New Jersey is holding their Democratic primary for Governor today, and a "progressive" is leading in the polls.



On Tuesday, voters in New Jersey are expected to nominate Philip Murphy — a former banker who spent much of his career at Goldman Sachs — for this fall’s race for governor. Murphy’s résumé looks remarkably similar to that of former Gov. Jon Corzine, the longtime Goldman executive whom Gov. Chris Christie defeated in 2009.

Justice Democrats, Brand New Congress, and the People’s House Project all funded candidates to prevent a Philip Murphy-type candidate from winning, and barring a huge upset they are all poised to fail badly.

New Jersey is a traditional Democratic-leaning state, which makes it more open to progressive candidates. Ironically it also means that New Jersey is a state where the party’s establishment is also strongest, and most capable of putting down popular insurgent candidates.



On the other hand, Murphy’s résumé looks like a parody of what Berniecrats allege about the Clinton wing of the party. In the course of his 23 years at Goldman Sachs, where he started working the year before he graduated from Harvard University, Murphy came under attack for running a division that profited “from an investment into a shoe manufacturer notorious for its horrific work conditions and treatment of employees,” according to an investigation by the Star-Ledger newspaper. (Murphy’s campaign says he had no role in the investments.)

After leaving Goldman, Murphy used his considerable financial fortune — estimated at hundreds of millions of dollars — to help steer the Democratic Party. Like many donors, Murphy was then rewarded with an ambassadorship to Germany, over the objection of Chancellor Angela Merkel, who opposed him. Murphy donated millions to Democrats before being appointed ambassador, spent more than $1.5 million on New Jersey Democrats before running for governor, and has poured $15 million of his own money into his race.

Despite all this, Murphy is still described as "progressive" over, and over again. Of course he also describes himself as a progressive.

Next week another "progressive" will be running for the Democratic nomination in Virginia.



..in Virginia the top of the ticket could feature a former George W. Bush voter who describes himself as a fiscal conservative.

Both Phil Murphy and Virginia Lt. Gov. Ralph Northam now position themselves as progressives running on liberal platforms in states that voted for Hillary Clinton over Donald Trump, and both have launched scathing attacks on the president.

Fortunately, Berniecrat former Rep. Tom Perriello is running a neck-to-neck race against Northam.

How low is the bar set to be a "progressive" when it includes fiscally conservative Bush voters?

Pretty darn low.



So why are so many liberal writers so anxious to persuade us that, deep in his heart of hearts, Tim Kaine is, too, a progressive? Probably there’s a desire to exaggerate Kaine’s progressivism because Hillary’s own progressive bona fides are questionable. But mostly it seems that today, the progressive label has become little more than a marketing tool, a signifier deployed to distract us from that the actual content of the signified.

...So far as I can determine, Barack Obama was the first modern-day Democratic presidential nominee to identify as a progressive. Interestingly, he did so when left-wing activists criticized his rightward shift during the 2008 election campaign. Progressive must poll really well, because after Obama came the great stampede. Political figures such as Andrew Cuomo and Rahm Emanuel, not exactly the guys you’d invite to a meeting of your local Democratic Socialists of America chapter, have sworn up and down that they are progressives.

The word "progressive" still means something, but it's rarely used that way.

Sort of like how establishment Democrats like to call themselves "honest" and "trustworthy". It doesn't change the definition of the words just because some people are misusing them.

If you want to know if a candidate is a true progressive, just ask them where they stand on the defining issue of the day - universal single-payer health care.

Most Democrats aren't progressive.



Democratic Party voters have been strong supporters of single payer health care for a long time. Polls have consistently shown that super-majorities of Democratic Party voters want single payer, but Democratic Party candidates keep telling them that they can't have it. The Democratic Party has refused to add Medicare for All to its healthcare platform despite resolutions introduced by single payer advocates. Even the Congressional Progressive Caucus refuses to include single payer health care in their "People's Budget."