September 23, 2006
Washington Democrat Party out of touch with its voters
Democrat Party organizations failed to win over the voters in the most hotly contested Democrat primaries last Tuesday.
In the 6-way 43rd Legislative District House race, Dick Kelley, who was endorsed by the King County Democrats and was the leading pick of the 43rd District Democrat organization, is finishing dead last, with less than 11% of the vote.
And in the 35th District, the state and local party organizations threw their considerable prestige, money and garbage at defeating moderate Democrat Sen. Tim Sheldon. Sheldon took 57% of the vote, and is laughing all the way to the Senate:
"I think this shows that the Democratic Party leadership is completely out of touch with voters," said the victorious Sheldon.
Posted by Stefan Sharkansky at September 23, 2006
12:32 PM | Email This
1. Lucas blamed the 'pick a party' ballots for her loss, claiming Republicans voted the dem ticket to help Sheldon. Got news for you, honey. Republicans could have voted for Sheldon under the old ballot system, too.
Congratulations to Tim Sheldon, one of the best we have in Olympia, regardless of whatever party he's in.
2. She is some what right...both my wife and I did exactly what she is claiming and have no regrets.
3. I did the same thing in the 43rd.
4. You really can't say what Democrats think vs their base given the primary structure. No one knows how many republicans voted for Sheldon, but I would not think 7% is out of the question. Same in the 43rd. No one knows what the effect of cross party votes are. This is not a rant against the primary system. It is what it is. But to make claims like Stefan is making is just not possible. Not necessarily wrong, just not evidenced.
5. Don't forget the 17th District, where Frank Chopp came down and muscled an announced candidate out of the Pos 1 race angainst Rep. Jim Dunn so he could put his hand-picked guy in who went on to raise $97,000... who then proceeded to lose to a guy who spent $68 on his entire campaign.
details here:
http://www.columbian.com/opinion/news/09222006news61385.cfm
6. I hate the pick a party primary. I really liked the blanket primary, but the top two tier system scares me.
7. Look to Grays Harbor. Handpicked and endorsed Democrat for Assessors Race, Darrell Haglund lost to Cherri Rose-Konschu even after a whistleblower complaint against employees in the assessors office that will go on to PDC. Allegations that assessor employees doing politics on company time in county offices to get Cherri elected.
Tell me there isn't problems in the democrat party down there! May be unraveling all over this blue state!
8. Seems like this can only lead to better things - improved Democrat candidates and office holders. The Democrat party needs to dump the leadership who are out of touch with the people, who they really don't represent ! We have a Governor who does not represent this state well and who is legitimately only the Governor of King County.
Those who vote Democrat should protest by voting Republican, where the candidates are inferior - in this corrupted blue state and separate WA from the National elections. Maybe it sounds a bit like a pipe dream now. Too much domination by one party leads to corruption, as it has here and King County continues to unavel.
9. King County continues to unravel. My bad.
10. The Dems have always been out of touch with the voters! That's no big surprise!
That's why they go to such lengths to commit voter fraud and ballot manipulation during the elections! They've never cared about what the "people" want!
Sheesh!
11. The problem in the Grays Harbor race wasn't that Haglund was handpicked (he's a family farm owner so cares much about personal property rights)by the Democrat leadership, but that for weeks leading up to the primary, the current assessors office ran many negative editorials in the local paper about Haglund to support their candidate and current employee. The true nature of the allegations that the current assessor himself and others in that office was not printed in the local paper to the extent that it is now being printed, now that the primary is over.
If the newspaper was to really look into those allegations, then Haglund or another who ran as an independent could easily win in November.
12. Speaking of "out of touch," it's interesting that McGavick and Cantwell have virtually identical approaches to the ongoing Mexican invasion of our country. Over 70 percent of American citizens want to close the borders and simply enforce the law. They don't want to hear about amnesty. And they've caught on that McGavick's and Bush's "comprehensive immigration reform" is amnsty.
The people who favor continuing to ignore (or accelerate) the invasion are going to vote Democrat anyway. The people for whom it makes a difference are tired of voting for pro-invasion Republicans.
McGavick's going to lose.
13. Stephan, if you had any credibility at all, you would report that it was mostly republicans crossing over to vote for Sheldon in the 35th. Proof is in the small number of votes in the contested Mason County commission race between two republicans...who shared 25% of the total vote.
Had it truly been democrats only voting in the democratic primary, Sheldon would have been shut down.
It amazes me that for all the screaming you do about voter integrity, you fail to blame the worst cross-over voting offenders...republicans!
14. Hurray for Tim Sheldon!! I saw this tidal wave of good news and grinnee from ear to ear!!Apparently the rabid Dem's found there was finally a race they couldn't succesfully fix to their Favor and win! Aw, toooo bad!!
15. RossiToo - if you had any integrity, you would acknowledge that voting is guaranteed to be absolutely secret and that there is absolutely no way that anyone could gather enough "proof" that there was "crossover" voting.
In this state, we do not have to register as belonging to a specific party. We do not have to show an affiliation card when we vote.
Many people in the state like to think they are independent and choose candidates based on their own set of preferences. Just because a handful of people state that they held their nose and voted for a Democrat doesn't mean that it was done in such numbers as to give Sheldon a 57%.
Isn't it just possible that Lucas was just a bad candidate and not worth voting for?
16. rossi too - you have no proof of that - that is heresay. You are a moron.
The only thing that can be said is that Sheldon won, Lucas lost and the votes were counted. Sheldon will now run vs. the Republican, so if you want to vote for the Republican over Sheldon, have at it !
17. Republicans win? Ds blame the Republicans, dumb voters and JesusLand freaks.
The 'wrong' Democrat wins? Ds blame the Republicans for voting for the 'wrong' Democrat.
Remember - it's never that their issues suck. It's never that the majority of people don't support ultra-liberal candidates. It's never the fault of a bad campaign, lousy GOTV or a message that the public isn't willing to buy into.
Nope. Every time the 'right' Democrat doesn't win, it's somebody else's fault. Not only are they losers; they're sore losers.
18. "...you would report that it was mostly republicans crossing over to vote for Sheldon in the 35th."
Bozo - If you have proof, plz provide it. Otherwise STFU....
19. rossi too...if you had any integrity OR brains, you wouldn't insist on misspelling Stefan's name. Of course, if wishes and buts were candies and nuts, we'd all have a Merry Christmas.
20. Just an annoying, trivial pet peeve here...it's not the "Democrat Party." No such thing exists. It's the "Democratic Party." "Democrat" is the adjective to describe members of said party.
21. It used to be the Democratic Party. However, since the party's leadership has been hijacked by the leftists moonbats like Howard Dean, Ted Kennedy, Pelosi, et. al and locally Dwight Pelz - I have lost alot of respect for it as they have been overrun by the narcissistic morons. They have to bring Democratic back to the party, because that part is gone and the party left me and they are really the Democrat Party.
They have succeeded in being counterproductive to the people - it's their choice, they could have been more constructive in offering solutions. But, nooooo - they whine and try to throw up roadblocks to the security of terrorists and borders and whine more if they perceive that every vote (illegal or legal) doesn't count. Screw them !
22. One man's democrat is another's Dhimmicrat. Since they've all become cowards and appeasers I rather prefer my term.
23. Alpha--every time you say "dhimmicrat" i can't help thinking about the Excorcist--the Mom's voice calling "Dimi!"
side note--i don't recall any Christian bombing, throat cutting or otherwise rioting/burning when this movie came out. why? I'm waiting for the equivalent version of the same movie about a certain peace religion's leaders or precepts. fair is fair, right? open dialogues. it's simply artistic freedom, not hate, right? or is it a double standared?
24. Southern Roots has got it - Lucas was a MEGA BAD candidate -- funny how no one else brings that up. Her resume was a giant PR puff piece -- she was the "Executive Director" of a business that lasted 3 months, from opening (see license application for The Lucas Group,LLC at the Sec. of State 's office, 3/06))to closing (June,06
press release) -- but that supposedly gave her more credibility to understand rural economic development and the needs of small business owners than Sheldon, who runs a family business, was Economic Development Director for 16 years in Mason County, was enterprise manager for the Squaxin Island Tribe many years ago and worked for various other tribes developing their businesses for 15 years,graduated from the Wharton School at the U of Pennsylvania with a degree in economics, has been Democratic chair of the economic development committee in the Legislature, and got $100,000,000 in infrastructure improvement money from the 2005
Legislature for his district! Does it seem my fellow the Democrats have been a tad shallow in
their candidate research this year?!
25. Regarding the Gray Harbor asssor race, the facts are that Cherri Rose-Konschu held the more conservative/moderate position, compared to Darrell Haglund. She was _opposed_ to yearly property re-valuation (which would result in higher taxes for property owners and greater revenue for government). Otherwise, the stuff about a "conspiracy" was merely a last-minute smear, typical of your standard-issue machine Democrats. Republicans and independents in this case had a clear choice ... and evidently enough saw this to help Democrats choose the better candidate.
26. Oh Dougy,
Post #11
http://www.thedailyworld.com/articles/2006/09/12/opinion/letters_to_the_editor/04opinion.txt
Democratic out of touch with the Democratic Party as shown in the recent elections.
http://www.thedailyworld.com/articles/2006/09/13/opinion/editorial/view.txt
Clearly the paper was in favor of D. Haglund, what more did you want printed about your man Haglund?
As far as campaigning goes it was a "squeaky clean campaign" on the side of Cherri Rose-Konshu. The editorials are people's opinions; you wouldn't condone taking that away would you?
The allegations are as is; a disgruntled employee whom was promised the chief appraiser (appointed) position by D. Haglund tried to curb the election with a "whistle blower" complaint. The "whistle blower" proudly boasted in the office about the job offering to other employees prior to Cherri Rose-Konshu's official run for County Assessor. The "whistle blowing" complaint immediately followed a letter via the Assessor Office Staff to the Dailyworld in support of Cherri Rose-Konshu.
27. Grays Harbor Counties Assessors race was a good example of what Darrell Hagland was willing to do to win. He and his good old boy Dems put on a smear campagne that drug a lot of innocent people into a criminal investigation and cost the tax payers of Grays Harbor county their hard earned money. The whistle blowers were nothing more than disgruntled employees who saw their opportunity for a management position slip away, after the voters of Grays Harbor county got a glimpse of what 'no class' Hagland was all about.