Michael: Moveon Ruffles Shachter Over CD8 Nomninations

MoveOn.org sponsored a nomination contest when Kolbe announced his retirement. Asking for members to nominate their favored candidates, they narrowed the field to 4 candidates. Unfortunately, two of them - Tom Volgy and Mary Judge Ryan - have not announced, and may never announce, their candidacies. Two of them - Gabrielle Giffords and Jeff Latas - have. But at least two announced candidates - Francine Shachter and Alex Rodriguez - did not make the cut. And one candidate who is widely expected to run - Eva Bacal - apparently didn't make the cut either.

The validity and the method by which influence and money may be directed to certain campaigns by Moveon's process concerns at least one candidate; and I wouldn't be surprised if her opinion reflected the feelings of some of the others who haven't been put on Moveon's short list (especially since two of the slots are taken by person's who haven't made the plunge).

Francine Shacter wrote the following open letter, and I decided to share it in full:

My name is Francine Shacter and on November 7, I declared my candidacy for Congress in the 8th Congressional District of Arizona. I have just received your email listing the four top candidates nominated by your mailing list to run for this seat. I was sorry to see that my name is not among them.

I was interested in your comment that “crucial decisions are being made every day right now, as potential candidates decide whether to run and the Parties decide which candidates they'll support. Usually this happens behind closed doors and you only have a say when you are presented with one, or a couple, candidates on the primary ballot.” You are, in effect, doing the same thing. Your request for nominees went to your mailing list which may not be behind closed doors but is limited to your membership. I am a long time liberal, progressive Democrat. I have worked to elect progressive Democrats since before that term “progressive Democrat” was coined.

You have come up with four people who got the most votes. Speaking as a retired statistician, I think you should state the universe from which these nominations came. Otherwise you are in the same category as the folks behind closed doors that you inveigh against in your emails. By intruding yourself in the political process in CD 8, you are creating another “closed door” group.

The way candidates get on the ballot is by running a campaign and getting enough signatures to a nominating petition to meet the requirements of the State. Anyone who can meet these requirements can run for public office. Therefore, your comment that “the Parties decide which candidates they’ll support and you [the voter] only have a say when you are presented with one, or a couple, candidates on the primary ballot” is not accurate. In fact, a truly open primary is the best way for the electorate to select the best candidate.

With the exception of Jeff Latas, who decided to run and announced his candidacy on November 11, the three persons on your list had no intention of running against an incumbent because of the difficulties inherent in that process. Francine Shacter (announced November 7) and Jeff Latas (announced November 11) were the only ones willing to run in a primary and let the electorate decide which of us should face Kolbe, the incumbent. That should tell the world one thing about Shacter and Latas: these are people who have the courage of their convictions and the guts to put themselves and their positions on the issues before the voters.

Sincerely,

Francine Shacter

Is Shachter's concern just sour grapes?

I don't think so. She raises a very valid concern regarding the mindless piling-on of early money and support - very little of it informed by much beyond a certain credibility, name recognition, and momentum. Is that really how we want to be selecting our candidates? Do we really do our party or our democracy a service by winnowing our choices down to a 'managable' field of choices so as not to confuse the 'consumer'?

Our instinct is that the earlier a nominee is annointed, the stronger that candidate will be in the general election. But just the opposite may be true, in fact. The testing of a hard-fought and substantive primary season with diverse candidates is the best proving ground for a party's nominee. Short-circuiting that process by limiting certain candidates' access to the voters by starving 'marginal' or 'dark-horse' candidates of money, media, and manpower may only serve to further narrow the range of debate with-in the party and weaken the resulting candidate's appeal to a wider electorate.

The GOP has, I believe, fallen hostage to a small and powerfully mobilized cadre of primary voters that have driven GOP nominees ever-further to the right. I think this will eventually destroy the GOP as a national coalition party. We do not want to emulate the 'catastrophic success' of the GOP's model of primary competition. What appears to be strength and cohesion may in fact be only careful stage management and the suppression of dissenting voices.

Early money may be like yeast, but it would behoove us to remember that some strains of yeast can cause a virulent infection

Michael: Dunbar's and Ronstadt's Sugar Daddy

I got a mail piece from Kathleen Dunbar and Fred Ronstadt recently. These candidates have both opted out of Tucson's publicly financed campaign system. They both feel that public financing is a waste of public money and think that private interests should be relied upon to fund the election of our public officials. I haven't got any problem with a person following their conscience in such matters, but they should be consistent, right?

Well, in this case, not so much. On the flipside of the Dunbar/Ronstandt mailer is the mug and the endorsement of none other than Arizona's Senator John McCain. McCain-Feingold campaign finance reform law shepherd John McCain. Supporter and defender of Arizona's Clean Elections law John McCain. So why are two candidates who oppose public campaign financing accepting the endorsement of John "Campaign Finance Reform" McCain? Why did he offer his support to dirty candidates?

I suppose the moral of this story is that party loyalty is stroner for GOP pols than is principled adherence to basic political convinctions about the nature of the public's interest.

Michael: China-Russia war game a possible American invasion

Joint Chinese-Russia war games are simulating the amphibious invasion of a coastal area and the interdiction of sea traffic in advance of an assualt of urban centers (read, counter-invasion against American intervention in Taiwan...), further cementing those nations' security alliance under the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO).

The military manuevers are only the sexiest aspect of the deepening relationship between these traditional rivals. The economic relationships among the five nations of the SCO are also deepening, especially between the two massive achors of the organization, Russia and China. Joint military operations may foreshadow the development of a NATO-like security alliance in Asia that could become an attractive counter-weight to American predominance for traditionally non-aligned countries and those wary of recent American unilateralism.

It is inevitable that the more America throws its considerable military weight around without sanction that other nations will seek security in an alliance with nations that are percieved, rightly, to be immune to American bluster. There is a very good chance that several Asain nations would flock to the shelter of a Russian-Chinese umbrella, if it were offered. Prime among nations likely to seek security and trade within the SCO are Iran, Syria and North Korea, and possibly even Pakistan. I will not be surprised when the press release comes anouncing the membership of one or more of these nations in the SCO, and their participation in more military manuevers simulating an American foe.

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