Vice Chair of the Democratic National Committee David Hogg discussed in a recent article at Salon his proposal to spend $20 million on primary challengers to Democratic incumbents.
Wonderful! Terrific! What could do more to improve the political party named "Democrats" than injecting some democracy? We agree with Democratic National Committee Chair Ken Martin that the DNC should not favor any candidates, as it should not have favored Hillary Clinton over Bernie Sanders. The DNC should be neutral. But it should encourage competition. And it should insist on transparency: the DNC should require that the sources of all funding be known, by banning dark money from primary elections. Outside of the DNC, we should wholeheartedly encourage those funding and mobilizing for campaigns -- Hogg's group and all others -- to back strong progressive challengers to incumbent Democrats. In districts that are virtually certain to go to Democrats in the general elections, those Democrats should be candidates who will advance a progressive agenda, not side with Trump on critical issues. In Hogg's interview, he went beyond some reports that had suggested his proposal was all about replacing old people with young people. He laid out some substantive criteria for candidates. They should, he said, have some sort of plan to address the costs of education, housing, eldercare, childcare, and healthcare. They should be dedicated to doing something about guns and gun violence. And they should support campaign finance reform. Those proposals could use some hard specifics, but they are excellent as far as they go.
Below, we have two friendly amendments to offer. If you agree with these amendments, please consider supporting RootsAction.  1) The U.S. public is sick and tired of wars. There is evidence that Kamala Harris might well be president right now if she'd said the words "No more weapons to Israel." The Trump administration and Republican Congress are hard at work slashing government revenue from billionaires' taxes, cutting spending on human and environmental needs, and further increasing the military budget. A growing majority of federal discretionary spending now goes to wars, and not to education, housing, etc. New candidates should qualify for support only if they support moving major funding from militarism to human and environmental needs.
2) Environmental needs are urgent. The Earth's climate is collapsing. We don't need young candidates unless they support maintaining the habitability of this planet. A Green New Deal should be on the required platform.
Without those criteria being included, we're afraid funding challengers would not rescue the Democratic Party, adequately distinguish it from the Republican Party, or inspire people to see in it a hopeful path to a better future. Even when a progressive primary challenger ends up failing to defeat a status quo-oriented Democratic incumbent, sometimes the mere presence of a primary challenger can motivate an incumbent to come out of hibernation and take progressive action they otherwise would not have. At RootsAction we try not to just offer criticism but also to lead by example. In that spirit, we are reviewing candidates. Please let us know of any you believe worthy of our support. Please support our efforts here. | 
