Office Hours - Join Us Wednesday

Matt Yglesias last week, Massachusetts this week - and more to come

Join us tomorrow, Wednesday 10/25, at 12pm for Centrist School’s second Office Hours. Register HERE via Zoom. Featuring former state Rep. Jeffrey Sanchez and Charlie Baker campaign architect Will Keyser, the conversation will bring to life our case study on the rise and fall of the Far Left in Massachusetts.

Matt Yglesias joined a great crowd for our inaugural Office Hours conversation last week, which you can find below (well, the first 30 minutes. The rest is off-the-record - so join live this week to catch it all).

You can also register for next week, November 1st at 12pm ET with NewDEAL founder Debbie Cox Bultan. 

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Back to the Bubble

This week, we go back to bubble of leftist momentum from 2018 with two pragmatic leaders who experienced both ends of the bizarre blue state political situation created by the rise of the Far Left.

For Democrats in the left-most ten percent of districts - the “Left Decile” - the rise presented electoral challenges. For the other ninety percent of the state, the overhyping of leftist momentum made moderate politicians even more popular.

Tomorrow we will be joined by archetypes of both the “Left Decile” effect in primary elections, and the chasm opened for moderates in general elections:

• Will Keyser is a political strategist who served as spokesman for Senator Ted Kennedy (D-MA) and Chief of Staff to Representative Marty Meehan (D-MA), then became the architect of the most popular political figure among Democratic voters in Massachusetts: Governor Charlie Baker (R).

• Former Massachusetts state Representative Jeffrey Sanchez served Boston in the State House for fifteen years before becoming the first person of color to hold the legislature’s most powerful budget position, then faced backlash from the no-compromise leftists in his gentrifying district, which overlapped with the Ayanna Pressley vs. Mike Capuano seat. He lost to the “super left” candidate in that 2018 primary.

Centrist School opened with this exact story:

In 2018, every mainstream Democrat was looking over their shoulders in fear of the Far Left, egged on by the media and Twitterati.

Five years later, we are back to reality. 

Nowhere is that more evident than in the most liberal state in the country. One year ago this week, a progressive firebrand turned pragmatic consensus builder walked unopposed into the Massachusetts Democratic nomination for governor – after refusing to even fill out the policy questionnaires of those same Far Left groups who had scared incumbents four years prior. The bubble had burst.

This is the story of how and why that happened – and the lessons for strengthening a pragmatic faction that powers Democrats to win and govern effectively.

Join us tomorrow, Wednesday 10/25, at 12pm for Centrist School’s second Office Hours. Register HERE via Zoom. The first 30 minutes will be recorded, followed by a conversation with all of us.

And check out last week’s with Matt Yglesias, below.