Michael Tae Sweeney: I don't really see a good reason to think Bowman will win, but it's striking that they can't even wait until he actually loses to write the left-punching political obituaries

I don't really see a good reason to think Bowman will win, but it's striking that they can't even wait until he actually loses to write the left-punching political obituaries

Rep. Bowman's downfall isn't just about Gaza or AIPAC's cash flood. It's about voting against infrastructure, aligning with fringe groups, and forgetting that real politics needs more than just fiery rhetoric.

Rep. Jamaal Bowman's base eats itself, and that could cost him his seatwww.dailykos.com If polls are to be believed, as well as vibes by those in the district, New York Rep. Jamaal Bowman will lose Tuesday in a Democratic primary race framed around the war in Gaza, following AIPAC’s unpr...

What doomed Bowman? Was it the $15M in money that was dumped into his district by the pro-Netanyahu lobby that bought hundreds of ads and a deluge of mailers? Or was it a handful of activists who booed AOC? Opinions differ!

The underlying argument Kos makes isn't even wrong, but he has to dishonestly attribute actions and views to Bowman that Bowman doesn't hold, conflating some extremist pro-Palestinian protesters with Bowman himself, using Bowman's presumed defeat as evidence bsky.app/profile/drin...

amazing what the daily kos was seen as or represented in like 2005 vs what it is today

Idk it seems like to a great degree "the left" has been very supportive of Bowman. Kos's evidence that's not the case is fundraising numbers, but why a Dem on Dem primary fight is seen as a sensible investment of money for *anyone* is kinda suspect! bsky.app/profile/thew...

Yeah - I do think there's at least something to "Bowman put himself on the line for Palestine in Congress, and it's bad that some Palestinian activist groups don't have his back" but it's not enough to be decisive in an election.

Even if Bowman pulls out a miracle victory, AIPAC's point will have been made. If you oppose Netanyahu, they will parachute into any race and flood it with money and much of the Dem establishment will stand idly by or even side with AIPAC against you (as Hillary Clinton did) bsky.app/profile/onet...

and this is only going to embolden AIPAC and do the opposite to any principled politicians who don’t want a genocide done with our money.

I think Josh would really like it to be the case that the AIPAC money is downstream of Bowman (presumably) losing not upstream but that doesn't make sense to me bsky.app/profile/aexi...

Those mailers are hammering him on the infrastructure vote et al, not Israel & Gaza. Josh Marshall has the right take that he made himself vulnerable & AIPAC et al are jumping in to make sure they get credit for his loss (something leftists here are happy to do) even though he would've lost anyway

No voters would give a shit about his infrastructure vote if there weren’t fifteen million dollars of ads telling people it mattered! It’s all about vibes and narrative.

He wouldn’t have faced a challenge and George gotten any money had October 7th never happened Josh’s brains broke with the Israel stuff this year

I don't even know if "the leadership stood idly by" is accurate, Bowman was endorsed by the entire House leadership team, Jeffries Clark and Aguilar. Bowman has all the endorsements, AIPAC just loaded up the money bomb after he had some slightly impolitic words to say about Gaza.

this... is very much not the 2024 experience, though? AIPAC only targeted two D incumbents.

i think it's probably true that absent AIPAC targeting Bowman would be in far, far better shape, including possibly not having drawn a challenger at all, and I'm willing to therefore blame them for his potential loss. but it isn't true at all that AIPAC is going after everyone

I once again think people are missing forest for the trees, the fact that AIPAC has had to try and make bids against Democrats at all, and that AIPAC spends openly in races now in of itself, is indicative of the waning, not growing, influence of the lobby.

There’s a lot of AIPAC money going into local NYC races too via the Solidarity PAC

The number of GOP incumbents actually defeated by extremist opponents is still relatively low, IIRC. You don't have to mount many challenges (and only win one or two) to intimidate a lot of people.

Exactly - this is an awful outcome regardless of the actual (and likely awful!) outcome.

There are only two kinds of people that give to campaigns: plutocrats and idiots. Everyone else is sick of the fundraising spam

It does seem like the whole thing is aimed at taking a shot at "Within Our Lifetimes" which deserves it, but it's not like Bowman was invested in their votes first and foremost or anything.

my read tracks more with what @cooperlund.bsky.social has said which is that things like the vote against the infrastructure bill have proven really damaging to him and the Palestinian stuff is landing less than the pure “he’s not on Team Blue” ads and that’s where the focus should lie

I took this photo from one of the many attack ads I’ve seen against him yesterday because I thought it was both funny and illuminating. Just attacking him as a kook seems to also be working.

Like, as someone seeing what the average voter sees, the Kos piece is pretty on the money. He's taking correct moral stands, but he doesn't seem to be a particularly savvy politician. That's an important difference.

Lol are they trying to imply he has something to do with Noem shooting her dog?

No, they're putting his kook stuff next to other kook stuff to paint him as a kook

For people who weren't aware - Bowman "was" a 9/11 truther back when he was a teacher and recommended antisemitic crank conspiracy theory videos Zeitgeist and Loose Change.

NY Rep. Jamaal Bowman Promoted 9/11 Conspiracy Theories on Blogwww.thedailybeast.com He said he regrets his writings, dismissing them as an intellectual exercise.

and his recent media diet does not seem to have improved

Squad Rep’s YouTube Page Is a Conspiracy Theorist’s Dreamwww.thedailybeast.com Jamaal Bowman has insisted his days of engaging with fringe content are behind him. His active YouTube account shows otherwise.

This is the game of centrist democrats. My parents, in this district, hold those same shitty and not real viewpoints and refuse to be reasoned with.

old enough to remember when moulitsas himself wrote a blog post literally entitled "i dont support the troops."

That was about the Blackwater mercenaries, no?

it was not www.dailykos.com/story/2007/9...

wait thats actually not it... thats a comment on the blog. there was something else there that was definitely from him around the same time.

That's not by Kos or any of the staff. "(This content is not subject to review by Daily Kos staff prior to publication.)"

Rude

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Those mailers are hammering him on the infrastructure vote et al, not Israel & Gaza. Josh Marshall has the right take that he made himself vulnerable & AIPAC et al are jumping in to make sure they get credit for his loss (something leftists here are happy to do) even though he would've lost anyway

As someone with a Jewish last name who lives in the district, while I've thrown out the mailers, the vast majority are definitely hammering him on Israel and Gaza.

i wonder to what degree theyre doing targetting of people with jewish-sounding last names for the israel mailers

I mean, I'm Jewish, but haven't belonged to a synagogue as an adult or donated to any specifically Jewish charities iirc, so not sure which other way they're targeting me.

I think Josh Marshall is a little impartial on account of having lost his damn mind wrt Gaza

Sorry. *a little less than impartial*

I haven't seen Marshall's take on this, but it seems worth noting that he himself advocated precisely the vote that Bowman took against the infrastructure bill.

Those are arguments for the GOP to make in the general. The problem is having a supposed member of the left coalition bashing you over the head with $$$ from a foreign country

Why would the GOP attack him for voting with them against the bills? He made bad votes!

Do you think the GOP cares about making principled arguments? They already take credit for the infrastructure projects they voted against

Right. Also, in context, Bowman, if not for AIPAC, would be viewed as having had a wildly successful fundraising campaign. He's being badly outspent, but at the same time, not many representative campaigns raise $4 million — he's in the top 10%!

I think this gets the sequence wrong: what doomed Bowman (if he, in fact, loses) was some key stupid actions (like the fire alarm -- a salient 'WTF?!' act that breaks thru to normies), his political alignment decisions, *and* there was an alternative that could win. Contrast w Tlaib. 1/2

She has no "fire alarm" problem and, most importantly, there isn't an alternative for AIPAC to back (in part, bc she reps the hell out of her district in basic ways, eg, fighting for water main funding, firefighting resources, etc) So she's going to win & AIPAC won't waste much of their money. 2/2

Both were probably factual causes. Ads don’t vote!

I like the part where they imply that the reason he hasn't been able to match that ridiculous level of spending is the left not caring enough. As if campaign spending is a measure of how strongly people feel and not how deep their pockets are.

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