Two years ago, my Congressional District was represented by a Republican but was the bluest CD in the country thus afflicted. Several Democrats were vying in a hard fought primary to take on the incumbent and I was all in for the most progressive of them, a young fire-breather with a history of community organizing and strong ties to national grassroots political operations like MoveOn and Democracy for America. My progressive's strongest opposition came from a middle aged businessman with a lot of self funding and strong ties to the New Democratic Coalition and other Third Way type influences. My guy ran second in the primary. The NDC guy won the general election and my district is now, finally, represented by a Democrat, sort of.
Never for one moment did I ever regret throwing all my support and a lot of money to the progressive also-ran in that primary election. Now, the NDC incumbent is going to face another primary from a different progressive, and this time I don't know what to do about it. Follow me out into the tall grass to find out why.
Last month, in my post, Why I Vote for Terrible Democrats I bemoaned the piss poor representation I receive from my Democratic Congressman on economic and regulatory issues, but promised not to trash talk about him because we are moving into election season and as bad as he is, his Republican opponent, the same guy he beat in 2012, is ever so much worse. Responding to a recent rec list post that decried Daily Kos having become an echo chamber, I wrote:
Party politics, however, is about political power and only about political power. We must battle through election cycles with the parties and candidates we have, not the ones we wish we had. There are times on this blog to speak up for Medicare for all, against the Surveillance State, against austerity budgets, etc. There are times on this blog to criticize, castigate and decry ideologically inadequate Democrats, but not when they are locked in electoral battle with Republicans.
Many agreed with me. Many others believed that supporting the most progressive candidate is always the right thing to do, no matter what, saying things like:
Folks here all want to increase "the political power of the Democratic Party's power in Washington and the several United States". They (the people you say 'decry' such) simply believe the best and fastest way to increase that power is to actually provide principled, intelligent, moral candidates who actually care about the people and demonstrate that with everything they do or say. Better Democrats create electoral victory.
Last month, it appeared that there would be no Democratic Primary in my CD this cycle. Then, on the last day for candidate filing, a more progressive alternative to the Democratic incumbent filed to run against him. Her political resume consists of a single, failed race for county office in the past. A week after filing, she has not registered with ActBlue, has no website, has made no reported public appearances and has made no other moves detectable on the internet that she either possesses or is putting together an organization capable of establishing and running a credible campaign for an election that will occur in just four months.
I Goggled her so I could discuss these things and my potential financial support with her, but the number is disconnected. Two years ago I maxed out contributing financially to the progressive candidate of my choice in the primary. I stuffed envelopes. I made cookies and bought bottled water for other campaign workers. I got petition signatures. I made phone calls. I never regretted doing any of that because, at least, we had a chance to win. We ran second in a field of four strong candidates, and only lost because of mail carpet bombing that falsely painted the DLC guy as a "life long progressive". The instant he won the primary, the word, progressive, disappeared from his lexicon.
The little background information the internet offers on our new primary candidate suggests that she is very progressive on economic and regulatory issues. That would be a very welcome change from the present incumbent. But is she for real? Or is she just another political gadfly, perhaps unworthy of my treasure and my sweat and my pain? As long as she won't reach out to me and I can't reach out to her, I can't find out.
I don't know what to do about my Congressional Primary.