At present, this appears to be a Trump-specific phenomenon, rather than a new electoral portal for a nonbillionaire, nonreality TV star Republican to follow."

Healy and Haberman report on the Times' analysis of Trumpf's vocabulary. In other words, how he manages to communicate to the angry, paranoid, hateful, dumb, low-info bigots who have been drawn to his proto-fascist banner. Recall, that last week we talked about another study that found his vocabulary was geared towards a 4th grader.

The dark power of words has become the defining feature of Mr. Trump’s bid for the White House to a degree rarely seen in modern politics, as he forgoes the usual campaign trappings-- policy, endorsements, commercials, donations-- and instead relies on potent language to connect with, and often stoke, the fears and grievances of Americans.

The New York Times analyzed every public utterance by Mr. Trump over the past week from rallies, speeches, interviews and news conferences to explore the leading candidate’s hold on the Republican electorate for the past five months. The transcriptions yielded 95,000 words and several powerful patterns, demonstrating how Mr. Trump has built one of the most surprising political movements in decades, and, historians say, echoing the appeals of some demagogues of the past century.

Mr. Trump’s breezy stage presence makes him all the more effective because he is not as off-putting as those raging men of the past, these experts say.

The most striking hallmark was Mr. Trump’s constant repetition of divisive phrases, harsh words and violent imagery that American presidents rarely use, based on a quantitative comparison of his remarks and the news conferences of recent presidents, Democratic and Republican. He has a particular habit of saying “you” and “we” as he inveighs against a dangerous “them” or unnamed other-- usually outsiders like illegal immigrants (“they’re pouring in”), Syrian migrants (“young, strong men”) and Mexicans, but also leaders of both political parties.

...While many candidates appeal to the passions and patriotism of their crowds, Mr. Trump appears unrivaled in his ability to forge bonds with a sizable segment of Americans over anxieties about a changing nation, economic insecurities, ferocious enemies and emboldened minorities (like the first black president, whose heritage and intelligence he has all but encouraged supporters to malign).

“‘We vs. them’ creates a threatening dynamic, where ‘they’ are evil or crazy or ignorant and ‘we’ need a candidate who sees the threat and can alleviate it,” said Matt Motyl, a political psychologist at the University of Illinois at Chicago who is studying how the 2016 presidential candidates speak. “He appeals to the masses and makes them feel powerful again: ‘We’ need to build a wall on the Mexican border-- not ‘I,’ but ‘we.’”

In another pattern, Mr. Trump tends to attack a person rather than an idea or a situation, like calling political opponents “stupid” (at least 30 times), “horrible” (14 times), “weak” (13 times) and other names, and criticizing foreign leaders, journalists and so-called anchor babies. He bragged on Thursday about psyching out Jeb Bush by repeatedly calling him “low-energy,” but he spends far less time contrasting Mr. Bush’s policies with his own proposals, which are scant.

...The specter of violence looms over much of his speech, which is infused with words like kill, destroy and fight. For a man who speaks off the cuff, he always remembers to bring up the Islamic State “chopping off heads.” And he has expressed enthusiasm for torturing enemies beyond waterboarding. Last month, after several men hit a Black Lives Matter protester at one of his rallies, Mr. Trump said, “Maybe he should have been roughed up.”

“Such statements and accusations make him seem like a guy who can and will cut through all the b.s. and do what in your heart you know is right-- and necessary,” said Michael Kazin, a historian at Georgetown University, echoing the slogan that Barry Goldwater used in his 1964 presidential campaign.

And Mr. Trump uses rhetoric to erode people’s trust in facts, numbers, nuance, government and the news media, according to specialists in political rhetoric. “Nobody knows,” he likes to declare, where illegal immigrants are coming from or the rate of increase of health care premiums under the Affordable Care Act, even though government agencies collect and publish this information. He insists that Mr. Obama wants to accept 250,000 Syrian migrants, even though no such plan exists, and repeats discredited rumors that thousands of Muslims were cheering in New Jersey during the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks. He promises to “bomb the hell” out of enemies-- invoking Hiroshima and Nagasaki-- and he says he would attack his political opponents “10 times as hard” as they criticized him.

And as much as he likes the word “attack,” the Times analysis shows, he often uses it to portray himself as the victim of cable news channels and newspapers that, he says, do not show the size of his crowds.

These patterns of elevating emotional appeals over rational ones is a rhetorical style that historians, psychologists and political scientists placed in the tradition of political figures like Goldwater, George Wallace, Joseph McCarthy, Huey Long and Pat Buchanan, who used fiery language to try to win favor with struggling or scared Americans. Several historians watched Mr. Trump’s speeches last week, at the request of The Times, and observed techniques-- like vilifying groups of people and stoking the insecurities of his audiences-- that they associate with Wallace and McCarthy.

“His entire campaign is run like a demagogue’s-- his language of division, his cult of personality, his manner of categorizing and maligning people with a broad brush,” said Jennifer Mercieca, an expert in American political discourse at Texas A&M University. “If you’re an illegal immigrant, you’re a loser. If you’re captured in war, like John McCain, you’re a loser. If you have a disability, you’re a loser. It’s rhetoric like Wallace’s-- it’s not a kind or generous rhetoric.”

“And then there are the winners, most especially himself, with his repeated references to his wealth and success and intelligence,” said Ms. Mercieca, noting a particular remark of Mr. Trump’s on Monday in Macon, Ga. (“When you’re really smart, when you’re really, really smart like I am-- it’s true, it’s true, it’s always been true, it’s always been true.”)

“Part of his argument is that if you believe in American exceptionalism, you should vote for me,” Ms. Mercieca said.

Historically, demagogues have flourished when they tapped into the grievances of citizens and then identified and maligned outside foes, as McCarthy did with attacking Communists, Wallace with pro-integration northerners and Mr. Buchanan with cultural liberals. These politicians used emotional language-- be it “segregation forever” or accusatory questions over the Community Party-- to persuade Americans to pin their anxieties about national security, jobs, racial diversity and social trends on enemy forces.

A significant difference between Mr. Trump and 20th-century American demagogues is that many of them, especially McCarthy and Wallace, were charmless public speakers. Mr. Trump, by contrast, is an energetic and charismatic speaker who can be entertaining and ingratiating with his audiences. There is a looseness to his language that sounds almost like water-cooler talk or neighborly banter, regardless of what it is about.

For some historians, this only makes him more effective because demagogy is more palatable when it is leavened with a smile and joke. Highlighting that informality, one of his most frequently used words is “guy”-- which he said 91 times last week and has used to describe President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia, a stranger cheering him on at a rally and a celebrity friend.

“His relaxed, jokey tone makes statements about his resolve to solve every problem because he’s knows what’s right and has the energy to do it more persuasive,” said Mr. Kazin of Georgetown, who described Mr. Trump’s idea for a database of Muslims in the United States as insidious but also said he found Mr. Trump amusing at points.

It is the sort of trust-me-and-only-me rhetoric that, according to historians, demagogues have used to insist that they have unique qualities that can lead the country through turmoil. Mr. Trump often makes that point when he criticizes his Republican rivals, though he also pretends that he is not criticizing them.

“All of ’em are weak, they’re just weak,” Mr. Trump said in New Hampshire on Tuesday of his fellow candidates. “I think they’re weak, generally, you want to know the truth. But I won’t say that, because I don’t want to get myself, I don’t want to have any controversies. So I refuse to say that they’re weak generally, O.K.? Some of them are fine people. But they are weak.”

Electing An Actual Progressive Isn't The Same As Electing A Corporate Democrat Who's Just A Bit Better Than A Republican

Over the weekend, one of the most talked-about pieces from the mainstream press was Patrick Healy's NY Times report on dissatisfaction with the Democratic Party establishment, "Democrats Find That Anti-Establishment Isn’t Just a G.O.P. Theme." "Anger at the political establishment," Healy wrote,

has overtaken the Republican presidential race, embodied in the candidacy of Donald J. Trump. But it is also coursing through the Democratic electorate, fueling the popularity of Bernie Sanders, inspiring liberal challenges to party-backed congressional candidates and spurring activism on causes from the minimum wage to the Keystone XL oil pipeline.

In the Pew Research survey released last week there was a distinct split on issues between progressive Democrats and conservaDems. 60% of progressives, for example, say they are more likely to vote for a candidate who favors cutting the size of the megabanks, while only 38% of the right-of-center Democrats have the same feeling. 53% of progressives say they would be more likely to vote for a candidate who backs the Iran nuclear agreement, while among the right-of-center Democrats that number (31%) is actually less than the percentage of the cohort who would be less likely to support a candidate who backed the Iran agreement!

Overall, 59% of Republican and Republican-leaning registered voters say the candidates running for the Republican nomination are excellent or good. This compares to 51% of Democratic and Democratic-leaning registered voters who say the same about the Democratic candidates.

In particular, conservative and moderate Democrats are expressing less satisfaction about the field of Democratic candidates than they have in the past. Currently, 45% of conservative and moderate Democratic and Democratic-leaning registered voters view the Democratic candidates running for the nomination as either excellent or good. At this point in the campaign in 2007, fully 62% of conservative and moderate Democratic registered voters had positive assessments of the Democratic field.

Liberal Democrats have typically been more likely than their conservative and moderate counterparts to say that the field of candidates running for their party’s nomination is excellent or good. However, the 26-percentage point gap between the positive assessments of liberal Democratic registered voters (71%) and conservative and moderate Democratic registered voters (45%) is the widest it has been in recent election cycles.

A Sunday Times editorial looked at why progressives are sick of Clinton and the rest of the party establishment.

Sanders has made a campaign theme of skewering the big-dollar, "super PAC" machinery of modern politics, and his donors clearly are responding. He reported 1.3 million online contributions from 650,000 different donors, running ahead of the Obama campaign’s 2008 record for small-dollar gifts. Mrs. Clinton’s campaign reported 250,000 donors three months ago but no new total for the latest quarter...

The small-donor activity may reflect growing public concern that democracy is under assault from politicians’ increasing reliance on millionaire supporters. An opinion poll this month by Bloomberg Politics shows that a stunning 78 percent of the public favors overturning the Supreme Court’s Citizens United decision, which has unleashed unlimited amounts of cash on political races, much of it coming from undisclosed sources.

Now, back to Healy's Times story. In his interviews with a few dozen Democrats in Iowa, New Hampshire and South Carolina, he discovered "a sense of hopelessness that their leaders had answers to problems like income inequality and gun violence." These are things that have fueled Bernie's political life and that the Clinton machine is tuned in enough to the zeitgeist to be reacting to.

Mrs. Clinton has tried to lift her declining poll numbers by highlighting endorsements from governors and lawmakers-- but such establishment backing has yet to do much good. Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr. could face the same anti-establishment headwinds if he enters the race, given his four decades in Washington, although allies believe he has the personal touch to win over angry Democrats. Mr. Sanders castigates “the entire political and economic establishment” regularly, by contrast, a message that has drawn 650,000 donors and huge crowds of fervent supporters, like the 20,000 people at his Boston rally on Saturday evening.

“I volunteered for Hillary when she ran for president in 2008, but her time is past, I think,” said Nikky Raney, 25, a Democrat from Dover, N.H. “And it’s Bernie who seems most genuine about universal health care and getting big money out of politics.”

Though Mrs. Clinton remains popular in the party, especially among those who want to see a first female president, Mr. Sanders’s call for a “political revolution” and his consistently left-wing policy ideas are inspiring to younger voters, seniors and liberals who would prefer to see a true believer overcome an establishment goliath.

... The disaffection among Democrats flows mainly from three sources, according to interviews with voters and strategists. Disappointment lingers with President Obama over the failure to break up big banks after the Great Recession and fight for single-payer health insurance, among other liberal causes. Fatigue with Mrs. Clinton’s controversies endures, as does distaste with her connections to the rich. And anger abounds at party leaders for not pursuing an ideologically pure, economically populist agenda.

“Establishment Democrats like Hillary could end up heavily outspending people like Sanders, but it may not matter as much as usual because voters are searching for someone off the beaten path,” said Paul Maslin, who was the pollster for Howard Dean’s 2004 presidential race.

Tom Henderson, the Democratic chairman in Polk County, Iowa, which includes Des Moines, said the most widely shared frustration among Democrats there was “the manner in which the economy has bounced back” under Mr. Obama: Wall Street returns look strong and unemployment has declined, but wages and benefits are largely unchanged.

“I think Sanders is pulling in voters who aren’t typical rank-and-file Democrats, but rather folks who have become energized over the last few years to change the country’s direction,” said Mr. Henderson, who is currently neutral in the race. “The question for Sanders is whether he can get those people to show up and vote in February.”

... “There’s just so much hopelessness about people having any real opportunity to just make a living, take care of their families, support themselves,” said Karen Bryant, a physician from New Boston, N.H. “Mrs. Clinton is floundering and Republicans like Jeb Bush are floundering because people see them as politicians whose messages change depending on who they are talking to or how much money they need to raise. If you live year after year not seeing politicians keep their promises, it leads you to support someone like Bernie Sanders.”

... Impatience with politics-as-usual has also led liberals to enter Democratic Senate primaries and mount more aggressive and well-financed challenges than in years past to candidates backed by the national party establishment.

In Florida, Representative Alan Grayson, a self-styled “progressive champion,” is portraying Representative Patrick Murphy, the Democratic Party’s preferred candidate for the seat being vacated by Senator Marco Rubio, as a “lightweight, empty-suit errand boy for Wall Street.” A former president of the Chicago Urban League, Andrea Zopp, is running in Illinois against the party-backed Representative Tammy Duckworth. And former Representative Joe Sestak is running as a liberal anti-establishment candidate in Pennsylvania... The contested primaries extend to House races. In New Jersey, a 24-year-old Sanders supporter, Alex Law, is challenging Representative Donald Norcross, portraying him as a machine politician.

This is hardly a brand-new phenomenon. Last year Zephyr Teachout and Tim Wu challenged corrupt conservatives Andrew Cuomo and Kathy Hochul in New York, and won 30 of New York's 62 counties-- some, like Ulster, Columbia, Schoharie, Otsego and Tompkins, with over 70% of the votes! Sure, lo-info voters in machine-controlled counties renominated Cuomo, but he was forced to spend $60.62 per vote-- over 40 times more than what Teachout spent! 

Now CEO and board chair for the anti-corruption nonprofit Mayday PAC, Teachout told us today that when she ran, she--

sensed a real openness to genuine challenge-- honestly, what surprised me the most is that it came from all quarters, upstate middle class Democrats no longer trusting corporate Democrats to be working for them. There has always been a left flank-- that's not new-- but what I think you see in the last few years is the middle flank, traditional Democrats with traditional values, waking up and realizing that many of the leaders are more corporate and trickle down than FDR, far, far to the right of the traditional Democratic party. You also see a healthy mistrust of cheap sloganeering in favor of more substantive leaders.

All of this gives me a lot of hope, and I hope to see much more in coming years. Labor and the Internet activists will be critical. I see this all as part of post-2008, post-crash politics. The demo with energy, the new insurgents, tend to be talking about taking on the new monopolists-- too big to fail banks, Comcast, etc.-- and talking about power.

Healy in his article very gingerly makes reference to Alan Grayson's run for the open Florida Senate seat against Wall Street patsy Patrick Murphy, who was recruited by the most corrupt and vile creature in the Beltway Democratic establishment, Wall Street's own Chuck Schumer. Murphy is the very worst of what the Democratic establishment has to offer. He has been the quintessential shill for predatory Wall Street banksters on the House Financial Services Committee. and on crucial issues-- so, not naming post offices-- he's voted far more with the GOP than with progressives. Steeped in family corruption, he was one of only seven Democrats to back the Republican bid to establish a Benghazi committee as part of a trumped-up witch hunt against Hillary Clinton, claiming, incongruously, that he was "100% confident it would vindicate" her.

In 2008, when Grayson first ran for his Orlando-area House seat, the Democratic establishment backed dull Chamber of Commerce Republican-lite good ole boy Charlie Stuart. Grayson beat him by over 20 points and then went on to beat the Republican incumbent, in a red district. In 2010 Grayson expected help from the DCCC, but didn't get any... and lost. In 2012 he won his seat back, again with no help from the establishment.

Last night he was succinct and to the point on the role of the party establishment in elections: "The talentless bureaucrats and drones who have misappropriated the party machinery excel at only one thing, and that is losing."

Alex Law is the insurgent progressive-- the first congressional candidate to endorse Bernie-- running against the incredibly corrupt Norcross machine in South Jersey. Norcross' first vote after being installed in Congress mid-session was to vote with the Republicans for the Keystone XL Pipeline. And he hasn't gotten much better since then. This morning we asked Alex why he's the only Democrat running for Congress in New Jersey to have endorsed Bernie. Here's what he told us:

To me, this starts at campaign finance reform. Campaign finance reform could be the most significant issue in our country right now because until it is fixed, our democracy will continue to be bought and sold by big companies and the mega-wealthy. Unlike Hilary who has talked about reform but flagrantly used loop holes to raise incredible sums of money through her Super-PAC, Bernie talks about campaign finance reform and then lives by his principles and does not have a Super-PAC. His campaign is funded by people for people, and to me, that is inspiring. A friend remarked to me last week that every time Bernie says “enough is enough” another working-class person says “ you got that right” reaches for their wallet.

Bernie is also committed to fighting inequality in America, which, along with campaign finance reform, is the root of the problems in our society. Income inequality, health-care inequality, race inequality, marriage inequality, gender inequality-- these are the defining issues of our time, and Bernie has taken a hard stance that he refuses to ignore them.

This is also the crux of many people’s misconception about his self-proclaimed status as a socialist. He is a democratic socialist, which means he doesn’t want to force everyone into fake inequality like some Marxist dream, but rather he wants everyone to exist with equal rules and have an equal chance at success.

• The mega-wealthy and corporations play by a different set of tax rules than we do.

• If you have health care in America, you don’t think about it, but if you don’t or you have bad coverage, your life is a ticking time bomb that can be undone by one broken bone or one family member’s unfortunate illness.

• If you are a minority in this country, the inequalities are too numerous to list, but include things like education, opportunity, and common decency.

• If you are gay, you may be able to be married now, but there is still tremendous progress that needs to happen in the workplace and with hate crime protection.

• If you are a woman, you still don’t have equal pay for equal work.

• If you are trans, every day you face unspeakable difficulty.

I believe a Bernie Sanders presidency will be the only one to wholeheartedly fight all of these inequalities and fight to get untraceable dark money out of politics. That is why I endorse Bernie Sanders, and it is why so many others across the country are joining this progressive movement.

As Bernie’s campaign grows, people are getting inspired to run their own races and do something about these issues. One of my favorite quotes is by Teddy Roosevelt, where he said, “In a Democracy, we have the responsibility of sovereigns, not subjects.” Bernie is inspiring this in people, inspiring people to take back our government from the special interests and make it work for the people again. I am so excited about the amazing crop of progressives that are running this election cycle. People like Rep. Alan Grayson and P.G. Sittenfeld running for Senate are inspirations to me every day.

Like them, I am running against a conservative Democrat in a primary. Like them, I am an underdog. But like them and like Bernie, our brand of honest, creative, and passionate politics is resonating with actual people. I’ve knocked on 17,000 doors in the last 10 weeks. I am talking to real people to carry the Bernie movement into New Jersey. My opponent, Donald Norcross, is the epitome of what is wrong with the Democratic primary. He is entirely funded by his machine-boss brother, and made his political career by legislating bills that have been responsible for some of the largest graft and worst cronyism anywhere in the country. He has voted with the Republicans on every single controversial vote since he got to Congress in 2014.

Here in South Jersey, my campaign is giving people a real choice between a conservative, corporatist, machine candidate and a young, passionate progressive. I hope in reading this, you will be inspired to act too, whether donating, volunteering, sharing, or even running your own campaign. We are all supporting each other, and together we are going to change America for the better.

Healy didn't mention the Democratic primary in Ohio, which pits a tired old Republican-lite establishment shill, Ted Strickland, against a fresh, progressive Cincinnati city councilman, P.G. Sittenfeld. The DSCC and a decrepitly old-guard Ohio Democratic Party are trying to ignore Sittenfeld. But he's the candidate that can provide a contrast to Republican incumbent Rob Portman. "I'm running for Senate because I believe Ohio Democrats deserve a voice and a choice," he told us this morning.

Voters are looking for change, and Ted Strickland doesn't represent the future when it comes to guns, the XL pipeline, paid sick days, or increasing Social Security benefits.I'm the candidate in this race who is unafraid to be truly progressive-- and in my opinion, only a true progressive who isn't afraid to stand up and be counted on controversial issues can beat Rob Portman. Portman and his allies want to make this race about right versus left. I want to make it about right versus wrong-- because I know that is a fight we Democrats can wage and win.

Tim Canova, a professor of law and public finance at Nova Southeastern University, has been mentioned as a possible primary candidate who would pose a progressive/populist challenge to Debbie Wasserman Schultz, a corrupt congresswoman who drew her own district boundaries when she was in the state legislature and who has never had a primary fight before. A Sanders supporter, Canova has been critical of Wasserman Schultz's performance as chair of the Democratic National Committee, including her role in limiting the presidential debates. "It’s bad for Democrats and bad for the country, but she’s apparently decided that it’s good for her own career to hitch her wagon to Hillary Clinton-- but it’s a wagon filled with a lot baggage and broken promises to American workers. People are just tired of being sold out by calculating and triangulating politicians. Wasserman Schultz has become the ultimate machine politician. While she stakes out liberal positions on culture war issues, when it comes to economic and social issues, she’s too often with the corporate elites. On too many crucial issues-- from fast-tracking the Trans-Pacific Partnership to the war on drugs and medical marijuana and mass incarceration, to her support for budget sequestrations and austerity-- Wasserman Schultz votes down the line with big corporate interests and cartels: Wall Street banks and hedge funds, Big Pharma, the private health insurers, private prisons, Monsanto, it goes on and on. It’s easy to say you’re for doing something about climate change and the environment, for pay equity, raising the minimum wage, or getting money out of politics, but it’s mostly just talk when you’re taking so much corporate money at the same time. That’s why the TPP is so insidious. It will shift the costs of environmental protection, health and safety and labor standards from corporate wrongdoers and wealthy investors to the taxpayers who have been taking it on the chin for so long. In many ways, Wasserman Schultz no longer has a choice. She’s become an establishment machine politician who has to turn her back on taxpayers, working folks, students and the elderly poor, unfortunately it’s all to line the pockets of the same corporate interests that are funding her campaigns. In today’s politics, the worst have no convictions, which may explain all their flip-flops on big issues, from Hillary Clinton on Keystone Pipeline to Wasserman Schultz’s indecision on the agreement with Iran. After playing Hamlet for weeks and blocking a DNC resolution, she finally came around to support the Iran agreement, but only when it became pretty clear she would have lost her post as DNC chair, a message apparently delivered in person by vice president Biden. It must be exhausting to have to constantly answer to wealthy campaign donors and corporate lobbyists when making these decisions."

Several years ago Blue America helped insurgent progressive Matt Cartwright go up against a horrible corrupt Republican-lite Blue Dog, Tim Holden, who had gigantic backing from the state and national Democratic establishment. Steny Hoyer and a squad of lobbyists were wandering the northeast Pennsylvania district meeting with party functionaries and imploring them to (somehow) help Holden. But Holden had been voting like a Republican for too many years, and Cartwright made sure the district's voters knew his record. Earlier today he told us that he doesn't think the endorsements of elected officials matter at all.

What matters is your message, and making sure you have the means to get it out there. Those kinds of endorsements worked 40 or 50 or 100 years ago; I think we are at a point now where a candidate's collecting endorsements of other politicians at best is a waste of time, and at worst is actually counterproductive. It's definitely a waste of time, because nowadays in high-profile races information on candidates is so readily and directly available that voters don't depend on party bosses and ward-heelers to tell them who to vote for. It can even be counterproductive, because the politicians bestowing their endorsements may in fact be individually or collectively despised.

In my own experience with a hotly contested primary contest, I was a complete political neophyte in my first election; my opponent was a 20-year incumbent congressman. You could count my endorsements from elected officials and local party committees on one hand; my opponent's list of endorsements was gargantuan. I just focused on raising enough money to get my message out. Since I was able to do that, I did get my message out. Since the voters liked my message more than the other guy's, nobody paid any attention to all those other politicians' endorsements, and I won... by a lot.

Perhaps you want to contribute to one or more of the candidates in this report. Here's how:

• Bernie Sanders
• Alan Grayson
• Alex Law
• P.G. Sittenfeld
• Matt Cartwright