Alan Grayson: There’s A New Kind Of Democrat In Town. Me!
Liberal hero Alan Grayson says there’s a reason he was able to raise an astonishing $800,000 this quarter: He represents a new kind of Democrat — one with “guts.” And people like it.
There’s a bit of a meme building among Beltway insiders to the effect that Grayson and other aggressive Democrats are basically left-wing versions of Michele Bachmann. The idea is that thanks to the Internet and the current hyper-polarized atmosphere, all you need to do to get rewarded by angry base voters across the country is say really nasty, extreme, and outrageous stuff about the other party.
Grayson got on the phone with me to push back hard against this idea. He argued that it represents a false equivalence and even a fundamental misunderstanding of what he and certain other Dems are trying to do.
“It’s not a question of extremism,” Grayson said. “It’s a question of concentrating on people’s actual priorities. It turns out populism is really popular.”
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“People want a congressman who stands up and speaks out,” Grayson said. “People have come to think that a Democratic Congressman with guts is a mythological creature, like a unicorn.”
more:
http://theplumline.whorunsgov.com/health-care/alan-grayson-theres-a-new-kind-of-democrat-in-town-me/