A word of advice about controlling the Democratic Party message

[Uponthegears]

4. Obviously we need as many good candidates as possible

However, the idea that "candidates" determine the message of the party is poppycock.

Until and unless Buckley v. Valeo is overturned and money is no longer equated with speech for the purposes of the 1st Amendment, the success of any candidate (particularly at the local level) is dependent upon funding from the handful of party officials that control the money and the wealthy donors behind them (Aside: Overturning Buckley is a tall, but not insurmountable obstacle - though Buckley was not a 5-4 decision, enough of its concurring opinions leave open a path to its reversal. It should not be considered unassailable).

Please pardon my suspicious nature, but I believe you are well aware of this fact. I believe this OP is little more than the umpteenth version of "Hillary won the primary, therefore her message was the right one" and/or "What about Zephyr and Russ . . . they lost, that shows progressives can't win."

I know you would rather not talk about how the middle-of-the-road policies ushered in by Bill Clinton . . . which EVERY candidate must pay homage if they are to receive the national funding and on the ground party support to that is ABSOLUTELY NECESSARY to win in a Buckley/Citizens United/Koch Brothers world . . . have produced the greatest loss of political power in the history of the Democratic Party at every level from dog catcher to POSU. I know you would rather not talk about how those policies have worked for only two presidential candidates; the first a Southerner preaching welfare reform, the war on drugs, the death penalty, and free trade, and the second the most dynamic and inspirational candidate (and person) in the history of this party/country. I know you would rather not talk about how the sub-$50K workers who you tried to paint as racists, misogynists, homophobes, xenophobes, and Islamophobes during the primary were the ONLY economic demographic to join us in the black community and our gay, Muslim, and Spanish-speaking brothers and sisters and vote IN A MAJORITY for who should have been our President, Hillary Rodham Clinton. For sure, I know you do not want to talk about how the precious white suburbanites (who the current party structure STILL believes it can get back - even after they left OUR neighborhoods, left OUR schools, left OUR cities, AND, most important of all LEFT OUR PARTY - if only we made their 401Ks hum and kept quiet about how THEY are keeping us on the bottom) voted in a solid majority for a psychopathic oligarch instead of a candidate who (even if you didn't like everything about her) was every bit as good as any candidate we've ever run (with the exception of our current president).

Of course you don't want to talk about the party that you control and how it has failed.

If you did, you might have to actually sit down with people with whom you disagree and come up with a solution.