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Lara Putnam Profile picture
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5 Nov, 5 tweets, 2 min read
Would be great if the new coalitional politics undergirding this major move👇 were receiving as much weight in 2021 elections post mortems as all the handwaving about whether "CRT"/DEI doomed Dems in the suburbs [Narrator: It didn't]
👇🌲🌲
With impressive timing this hit my mailbox this morning. This is what strategic synergizing of electoral, community & labor organizing looks like. Are you a national reporter interested in the post-pandemic, post-Trump-presidency landscape for org'd labor? Time to book a flight
& if you're covering the defeat of NJ Ironworker/political boss Steve Sweeney as just a wacky example of Dems getting tossed by inexplicable-but-inevitable thermostatic waves, you are missing the big picture— which is the same picture
The landscape of political potential is shifting: in ways that are both dynamic, and strikingly consistent

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More from @lara_putnam

Lara Putnam Profile picture
4 Nov
Whoa here is a map we have not seen for a *while*
Guesses?
So, Delco may still have some mail in ballots left to count, & I suppose others might as well? But as of today, at least, this is where the Nov 2021 PA Dem top of ticket (Maria McLaughlin) improved over Joe Biden, and where she lost ground.
Read 12 tweets
Lara Putnam Profile picture
3 Nov
ok, a few more minitakes. 1) It's not going to draw much noise bc it doesn't fit national tea-leaf reading or intra-Dem point-scoring BUT: The pace at which PA elected officialdom is diversifying is quite something, including now in big towns in non-diverse counties
We saw this already in 2018 & '20 on the GOP side, w/ women & some non-white candidates running & winning state legslature seats & statewide office. (I think hardcore Dem/progressive activists may underestimate how much this shapes/moderates the GOP image among regular voters...)
One might have been concerned that PA Dems would embrace "casting against type" in a parallel/mirror way & double down on only nominating white men. I'll sidestep the question of whether insiders tried (ymmv) but Dem primary electorates were having none of it in May 2021
Read 23 tweets
Lara Putnam Profile picture
3 Nov
I am trying hard not to break my never-tweet-while-votes-are-still-being-counted rule but people, these Allegheny County numbers are... something else.
Like, in 2017 Dem PA Supreme Court nominee Dwayne Woodruff carried a net 55,000 vote advantage out of Allegheny County. Today Dem Supreme Court nominee Maria McLaughlin is already carrying a 70,000 net vote advantage out of Allegheny County, and 1/4 of precincts are yet to report
& in the face of incredibly contentious schoolboard politics—& some ugly campaign tactics—Dem candidates who are going to bring unprecedented racial/ethnic diversity are winning schoolboard races in northern & southern suburbs alike. Not winning all of them: but in *tough* places
Read 15 tweets
Lara Putnam Profile picture
15 Oct
An indicator of how the intensity of schoolboard conflicts ramped up this summer/fall: I know several cases PA of center/left teams running write-in campaigns now, in districts where back in Feb local grassroots weren't organized/outraged enough to get recruits on primary ballot
Yet another suburban school board write-in campaign👇 School boards are really the races to watch nationwide this Nov, to see whether it's the RW backlash, or the backlash-against-the-backlash that's capturing the engaged-enough-to-vote suburban center...
Wow, must read👇account from small town SCPA. So much strategic insight on display— frankly, so much more in touch with real people & how they are swayed than anything on offer from any side of the Great Dem Pundit Messaging Wars #onhere in recent weeks,! organizingupgrade.com/not-in-our-tow…
Read 5 tweets
Lara Putnam Profile picture
17 Jul
This👇 by @ed_kilgore is both worth reading in itself, & mentions a precedent that has been on my mind, & that I've come think is important, even crucial.

We should start to recognize the anti-CRT push as the Swiftboating of youth-led antiracism. [a🧵] nymag.com/intelligencer/…
The key dynamic in the original swiftboat smear was it took something that Dems had (appropriately!) anticipated as an authentic source of strength—their candidate's record of military service in Vietnam—& made it so toxic that any effort to draw strength from it was neutralized
.@holden has been writing brilliantly re the importance of a "field of evidence" for participatory propaganda, & the insight fits more broadly. Where is the field of provocations that get spun up as "CRT" in local schoolboard after schoolboard coming from? hapgood.us/2021/06/12/par…
Read 45 tweets
Lara Putnam Profile picture
17 Jul
Philly Dem ward comttee internal vote drama (which is very much my jam) has me noticing that (a few) ward cttees in Philly have twitter accounts. AFAIK none in the city of Pittsburgh do. Which is striking as much for what it says about twitter as for what it says about Dem cttees
You might think that a platform that skews heavily Democratic & politically engaged would be a natural fit for entrepreneurial local Democratic organizations seeking to grow. But that hasn't generally been the case: and I'm not actually saying it should be. In part it's a good
reminder of just what a non-representative slice *even of very highly engaged Democrats* twitter captures: political twitter is decades younger, way more highly formally educated, & less female than the folks who make up the Democratic action-taking base even in big fancy cities
Read 9 tweets

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