Republican dirty tricks, state Democratic party incompetence, or both? You decide.
The Texas District 18 State Senate seat has been held for years by Democrat-in-name-only Ken Armbrister. He's most famous for a joke he won't deny making: "Why did God make women? Because sheep can't type." It's in a lot of women's studies textbooks. Great. Finally this year he steps down.
Two Democratic candidates start the primary race: Bret Baldwin, a business consultant from one end of the district, and Henry Boehm, Jr., a physician from the other end of the district. Bret Baldwin is an actual Democrat; he has taken part in local Democratic activities, and while I don't know him well, I know that he is, like I said, an actual Democrat. Boehm I had never heard of. While trying to get a candidates forum together, I had to look for Boehm's contact information, using what every normal person uses--Google.
Instead I found a record of him donating $250 to Bush's reelection campaign. I confirmed the address, profession, everything. I checked, and he donated nothing to any Democrat.
To be fair, I then checked the names of all the other Democratic primary candidates. Maybe that's customary around here, to donate to the opposite party. No. No one else donated to the Republicans. I then looked up all the Republican primary candidates. Nary a one donated to Democrats.
Maybe this doesn't bother everyone, but to me, if you support Bush's reelection and nothing else, you're not a Democrat. You're a Lieberman, a Cuellar, a Quisling, a Vichy Dem, a DINO, but not a real Democrat. At the primary level in Texas, you're just a dog in the manger, just a spoiler. At best.
I talked about this with a few other local Dems. What to do...what to do...making this public might encourage Republicans to cross over in the primary specifically to vote for Boehm. But Democratic voters had the right to know... Before we could decide what to do, Boehm dropped out of the race, saying he didn't have enough time to devote to the campaign. Great! This was February 4.
Then the primary rolls around, and when I vote I find Boehm's name is still on the ballot. Not paper ballots--the computerized kind. You know, the great thing about computers is that they are so flexible. You can change them with a moment's notice. So what the hell Boehm was still doing there, I do not know. Even the local newspaper, in their mockup of the ballot, indicated that Boehm had dropped out. And they're not exactly a stop-the-presses kind of outfit.
We now find that Boehm, the non-candidate, got 10,876 votes. Bret Baldwin, the real Democrat who actually belonged in a Democratic primary, got 10,345. Fewer votes than the guy who wasn't in the damned race. It's possible that enough Republicans crossed over and voted in the Democratic primary to make this happen...it's also possible that many people just didn't know either candidate that well and picked randomly from the two they THOUGHT were in the race.
But hey, no big deal, because he dropped out of the race, so no harm no foul, right? Wrong.
Boehm is suddenly thinking real hard about getting back in the race. (Quelle surprise! Thank you to my many many grassroots supporters...although I hardly even left my small town during my non-campaign! And I'd like to thank my friend W!) It is quite possible that, our guy, the actual Democrat, is out, and another DINO is going to be running against a Republican. One Republican against another.
Nobody seems to know for sure what happens now. The county elections administrator, who is a trustworthy, impartial person, says that he thinks Boehm will have to formally decline the nomination, and then the party will have to pick a candidate. Which, logically, should be Baldwin. The county Democratic chairs (outgoing and incoming) say the same thing. But at this point, nothing seems certain. And, of course--what if Boehm doesn't quit?
I'll be honest. I thought it was just possible that the Republican challenger might have been the winner in November. We're in a pretty Republican area, so that's a consideration in any race. But this is so much worse. I feel like we are possibly being screwed--again--by the nasty-tricks Republicans. Beat us honestly at the polls, fine, but infiltrate us, screw with our ballot, and shove out the real Democrat, that is just too damned much. Any one of those possibilities is just too damned much. We can't even have the dignity of having an actual candidate now?
What the hell can we do? My hope is that Boehm decides the election will be too troublesome, too much work, and quits, whereupon the state party can name Baldwin the candidate. If not, Democrats in the Texas State Senate District 18 will be held hostage, again, by a Republican in Democrats' clothing. At least until the real Republican comes along. If the worst is true, of course, he'll bow to the Republican challenger as soon as he gets the nod from the state Democratic party. Anyone care to take a bet on how quickly Boehm will drop out if he's named Dems candidate?
It's "just" a state race, but dammit, I'm sick of having things stolen from us. And I was serious about the "what can we do" part--ideas are welcome.