As expected, those misguided enough to have supported Craig Pridemore's abortive effort to run for Congress are just a tad upset that Pridemore has accepted the he-never-had-a-chance reality of the situation and bailed out.
Those politically aware enough to put their biases aside and deal with the political reality are surprised that it took him this long. This writer had him bailing months ago, but as Craig now knows, it's tough to let go.
As soon as they announced, I wrote the following:
Looks like I got most of that right, eh?Face it. Next November is going to be extremely tough on leftists in Congress.
Even now, as democrats work hard to socialize medicine, each day where the focus is on that issue instead of the issues important to the American people makes it less likely that a democrat will win in the 3rd.
The tin ear syndrome will make it very difficult for any of the leftists running to make it to the top. With upwards of 10 candidates announced or about to announce, the top two in the general may be the two who got over 10 percent of the vote.
Who will those two be?
Will, the easier targets are who they won't be.
And they won't be Pridemore, Wallace, Moeller or any other SW Washington democrat representing anyone in Clark County.
It won't be Hatfield. It won't be Russell. It won't be Salazar. It won't be Crist.
The reasons it won't be the democrats mentioned run the gamut from the fact that many of them support that moronic bridge replacement and loot rail; at least one was involved in a job scam; one is clueless and one has been a joke the last two times she ran.
A fake, unethical conservative won't survive.
But now, the mid-left has started to figure it. Democrat candidates at every level are sprinting away from the disaster who is President of the United States at record speed. Odd that they all seem to have to shampoo their hair or something whenever Obama comes to town to campaign.
Thanks to Politics is a Blood Sport, I was pointed to this analysis, which seems to resemble something akin to that bunker scene running around YouTube where the generals are explaining to Hitler that Steiner's Army really doesn't exist.
a disturbing decline in Democratic voters, compared to figures for the '06 mid-term elections:Open Left's Chris Bowers comments on the limp Democratic turnout in yesterday's primaries and urges the DNC to commission some polling to find out what's behind it. Bowers notes, via Hotline on Call
Just 663K OH voters cast ballots in the competitive primary between
LG Lee Fisher (D) and Sec/State Jennifer Brunner (D). That number is lower than the 872K voters who turned out in '06, when neither Gov. Ted Strickland (D) nor Sen. Sherrod Brown (D) faced primary opponents....in IN, just 204K Hoosiers voted for Dem House candidates, far fewer than the 357K who turned out in '02 and the 304K who turned out in
'06.
Worse, the GOP turnout numbers were up dramatically, according to Hotline:
By contrast, GOP turnout was up almost across the board. 373K people
voted in Burr's uncompetitive primary, nearly 9% higher than the 343K who voted in the equally non-competitive primary in '04. Turnout in House races in IN rose 14.6% from '06, fueled by the competitive Senate primary, which attracted 550K voters. And 728K voters cast ballots for a GOP Sec/State nominee in Ohio, the highest-ranking statewide election with a primary; in '06, just 444K voters cast ballots in that race.
Bowers notes that "This is more than just a demographic problem based on age--there really is a meaningful enthusiasm gap," and urges the DNC to make a smart investment with some of the $30 mill it has pledged for mid-term GOTV this year:
Politics is a Blood Sport mourned Pridemore's long inevitable exit from the congressional race as did many of the others. Political effectiveness is frequently impacted in a negative way when one allows their emotions to impact their conclusions to the extent that reality plays no role in their deliberations.Pridemore's failure had nothing to do with our top two system; it instead was a result of his out of touch, fringe positions that the people of this district and increasingly the people of this country simply do not want in their government.
The GOP side has a competitive race because Herrera is a paper-thin GOP sell out out with no experience, vision, integrity or clue. Her establishment, more of the same crap is ably countered by David Castillo who fortunately is everything that empty-suited rip off Herrera is not.
That, when combined with the gaping SEIU hole in Herrera's credibility and the fact that she's McMorris Roger's puppet makes the GOP side competitive because many actually realize what an opportunist piece of work Herrera is, and how badly we need her out of government, period.
So, don't blame the top two system for leaving the thoroughly out-dated and now disproven political philosophies of Craig Pridemore and his ilk behind.
Instead, blame a lack of political pragmatism and a failure on his part to understand that lurching to the socialist left like the 49th District is not where the vast majority of the people of the 3rd Congressional want to go.
A microcosm of that was the local democrat effort to run a downtown Vancouver, pro-gay marriage, pro-partial birth abortion candidate in the 18th District in 04. That didn't work then, and running that same kind of candidate in the 3rd won't work now.... and it wouldn't work if we had never heard of Denny Heck.
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I agree that Herrera is just a lot of the same stuff we already have and needs to go. Castillo is the only real conservative candidate who supports the values of grassroot voters; from Immigration Reform to Government spending. Voters need to get behind him now and support by volunteering and contributing to his campaign.
ReplyDeleteBig corporate money is firmly in control now. As for WA State, between the "top two" system, unlimited corporate campaign spending for independent expenditures, soon to come unlimited corporate campaign spending if the SCOTUS gets its way and the deficiencies of the two party system, all that will matter is how much money you can accumulate and spend. On all levels and nationwide, Democrat or Republican will not matter much at all. There will be little if no difference. Grassroots activism is now relegated to a pointless exercise in futility.
ReplyDeleteThere will just be an endless, greed infested spending fest by the corporate, "stand for nothing" politicians and their corporate masters.
Perhaps when things get really bad enough,something will change.
Nada se cambiará hasta que el dinero salga corriendo.