TFW you receive an email notifying you that @Dennis_Kucinich is running for Governor of Ohio. #PowerToWeThePeople
Lesser-known fact about @Dennis_Kucinich: back in 2004, we won the @mfsfox Mock Primary Election in a landslide. It was awesome. mfriends.org/news/among-fri… 
Here's a story about @Dennis_Kucinich, @TheDemocrats, & a formative political moment for me. Back during Obama's first term, 64 House Democrats took a pledge not to vote for a bill that didn't include a public option. Some centrist Democrats didn't want a public option.
Democratic leadership decided they would try to roll the 64. They hadn't really even tried to use pressure to force Joe Lieberman or Ben Nelson to accept a better bill, but they did use pressure to try to force the progressive Democrats to play nice.
Eventually, 63 of these Democrats caved. Only one was left: Dennis Kucinich. Democratic leadership & party-loyal organizations & pundits were furious. @BarackObama flew to Kucinich's district. @MoveOn & @dailykos threatened Kucinich with consequences.
Kucinich ended up voting for the bill in the end. He said he did the best he could & decided that we were better off with the ACA than without it, & that losing the vote now would set back health reform efforts for a long time. I was disappointed.
I have forgiven Kucinich for this, though, because he did at least return the money that people like me had given him for holding out. And I could tell he was conflicted about what was a very tough choice.
The choice Dennis Kucinich faced during the ACA debate is one social justice advocates face a lot in this country, & it is a choice that is the product of a standard Establishment Democratic playbook. It is essential that we understand that playbook.
1) Say you want good policy but centrists won't support it. Pretend you have no power to influence centrists.
2) When social justice advocates say they won't support the much worse policy you actually want, use the power you pretended you didn't have to try to force them to.
2) When social justice advocates say they won't support the much worse policy you actually want, use the power you pretended you didn't have to try to force them to.
Establishment Democrats' strategy works because social justice advocates care about short-run outcomes. It is true that, at any given instant, "pre-ACA" is worse than "ACA". It's hard to fault people who, faced with those choices, say "I hate it, but I have to vote for the ACA."
The problem is, if we make decisions this way - based on short-run choices we've been seemingly boxed into - we will always end up with bad & worse options to choose from. We will keep getting bad short-run choices & will never achieve our long-run goals.
I took 3 lessons from the ACA debate. Lesson 1: We need to recognize the Establishment Democratic playbook & call it out. We can't let Democrats get away with pretending they want something good but not actually working to make that thing a reality (& often working against it).
Lesson 2: Think carefully about what lines we are going to draw - what things are really non-negotiable - &, when we have chosen one of those lines, stick to it. If we cave, we signal that we are not serious, that our demands can be ignored because we can be rolled.
(Fun aside: this lesson is one of the most important ones for new teachers, too. When I'd help teachers struggling with classroom management, I always started by encouraging them to set a small number of very clear rules they knew they could enforce well.)
Last lesson: Even the best elected officials need to have people constantly pushing them to do the right thing. The Kucinich's of the world will never stop hearing from the Establishment about why they should cave. So they can't stop hearing from you about why they shouldn't.
