21st Century Pamphleteer No Primaries? Follow-up
Two interesting posts from the blog linked to above deal with leaders in the "D" party and the unwillingness of letting voters decide who should be our elected leaders. Calling them Soviets is too nice.
How can you stay a Democrat when you hear messages such as those?
If 10,000 Ds in PA bolted the D party and showed up as Indies and with other third-party tags --- people would notice.
Then we'll push for the Voters Choice Act to allow candidates access the ballot within reason. Then -- who needs a D primary? We can run in the general elections and take the message straight to 'we the people.' It worked as we tossed out Nigro with the Retention Vote. His $85 bottles of wine caught up to him.
Every dog has its day in the sun. The sun is setting on two-party cronies.
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Two posts from the other blog:
No Primaries? Follow-up
Posted in Democratic Party by goose3five on the August 18th, 2005
Monday I wrote a piece entitled “Democratic Politburo Makes a Decree - No Primaries!” which stirred a great deal of sentiment from throughout the lefty blogosphere. The biggest criticism I have received about this piece regards the last two words of the headline, “No Primaries!” From KOS, MyDD, the Democratic Underground and elsewhere people have come out of the woodwork to attack the idea that what Schumer, Rendell and the DSCC have done is declare that there will be no Democratic primaries. The argument seems to be that what Schumer SAID was “We are no longer letting Democrats get in a circle and shoot each other” therefore what he meant was that he and DSCC would only step in IF and WHEN they see two Democrats attacking each other. I agree, that is what he said but I do not agree that that is what they are doing.
Let me just say briefly that I recognize this is a strategy the DSCC believes will help them win back the Senate in ‘06. They truly believe that if they find the right candidates and back them while avoiding heavily contended primary battles they will not only save money for the general election but they can avoid “soiling” their candidates and giving the Republicans ammunition to use against them. I respect the DSCC for at least having a plan I am just not convinced that the plan is a winner. There is no evidence that candidates who faced little to no primary fights have done better than those that fought hard for their nominations. It is my opinion that the primary process allows the candidates to prove to the electorate that they are indeed the most qualified to win the general election.
Back to Schumer’s comments, right after saying “we are no longer letting Democrats get in a circle and shoot each other” Schumer brings up the Tennessee Senatorial race for Majority Leader Bill Frist’s seat, where there are two Democrats vying for the nomination, Harold Ford and Rosalind Kurita. What Schumer says is the following, “(there is) a nice woman running against him but everyone says she is going to attack him.” He did not say she is attacking him or that she has attacked him in the past, he says everyone says she is going to attack him. Fine, if this is the case then Schumer, Reid and the like should pack their bags and head down to Tennessee to do their best Mills Lane impression. “No rabbit punches, no hitting below the belt…” I agree with this way of officiating the race but I not sure that is what they have done. We will see.
In the race that is most important to me and they majority of my readers though things are a bit different. There is no doubt that the number one priority of every Democrat in state of Pennsylvania is to defeat Rick Santorum in ‘06. So it is understandable that the DSCC wants to ensure they have the best candidate to make this a reality. Unfortunately what they have done in my opinion does to guarantee anything. From my brief experience inside the Pennsylvania Democratic machine I have learned at least one thing, the person with the endorsement of the party leadership is most likely the going to win. This is not always the case but it certainly happens more often than not.
By stepping in a full year before the primary - and a month AFTER Chuck Pennacchio had declared his candidacy - and hand picking and then immediately endorsing Bob Casey Jr. what the Party leadership has done is ensure that all of the party insiders immediately got the message. Casey is the guy you will support. This means that a few thousand State Committee people got this message and therefore as a result so did any and all organizations they belong to, support, etc. Does this mean there will be no primary in the state of Pennsylvania? No, it means that there will be a primary but that the result is a foregone conclusion because any efforts made by any other candidate to gain support in the form of donations, volunteers, whatever immediately must discount those people who are either party insiders or are afraid of pissing off party insiders.
Top this off with the fact that the DSCC’s own website makes absolutely no mention of any candidates other than Casey…
Race Profile
Republican Senator Rick Santorum is considered by many to be far outside the mainstream of Pennsylvania voters. Democratic strength in the Keystone State-which has voted blue in the last four presidential elections and has a Democratic governor-combined with Santorum’s conservative record, make the two-term Republican a leading Democratic target in 2006.
Popular state treasurer Bob Casey Jr. is set to run for the seat, and a recent Quinnipiac poll shows him leading Santorum 50%-39%. In more bad news for Santorum, 27 percent of voters have an unfavorable view of him, while only nine percent of voters view Casey unfavorably.
Santorum’s rigid and extreme views make him ripe for a challenge. Early polls suggest that Casey, who in 2004 was elected as treasurer with the most votes of any candidate in Pennsylvania history, could be the man to deliver him a defeat.
…And you can see what they are doing. Yes there will still be a primary but unless something drastic happens it will be nothing but a show.
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Democratic Politburo Makes a Decree - No Primaries!
Posted in Democratic Party by goose3five on the August 15th, 2005
Many thanks to Mark Crispin Miller for posting the full audio of a speech given by Senator Chuck Schumer (D-NY) at a private party in Georgia on August 2. I have clipped out the relevant two minutes of this speech and transcribed it for everyone to see. Bottom line, Schumer admits to, in effect, a new Democratic strategy whereby he and the DSCC leadership will choose who will run against vulnerable Republicans. The case he uses is our own fight for the seat held by Rick Santorum. Here is the audio clip in mp3 format.
“Let me tell you one other thing we did. We are no longer letting Democrats get in a circle and shoot each other. I was just in Tennessee with Harry and with (…) and we have a primary and I stood up there Harold Ford is running and he can become the first African-American elected in the south to the Senate since reconstruction which would be a great thing for America. There is this young woman whose… not so young… but a nice woman running against him but everyone says she is going to attack him.”
“…(unintelligible) we are going to intervene if anyone one democrat attacks another, we’re doing that in states where there are primaries. We can’t afford to do it anymore. This always happens in the primaries, we would throw up the cards and see where they landed. No more, we are finding the best candidate in every one of the seats where a Republican is vulnerable.”
“So I called up Governor…our number one target is Rick Santorum…let him go back to wherever he lives, Maryland, you know you heard about it, he is Pennsylvania but he tried to get exempt from the school tax there cause he lives in Maryland even though he is a registered citizen of Pennsylvania. In any case I called up the Governor of Pennsylvania, Governor Rendell, I said who is the best candidate to beat Santorum. He there is only one person who could beat him but A he won’t run and B you wouldn’t want him to run. I said why wouldn’t we want him to run, he said he’s pro-life. He’s a deeply religious Catholic man. Bob Casey.”
“I said, those days are over Ed. Yes I’m pro-choice, but we need the best candidate. We can’t insist that every democrat check off 18 different issues before they get (unintelligible) we could do that, we can’t anymore. And so, we persuaded, Harry using his very…Harry has amazing insights into people…and we together persuaded Bob Casey to run. A poll yesterday…national…all the polls they did…Casey 51 Santorum 40. You should see Santorum nervous and walkin on the floor.”
(unintelligible)
“And we’re doing this in the other states.”
A couple of things worth noting here. First, Governor Rendell gave two points according to Schumer “A - he won’t run and B you wouldn’t want him to run.” Let me repeat that, Governor Rendell said point blank to Chuck Schumer that Casey would not run and that we would not want him to run. In my opinion these two points deserve a further look.
Why would Rendell think Casey “would not run?” Well, the conventional wisdom is that Casey has never had aspirations to run for a national office. His only desire it would appear is to eventually make another run at Governor of Pennsylvania. This is all well and good but let me ask you, how good of a candidate do you think Casey will be against Rick Santorum if he had to be persuaded by Schumer and Reid to run?
Second point. Rendell recognized that Casey’s pro-life stance is a problem, why do you think that is? I contend that the reason is the majority of the Democratic party is made up of women and by putting up a pro-life candidate and promising to take out any challengers the Democrats are writing off the majority of their voters.
Not only is this strategy stupid, it rings of Soviet Politburo tactics. The Democratic party leadership, or more accurately the DSCC, has decided that they know better than anyone how to win and they are going to shove their candidates down our throats like it or not.
(If you would like the entire 20 plus minute speech it can be found here courtesy of Mark Crispin Milller.)
Others talking about this story;
News Dissector
Liz at the Pennacchio campaign blog.
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