Primaries

Back on March 23, the National Organization for Women endorsed Alan Sandals in the Pennsylvania Senate Democratic primary. I got an email from a reporter immediately afterward saying:

Wonder if this nomination by NOW fits into your critique of Dem Party interest group politics?

The reporter was alluding to the arguments I've made on this site and in Crashing the Gate that progressive groups hurt the party by sabotaging Democratic candidates that don't meet their litmus test. And in Pennsylvania, the front-runner, Bob Casey, Jr, is strongly anti-choice.

My answer to his question, whether this NOW endorsement fits into my critique, is absolutely not.

In fact, this is exactly how it should be done. Primaries are the place for these sorts of intra-party battles. I think what NOW did was perfectly laudable, and is the sort of thing you see people like me doing in Connecticut and Montana, among other places.

I am a fan of primaries. I think they are good things for several reasons. And this is one of them.

Let's embrace primaries as a way to debate what the party stands for and the direction it should head. But once the primary is over, we should either respect the wishes of the primary voters and rally behind the nominee, or, if that's impossible (such as choice groups supporting Casey -- wouldn't ever expect it or demand it), then we should focus our attentions elsewhere. There are more than enough "good" Democrats around desperate for money, volunteers, and attention.

We are in the minority. At this point, we need all Democrats, even the "bad" ones, to rescue the country from the reactionaries currently running it into the ground.