Yesterday Daily Kos held a day long event for activists and Daily Kos participants at the Alamo Drafthouse in Kansas City. We set up shop at 7:30 a.m. thanks to the hospitality of the event organizers and Daily Kos.
Around one hundred forty individuals attend, partaking in presentations and question and answer sessions. A number of the Daily Kos editorial team presented, including Markos Moulitsas, founder of Daily Kos; Neeta Lind, Director of Community Building at Daily Kos; Chris Reeves with Reuben Eckels; David Nir, Political Director at Daily Kos; Joan McCarter, Senior Political Writer at Daily Kos; Monique Teal and Ferguson Township (Missouri) Committeewoman Patricia Bynes; among others.
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Reuben Eckles: …I think they [Democrats] vote when they know they have hope. And they know that, and they know that they have something to vote for. [applause] [inaudible] [….] I think we, we are a people, progressives are people who vote when there are, there are, when their, their issues are, and the candidates will stand up. We have a lot of folk who don’t stand up for anything. It seems like we’re, we’re scared now. And, and, so [voice: “Preach it.”] when we stand up and we say what we are for, we stand up and we, we don’t back off and back, back away from it, I think we’ll, we’ll get out and vote. And so, and so, we can’t, we can’t look like, you know, we say we’re progressives and then we move further and further to the right so that we can bring, you know, not piss folk off. [applause] I’m gonna tell you something. I’m a Democrat, but one of the things they did in Wichita, Kansas [….] was going first in, in, if you went into the Democratic Party, its office, they didn’t have Barrack Obama’s picture up because they didn’t want to piss off moderate Republicans. [voice: “Yep.”] Hell, we can’t do that. Let’s stand for what we stand for. [applause] [inaudible] And there are more folks out there, there are more folks with us then are against us
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David Nir, Political Director, Daily Kos: ….Wisconsin Senator Ron Johnson [R], he represents, uh, a very swingy state, but, I think that he thinks he represents Utah [laughter] because he votes as conservatively as you realistically can in the Senate. And dumb stuff comes out of his mouth all the time. It’s really amazing. Just the other day he had a comment that, uh, he thought that the reason why students were taking longer to finish college, uh, is because they’re having too much fun partying. Uh, and, uh, he said, you know, well I put myself through school, uh, you know, working jobs or whatever, never mind the fact that, uh, tuition has spiked, the minimum wage has stagnated, and it’s no longer possible for many students to put themselves through college in four years the way Ron Johnson did.
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Joan McCarter, Senior Political Writer, Daily Kos.
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Joan McCarter, Senior Political Writer, Daily Kos: …Social Security. We’re not there yet. But, last month forty-two senators, forty-two Democrats, voted for a budget resolution, it’s non-binding, it’s advisory, but voted for a budget resolution that would expand Social Security. [applause] Forty-two. Joe Manchin, Joe Manchin was one of the lead co-sponsors. And actually, we found out it would have been forty-three Democrats because Barbara Mikulski wasn’t there for that vote, but she signed on later, saying, okay, I’m gonna do this.
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Markos Moulitsas, founder, Daily Kos.
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Markos Moulitsas, founder, Daily Kos: …Hillary’s gonna be the next President of the United States. [voice: “Yes, she is.”] [applause] It is, a, I mean, it’s close to a fact as you can get in politics, I mean, without, you know, major illness or, um. The, Hillary, the, the draft [Elizabeth] Warren stuff is absolutely patently ridiculous, not just because she said no and people don’t want to take no as no. Um, but, uh, it, I know, like, Warren is probably one of three politicians in the entire country that I consider an actual friend. So I know her, uh, fairly well and I, I know she’s not running. It’s never been an issue. She’s not gonna run. Um, but the fact is it actually endangers her agenda by pushing her. She’s very effective in the Senate. Anything she does now is basically instant virality. Like people love her. It’s a platform like no other….
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…When you look at Hillary Clinton’s numbers among African Americans and Latinos she is off the charts. So, that there, you know, so, make, mostly, it’s [inaudible] activist mostly white base that’s really pushing for a candidate that doesn’t want to run against a candidate that’s already been embraced by the party…
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…As we as a ideology become ascendant, and I think liberalism is on the ascendancy right now. Um, the poll, the polls are showing that the number of liberals is growing, uh, for the first time in decades. Like the war is no longer, like I’m proud to say I’m a liberal and, and you’re gonne see people who are gonna be pretend lib, before they like couldn’t run away far enough, right. The fact that they’re now pretending to be liberal is actually progress [laughter]. As frustrating as it might be, that is actually progress. Uh, so, uh, I would take it as a compliment and then work on, on making distinctions. You know, it actually gets easier for a lot of these corporatist types. I mean the DLC’s a dead organization. But these corporate types will find ways to get their money into their candidates. Is, now that the social issues, we’ve won the social wars, you know, cultural wars it’s actually, it’s easier for them to say, I’m for gay marriage, um, pro choice, therefore, I’m perfectly liberal. And, and a lot of people, we’ve been conditioned that the culture wars are the fault lines between the good and the bad. That it makes it easy for them to mask their economic agenda. So, as we, as a party I see moving towards this, we as a party becoming more effective at making, uh, economic issues part of the popular debate, whether it’s the fifteen dollar minimum wage or whether it’s, uh, the Koch brothers and everything they do, or. And, so, I think what’s sort, it’s almost like, okay, you’re, you’re good on the social issues, great for you, everybody’s good on that now. So, now , how are you on fif, fifteen dollars, how are you on universal pre-K, how are you on all these other things? And, uh, and that’s gonna be hopefully the new fault lines…
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Ferguson Township (Missouri) Committeewoman Patricia Bynes.
