I first became politically active here in my "red" mountain North Carolina County in 1990 (the first Harvey Gantt vs Jesse Helms race). At that time, the local Democratic and Republican parties were in cahoots. They met regularly for coffee at the downtown drug store and hammered out who would run for what and who would win, and we all lived our lives in "bi-partisan," rightwing bullshit. Sound familiar?
When younger blood (which at the time included me) tried to come into the local Party to work for Harvey Gantt (v. Jesse Helms) and other Democratic candidates in 1990, we were told to get out of town. In fact, when we raised and spent our own money on a full page newspaper ad that featured then State Senator Virginia Foxx stirring a witches brew complete with a burnt and drowning middle class, the old guard got so pissed off, they reported four of us to the local DA for campaign finance violations. (That's a particularly interesting story--remind me to fill you in on it sometime.)
Here's what happened....
Because the local Democratic Party was in bed with the Republican agenda, and because the local Party decided to fight us instead of winning Demcrats, in 1997, we staged a coup of the local Democratic Party. (It's not has hard as you might think when your local Party is dead from the neck up.) We won. Progressives took charge.
Prior to the 1997 coup, Democrats hadn't held majorities on anything locally in over 25 years.
So first item up: run and win a primary against a long-term "Democratic" incumbent county commissioner with a strongly progressive candidate who ran on corruption in local government. We worked that election hard and won with 75% of the vote. The next primary against a similar "Democratic" office holder was not so successful on the face of it--we lost by around 25 votes. But in order for that incumbent Democrat to win, he broke election law and we dragged his sorry ass down to Raleigh for the offense. He got to keep his temporary victory, but when his term ended and he approached the party with a request that there be no primary, our local Chairwoman told him to kiss her ass. (He's now a Republican--exactly where he belonged from the get go.)
Here now we have a very progressive local party and we run progressive-only candidates. We win some and lose some, but we don't run from the issues of working people--we embrace them. We give a voice to them. We don't cut backdoor deals with Republicans. And we are considered one of the strongest local parties in the state.
So what does all this have to do with the Washington Democrats selling us out? Well, don't you agree it's high time Democrats get the message that votes have consequences? Threats of withholding money or general blog outrage won't win the day much less the war. Only primaries will. Hats off to the Tea Party for taking a stab at it. But we proved it decades earlier.