The midterms are now in the rearview mirror and presidential hopefuls feel free to stop being coy about their ambitions. We have announcements from Julian Castro, John Delaney, Tulsi Gabbard, and Elizabeth Warren and the list of potential candidates runs into the 20s. Eventually, some sooner, some later, Kossacks will pick their preferences and I look forward to the POSITIVE diaries making the case for those candidates.
However, what I am most definitely not looking forward to are intraparty attacks, claims that my candidate is the only one who is truly progressive, that someone else might as well be a Republican based on some vote way back when. Former MA Congressman Barney Frank has been known to say the only candidate he ever voted for with whom he 100% agreed was himself, and even that was just in his first election. We would do well to remember that and my proposal is that here at DK we adopt the Democratic version of Ronald Reagan’s 11th commandment in our diaries.
This doesn’t mean never state a disagreement or raise a concern about how a campaign is being run, or that a positive diary won’t provoke a comment about how someone else isn’t sold on the subject of that diary, but let’s at least start with the assumption that anyone considering the Dem nomination is worlds better than the incumbent and we must keep an eye on that ball. We must also commit to vote, and to the extent we are able donate and work for, the Democratic nominee. This is the absolute worst time for purity to get in the way of patriotic duty. Let’s also be on guard against any who make it their business to try to stir things up and divide us. However our nomination contest shakes out, I do not want repercussions spilling over into the next year.