A problem with the Democrats
Gatekeeping the primaries
2016
Clinton vs. Sanders in the primaries. Raise your hand if you remember this shit show. I won’t go into too much detail, but let’s do the Cliff Note’s version, shall we?
Clinton was in the fight of her life in the primary because a very large chunk of Dems wanted Bernie. There was then in-fighting around the time of the convention because the establishment Dems wanted Clinton and many feel like Bernie was pushed aside as the national office threw backing at Clinton. Basically, Bernie wasn’t given a real fighting chance because some say that the national office had already decided Clinton was their candidate. Fast forward to election day when many Bernie supporters sat out voting because they were still butthurt about it.
I blame the basement Bernie bros for a lot of things…losing three SCOTUS seats, delivering Trump to us for the first term. Them not holding their noses and voting with the rest of us screwed us. Royally. Elections have consequences, and people who don’t vote have controlled the narrative more than the people who do in two of the last three elections.
What I don’t blame them for is for hating the gatekeeping because it’s now apparent to me that it’s a real problem. That national office should have taken their hands off the wheel in 2016 and let the people drive, but they didn’t, and they’re still not.
Friends, I’m CONSIDERING a run for office in Missouri in 2026. Right now, it’s just thinking at this point. A lot can happen in the next year before I’d need to file, and I’m waiting on a medical test at the end of the month before I truly meditate on this. But, in my act of simply sniffing around for advice and allies like I’m on some fucked-up rendition of Survivor, I’ve learned something.
If you think gatekeeping is only at the national level, I’ve got swamp land in Arizona for you.
This past week, I contacted recent candidates around my district. I reached out to a woman in the neighboring district who lost a state House race in November, asking her what her challenges were, and asking if we could have a conversation. I need to disclose that this is a person I knocked doors for and had a phone convo with almost a year ago where she specifically asked me if I would be interested in running for office. And if I wasn’t interested, would I be interested in running a campaign.
She left me on read this week. I’ll give her the benefit of the doubt here. Maybe she read my message when she was in a shit storm. Maybe losing her election exhausted and disappointed her so much that she can’t even consider talking about politics. That’s certainly understandable.
But…
I attended an issue’s local base meeting this week. While there, I walked up to a recent state senate candidate, introduced myself, and asked him if we could talk about the same questions. This is how the convo went:
Me: “I’m thinking of running for my district’s House seat. I’d love to talk about your challenges and the on-the-ground realities of what you experienced, get advice, etc.”
Him: “What district?”
Me: District blah blah blah.
Him: “We already have a candidate there.”
I think I said something like, “Oh. You have a candidate?” But I wish I wouldn’t have done that. It was one of those things that you think about what you should have said after you leave a conversation. But let’s make a couple of things clear.
First- It’s obvious that the dems in my area are incredibly tight-knit. Leaving me on read from one former candidate and another former candidate downright saying there was already a dem on the ballot for a race next year was startling to me and probably not a coincidence.
Second - There is no set-in-stone candidate, even if the state party thinks there is. It’s called a primary. The voters get to decide who their candidate is. Not someone running the state or county local office, which is something I plan on talking to voters about IF I choose to enter this obvious combat. It actually makes me incredibly sad that I’ll first have to fight my own party officials, not the actual voters, before I even get to the GOP battle. This is why I go back and forth on running because that’s a whole lot of battle. A primary fight between two of the same kind of Dems is one thing. The party getting involved to sabotage one of those candidates is another thing entirely. If you’re going to try to tell me it’s not sabotage, don’t piss on me and tell me it’s raining.
Third - I don’t remember needing to ask permission to serve my state, country, or local jurisdiction in any capacity. Any citizen who pays taxes in the district they wish to represent and meets the age and citizenship qualifications can run for office.
Fourth- I’m incredibly pissed off at my own party now. This is one of the reasons why we are losing elections right and left. We aren’t listening to people. We’re letting national and local Dem powers-that-be swing their dicks around and decide who to throw money at in the primaries, pushing aside viable candidates just because they may not check every single box of the Dem platform that, sorry to say, leans way too far left and digs way too much into culture wars that don’t affect the average American. It’s why we’re losing.
Fifth - I said something at the end of the conversation telling him I write steamy romance for a living. He responded with, “You’d get flagged everywhere.” I realize that, it’s one of the reasons I’m hesitating, but after the words left his mouth, his eyes widened and he tilted his head saying, “Or…” We then had to stop talking because the presentation started, but I walked away a little sad at the conversation. You ever hear of Stacy Abrams? Yeah, she wrote steamy romance as Selena Montgomery before running for office, and personally, if a man found liable in a rape case can be president of this country, I don’t see why a romance author who writes for and markets consensual romance to adults can’t have their ass in a seat in the Missouri legislature.
Last - In case you haven’t been keeping score, the status quo and what the state Democratic party has put forward isn’t working because we’re getting the absolute shit kicked out of us in every election. Circling the wagons around your friends is not helping. It’s not a blip this past year. It’s been twenty-two years since Dems held ANY real power in Missouri legislature. Maybe it’s time to do something different, not shut down interesting candidates that may be more in line with what mainstream, independent, and left-leaning Missourians want, and get us back to thinking about unions, public schools, and honoring citizen initiatives. A Democratic candidate in Massachusetts may not have the same platform as one from Missouri, and it’s time the Democratic party recognizes that. A radical leftist won’t survive here. It doesn’t mean we don’t care about stopping the GOP juggernaut. For example, I may just be a little center left, but I’ll defend that abortion access amendment like Superman covering that child in the new trailer.
I’ve never needed permission to do shit from a God damn soul in my life, and I don’t need permission to challenge the status-quo candidate next year IF I decide I want to climb this hill.
It’s time the Democratic party allowed new candidates and fresh blood into the shark-infested waters. We won’t survive without change here. What we’re doing isn’t working. Let the people decide without primary interference from the national and local parties and without the narrative two years in advance of “we already have a candidate.”
No.
You.
Don’t.
You don’t have a candidate until every primary vote from the people of my district is counted.
In case you haven’t noticed, the GOP has been letting their primary voters have free reign of decision-making for forty years, and they don’t have near the infighting and voter apathy after primary suppression. People have talked about what needs to change with Democrats. A lot really. But one thing we absolutely must do is dig ourselves out of the culture wars and make this more about working middle class Americans again. Candidates who don’t make it about the middle class and the people do so at their own peril.