When Washington political operatives roll into town, they often have a mantra: we really are as progressive as you are, trust us. Really, we believe in all the same things you do. Indeed, nothing offends them more than when their progressive bona fides are called into question -- and it is often genuine, not forced, offense that they take, because they got into politics years ago for nothing but good reasons.
But that was years ago and now, time after time, those operatives find themselves on the moderate-to-conservative end of intra-party battles. They justify that disconcerting state of affairs by saying that while they haven't changed what they believe, they just understand the world better, and understand the value of pragmatism.
Do they truly value pragmatism? Or is ideology at play? A political scientist decided to try to answer that question empirically and found a clever way to do it. My story on that with Dave Dayen is here, and it also rounds up last night's wins and losses for the insurgents against the machine. (Spoiler: it's ideology, not strategy at work.)
Speaking of machines, Aida Chavez and I took a look at the unique intersection of local New York machine politics and Wall Street, all of it expressed through the shining domed figure of Joe Cowley -- the King of Queens, the chair of the House Democratic Caucus and the potential next speaker of the House. The story is told through a profile of his primary challenger, the Bronx activist Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez.
Private equity firms looted Toys "R" Us of hundreds of millions of dollars and left tens of thousands of workers out of work. Is nothing going to be done about this? It's starting to get a bit more attention. Good story on it here by Winnie Wong and Michael Kink.
The story, which even involves Bain Capital, reminds me of a video I produced during the 2012 presidential election, with Mitt Romney's business approach explained by Tony Soprano.
And some very confusing news: Planned Parenthood is asking Trump's NLRB for help busting its Colorado union. Also from Aida Chavez, story here.
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