5 ms·

Why do Californians keep re-electing her?

by tomschlick 3y ago

throwaway5959 3y ago
Why do Kentuckians keep re-electing Mitch McConnell?
- cuttysnark 3y ago
  A senator whose name isn't on this list—what's your point?
- jdminhbg 3y ago
  Because he represents their views and is an extremely powerful senator besides?
  - alistairSH 3y ago
    Exactly.
    - Alupis 3y ago
      Unlike McConnell, there doesn't seem to be a lot of "regular joe" support for Feinstein. There's practically nobody in this thread singing her praises... even among her fellow D's.
      - alistairSH 3y ago
        I suspect that's because the Democrats, in recent times, haven't pursued "party purity" to the same extent as the Republicans. It's a more fractured electorate without the few "big ticket" issues that the GOP weaponizes (guns, god, and gays). But, when you look at Feinstein's accomplishments, she has represent her constituents as well as anybody... She authored the Respect for Marriage Act (undoing the conservative Defense of Marriage Act). She's pursued fair pay for federal wild land firefighters. She's protected millions of acres of federal land in CA for recreation. The list is extensive, as it should be for somebody of her tenure. And with all that said, I do feel it's time for her to retire. I'm unconvinced on term limits, but I do dislike the tendency of long-time politicians to hang on well past their prime (and this applies equally on all sides of the aisle, and also to the courts).
        Alupis 3y ago
        > I suspect that's because the Democrats, in recent times, haven't pursued "party purity" to the same extent as the Republicans. It's a more fractured electorate without the few "big ticket" issues that the GOP weaponizes (guns, god, and gays). The Republican Party of today is changing right before our eyes. Many hard-line issues are becoming soft - famously recently with Trump and his complete lack of religiousness. Many of the other hard-line issues were distorted by political opponents, such as your claimed "gay" issue (when viewed through a religious lens, the marriage issue makes more sense, it wasn't really about people's sexual preference, it was about a specific word. if anything, republicans are absolutely terrible at getting their message across, consistently... but I digress...). The point was, the younger generation of Republicans do not staunchly adhere to these "classical" Republican views - and the party is changing. The Republican Party seems to represent a lot more working-class people and minority groups today than a decade ago - voter segments that historically were under lock-and-key for Democrats. To that end, the Democrat party is also changing; getting pulled a lot more left-ward than most average Liberals are comfortable with. It's a weird world where the likes of John Stewart and Bill Maher sound more like conservatives than liberals. Both parties have found themselves within an identity crisis. My gut tells me there will be a course correction for the Democratic party not to distant in the future, and the Republican party will continue to "liberalize" as the younger generation takes over. We'll see where the road takes us all...
        andrekandre 3y ago
        > Republican party will continue to "liberalize" is that why they are pushing so many anti-gay/trans bills, banning books, and banning abortion seeming to no end?
        Alupis 3y ago
        Tell me you only read headlines without telling me you only read headlines...
- HDThoreaun 3y ago
  He looks out for their interests. One of the first projects finished with the infrastructure bill was bridge in kentucky that Mcconnell and Biden opened together.
- mattnewton 3y ago
  That makes more sense to me than Feinstein really. He looks after wealthy Kentucky interests, and is a very powerful senator shaping policy for the whole Republican Party; Feinstein seems unaware of Silicon Valley’s interests and basically votes along party lines.
  - saltcured 3y ago
    I think you can say the same thing about California. Your mistake is conflating "Silicon Valley's interests" with "wealthy California interests". I imagine it is also true that Kentucky does not have one monolithic base of wealthy or elite agendas. I think it is more accurate to say that both of them have transitioned into iconic status. The political/marketing machinations have lofted their identities so high that it barely matters that they are humans at all. They are brands. There is also the basic senate rules mentioned elsewhere, which institutionalize seniority. Look at the list of longest serving US senators and ask yourself if Feinstein is really an anomaly: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_members_of_the_United_States_Congress_by_longevity_of_service https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_members_of_the_United_... Edit to add: remember when we used to have this conversation about Strom Thurmond or Robert Byrd? It's idiomatic.
tmpz22 3y ago
Don't these positions benefit from tenure as well as interpersonal relationship developed over decades?
- dllthomas 3y ago
  Yeah, as a Californian asking those around me why they support her over another Democrat in the general after a jungle primary, "seniority" is the answer that stood out.
anigbrowl 3y ago
Because she's not a Republican, and competitive primaries for long-time incumbents are often political suicide for the challenger. Voters have a poor set of choices and select the least bad.
- boomboomsubban 3y ago
  In California's fucked up system she actually runs against a Democrat most of the time. I assume it's name recognition and more money that gets her reelected.
- jdminhbg 3y ago
  California uses "jungle primaries" where the top two vote getters regardless of party advance to the general election. You can't blame the two-party system here, voters could easily choose another Democrat if that's what they wanted.
  - kelseyfrog 3y ago
    Yep, and in this case, it's isomorphic to the question, "Why didn't Kevin De Leon(D) defeat DiFi in the 2018 election?" - question whose answers can range from, "not enough votes," to "less money," to "why did the CA coast prefer DiFi and CA's interior prefer KDL?"
    - rnk 3y ago
      The problem is last time her opponent wasn't reputable enough to be a good counterweight. I wish Katy Porter had run and replaced her. I think she was barely in politics then.
  - wholinator2 3y ago
    Unless it's ranked choice doesnt it still fall to the "least bad" fallacy? Like, people aren't sure that everyone else is going to vote the democrat they want and are afraid if they don't vote for the most likely, then they'll dilute the vote to the point that none of their chosen party wins? I mean, sure, if the democratic vote was a monolith that was capable of making a single choice or even knowing what its own choices would be we could say that it must be this way because people want it like this. Rather than it being yet another consequence of antiquated voting systems incrementally improving while claiming all the hard work is already done
govolckurself 3y ago
[dead]
0xcde4c3db 3y ago
This is basically fourth-hand info, so take it with a grain of salt: but what I've heard boils down to this: The Democratic Party, in its capacity as an actual political organizing apparatus (not an identity/platform), never really recovered from the broad shift in influence from labor to finance in the late '70s/early '80s. It has thus fallen back to relying heavily on a strained ad-hoc network of political machines built by various "rock star" Democrats. That's why the party loosely realigned around "third way" / "blue dog" Democrats in the '90s; it's not that there was some transcendent soul-searching about principles, it's that people like Bill Clinton and Evan Bayh were supported by campaign apparatus that won tough elections. More broadly, this has led to an arguably pathological degree of deference among Democrats to any org that has a track record of winning elections. And whatever faults Feinstein's political machine has, it has that track record.

Why do Californians keep re-electing her?

throwaway5959 3y ago

Why do Kentuckians keep re-electing Mitch McConnell?

cuttysnark 3y ago
A senator whose name isn't on this list—what's your point?
jdminhbg 3y ago
Because he represents their views and is an extremely powerful senator besides?
- alistairSH 3y ago
  Exactly.
  - Alupis 3y ago
    Unlike McConnell, there doesn't seem to be a lot of "regular joe" support for Feinstein. There's practically nobody in this thread singing her praises... even among her fellow D's.
    - alistairSH 3y ago
      I suspect that's because the Democrats, in recent times, haven't pursued "party purity" to the same extent as the Republicans. It's a more fractured electorate without the few "big ticket" issues that the GOP weaponizes (guns, god, and gays). But, when you look at Feinstein's accomplishments, she has represent her constituents as well as anybody... She authored the Respect for Marriage Act (undoing the conservative Defense of Marriage Act). She's pursued fair pay for federal wild land firefighters. She's protected millions of acres of federal land in CA for recreation. The list is extensive, as it should be for somebody of her tenure. And with all that said, I do feel it's time for her to retire. I'm unconvinced on term limits, but I do dislike the tendency of long-time politicians to hang on well past their prime (and this applies equally on all sides of the aisle, and also to the courts).
      - Alupis 3y ago
        > I suspect that's because the Democrats, in recent times, haven't pursued "party purity" to the same extent as the Republicans. It's a more fractured electorate without the few "big ticket" issues that the GOP weaponizes (guns, god, and gays). The Republican Party of today is changing right before our eyes. Many hard-line issues are becoming soft - famously recently with Trump and his complete lack of religiousness. Many of the other hard-line issues were distorted by political opponents, such as your claimed "gay" issue (when viewed through a religious lens, the marriage issue makes more sense, it wasn't really about people's sexual preference, it was about a specific word. if anything, republicans are absolutely terrible at getting their message across, consistently... but I digress...). The point was, the younger generation of Republicans do not staunchly adhere to these "classical" Republican views - and the party is changing. The Republican Party seems to represent a lot more working-class people and minority groups today than a decade ago - voter segments that historically were under lock-and-key for Democrats. To that end, the Democrat party is also changing; getting pulled a lot more left-ward than most average Liberals are comfortable with. It's a weird world where the likes of John Stewart and Bill Maher sound more like conservatives than liberals. Both parties have found themselves within an identity crisis. My gut tells me there will be a course correction for the Democratic party not to distant in the future, and the Republican party will continue to "liberalize" as the younger generation takes over. We'll see where the road takes us all...
        andrekandre 3y ago
        > Republican party will continue to "liberalize" is that why they are pushing so many anti-gay/trans bills, banning books, and banning abortion seeming to no end?
        Alupis 3y ago
        Tell me you only read headlines without telling me you only read headlines...
HDThoreaun 3y ago
He looks out for their interests. One of the first projects finished with the infrastructure bill was bridge in kentucky that Mcconnell and Biden opened together.
mattnewton 3y ago
That makes more sense to me than Feinstein really. He looks after wealthy Kentucky interests, and is a very powerful senator shaping policy for the whole Republican Party; Feinstein seems unaware of Silicon Valley’s interests and basically votes along party lines.
- saltcured 3y ago
  I think you can say the same thing about California. Your mistake is conflating "Silicon Valley's interests" with "wealthy California interests". I imagine it is also true that Kentucky does not have one monolithic base of wealthy or elite agendas. I think it is more accurate to say that both of them have transitioned into iconic status. The political/marketing machinations have lofted their identities so high that it barely matters that they are humans at all. They are brands. There is also the basic senate rules mentioned elsewhere, which institutionalize seniority. Look at the list of longest serving US senators and ask yourself if Feinstein is really an anomaly: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_members_of_the_United_States_Congress_by_longevity_of_service https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_members_of_the_United_... Edit to add: remember when we used to have this conversation about Strom Thurmond or Robert Byrd? It's idiomatic.

tmpz22 3y ago

Don't these positions benefit from tenure as well as interpersonal relationship developed over decades?

dllthomas 3y ago
Yeah, as a Californian asking those around me why they support her over another Democrat in the general after a jungle primary, "seniority" is the answer that stood out.

anigbrowl 3y ago

Because she's not a Republican, and competitive primaries for long-time incumbents are often political suicide for the challenger. Voters have a poor set of choices and select the least bad.

boomboomsubban 3y ago
In California's fucked up system she actually runs against a Democrat most of the time. I assume it's name recognition and more money that gets her reelected.
jdminhbg 3y ago
California uses "jungle primaries" where the top two vote getters regardless of party advance to the general election. You can't blame the two-party system here, voters could easily choose another Democrat if that's what they wanted.
- kelseyfrog 3y ago
  Yep, and in this case, it's isomorphic to the question, "Why didn't Kevin De Leon(D) defeat DiFi in the 2018 election?" - question whose answers can range from, "not enough votes," to "less money," to "why did the CA coast prefer DiFi and CA's interior prefer KDL?"
  - rnk 3y ago
    The problem is last time her opponent wasn't reputable enough to be a good counterweight. I wish Katy Porter had run and replaced her. I think she was barely in politics then.
- wholinator2 3y ago
  Unless it's ranked choice doesnt it still fall to the "least bad" fallacy? Like, people aren't sure that everyone else is going to vote the democrat they want and are afraid if they don't vote for the most likely, then they'll dilute the vote to the point that none of their chosen party wins? I mean, sure, if the democratic vote was a monolith that was capable of making a single choice or even knowing what its own choices would be we could say that it must be this way because people want it like this. Rather than it being yet another consequence of antiquated voting systems incrementally improving while claiming all the hard work is already done

govolckurself 3y ago

[dead]

0xcde4c3db 3y ago

This is basically fourth-hand info, so take it with a grain of salt: but what I've heard boils down to this: The Democratic Party, in its capacity as an actual political organizing apparatus (not an identity/platform), never really recovered from the broad shift in influence from labor to finance in the late '70s/early '80s. It has thus fallen back to relying heavily on a strained ad-hoc network of political machines built by various "rock star" Democrats. That's why the party loosely realigned around "third way" / "blue dog" Democrats in the '90s; it's not that there was some transcendent soul-searching about principles, it's that people like Bill Clinton and Evan Bayh were supported by campaign apparatus that won tough elections. More broadly, this has led to an arguably pathological degree of deference among Democrats to any org that has a track record of winning elections. And whatever faults Feinstein's political machine has, it has that track record.