The Intercept 4-26-18… “Secretly Taped Audio Reveals Democratic Leadership [Steny Hoyer] Pressuring Progressive [candidate Levi Tillemann] to Leave Race”

Levi Tillemann

This is an excellent illustration of what happens, I’m sure, in many “party affiliated” races. And to me, it’s rather “sickening” how “the party” chooses its own “official” candidate, rather than allowing the people to choose. Certainly this happened with Bernie Sanders at the DNC convention in 2016.

DCCC = Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee

One point from the Intercept article:

“For Tillemann… the party’s closeness with the corporate elite is the very reason why the DCCC continues to lose general elections. “They squash progressive candidates. They destroy the diversity of ideas in their caucus. They keep ideas like ‘Medicare for All,’ free community college, or impeaching Donald Trump from having a significant role in the national conversation,” says Tillemann. “The issues that resonate most with voters are not the issues that the DCCC is telling candidates to focus on.”

“Before agreeing to provide the audio, Tillemann requested that personal details be withheld. The Intercept selected the newsworthy aspects of the recording for publication.”

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[youtube=https://youtu.be/qcgPyKt-ysY&w=600]
https://youtu.be/qcgPyKt-ysY

Published April 26, 2018
Read the article: https://interc.pt/2vKSwKA

Progressive candidate Levi Tillemann met with Congressman Steny Hoyer, the No. 2 Democrat in the House of Representatives, to make the case that the party should stay neutral in the Colorado primary and that he had a more plausible path to victory than the same centrism that the Republican incumbent had already beaten repeatedly. Hoyer, however, had his own message he wanted to convey: Tillemann should drop out. In a frank and wide-ranging conversation, Hoyer laid down the law for Tillemann. The decision, Tillemann was told, had been made long ago. It wasn’t personal, Hoyer insisted, and there was nothing uniquely unfair being done to Tillemann, he explained: This is how the party does it everywhere. Tillemann had heard the argument before from D.C. insiders and local Democratic bigwigs, all of whom had discouraged him from challenging the establishment favorite. The only difference was that for this conversation, the candidate had his phone set to record.