basquebromance
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- Nov 26, 2015
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The Democrats’ Giant Dilemma
John Fetterman’s blue-collar progressivism has endeared him to Pennsylvania voters. Why are so many Democratic leaders opposing his Senate run?
www.politico.com
from the article, this is ridiculous:
But for many party leaders, this isn’t a question of “the intractable outsider” vs. “the establishment.” Fetterman’s candidacy hits at the heart of the debate roiling the Democratic Party today: Should the party try to win back working-class white voters who stray further from them every year or double down on the suburban and Black electorate that has powered their recent wins? Fetterman’s white guy working-class appeal, they say, is outdated for a party that should be committed to addressing structural racism.
Ryan Boyer, the African American president of Philadelphia’s powerful building trades council, took to Facebook earlier this year to make the case for a Black nominee: “What has John [Fetterman] done to warrant a U.S. Senate seat? If black [women] are the base of the Democratic Party … shouldn’t the state party recruit an African American candidate[?]”
One African American state House member says Fetterman’s “authentic” brand smacks of white male privilege. “I know it would be an impossible race [for a Black candidate] to be able to run for anything across the state being dressed down every day,” says the lawmaker. “It’s just not fair. It’s such a double standard.”
Fetterman’s team, meanwhile, maintains that his lack of pretense is exactly why rank-and-file Democrats like him—in Trump country, sure, but among other demographics too. It’s why he was reelected mayor of majority-Black Braddock by huge margins each time.