Being "right" vs. being strategic politically

When you are in a minority political party, you have to be strategic to keep in the game. Even though I am a political progressive, I am a strong adherent to Michels analysis of the "iron law of oligarchy" as described in the classic Political Parties (written in 1911) and therefore I believe you need a mix of political perspectives in political bodies to keep things on a more even keel (these days, I appreciate Jefferson's more radical tendencies about keeping government in check).

But it's very interesting to see three different political races involving Republican failure all revolving around the same theme: the current candidate-office holder wasn't conservative enough for the base, so they were challenged by more "conservative" types, who went on to victory in the primary. (Plus the national election. If the economy hadn't tanked, and had McCain picked a different vice presidential candidate, would the election have been much closer, both in terms of popular vote, and the electoral college?)

I am thinking of the Gilmore Senate campaign in Virginia, the Mara vs. Schwartz Council race in DC, and the Harris vs. Gilchrest and then Harris vs. Kratovil Congressional race in Maryland.

It's still fair to say that had George Allen not been a fool with his mouth, that he would have won the Senate race in 2004 in Virginia. But he lost, barely, to Jim Webb. And that strengthened the Democratic movement in Virginia. (There is a good story about a great miler who had a great kick--sprint--in the end, and he had every body psyched out that he was unbeatable after a certain point in the race, until he was--the first time, which unleashed multiple defeats by competitors no longer psyched out, no longer believing he was invincible.) Republican Tom Davis would have been a tough candidate for Mark Warner to defeat, but Davis couldn't get through the party-controlled nomination process.

The Eastern Shore Congressional race in Maryland is a bit different. It looks like the Democrat Kratovil just squeaked by Harris. But a more moderate Republican likely would have won.

Similarly, in DC, there was a Republican on Council, Schwartz, who is pretty moderate, but still Republican. To the doctrinaire, she was hardly Republican and ripe for challenge. But the doctrinaire didn't consider electability in the general election vs. the primary, and they set up their candidate, Patrick Mara, up for almost certain defeat.

David Catania, then a Republican, won a seat on Council due to an odd situation. He ran during a special election, in 1997, at a time when special elections and DC Council races were not taken nearly as seriously by the politicos, or at least the campaigns weren't run as professionally and as hard core. The election was for an at-large seat vacated upon the officeholder's election to Council Chair. Catania's opponent was a longtime political hack, former Councilmember, Arrington Dixon.

Around then a bunch of politicians were defeated in a demand for change--this was during the period when the Control Board was created by the Federal Government to oversee the financially bankrupt DC government, and this opened up the political discourse a wee bit. And when it came time for the regular election, in 1998, he was ensconced in the Council, and in a much better position to stay on Council, despite not being a Democrat in an overwhelmingly Democratic city.

I would argue that the election of Kwame Brown, Harry Thomas Jr. and Marion Barry in 2004 was a throwback or reaction to this change, something I wrote about in this blog entry in 2005, "Tom Sherwood, Duncan Spencer, Anwar Amal, and thinking about what I call the 'Uncivil War'." I think Michael Brown's election is part of this same theme, also see these columns by Jonetta Rose Barras, "Legislative ambitions" and "Channeling Fenty’s endorsement of Mara" from the Examiner.

Gary Imhoff opines in the latest issue of themail that with the failure of Mara and Schwartz (she ran as a write in) in the election, it will be impossible for small parties to win seats on the DC City Council.

I believe that this is true, because the post-2006 election, when the Ward 4 and Ward 7 Council seats came up for special election because the officeholders rose up to Mayor and Council Chairman respectively, found that no longer was it amateur hour for running campaigns. In the old days, it may have been possible, just as David Catania won for the first time in 1997, for an outlier to win. With the 2006 election, the Fenty machine threw its resources behind Muriel Bowser, and Vincent Gray did the same in Ward 7. Outliers, like Ward 4's Renee Bowser of the Statehood-Green Party, had no chance.

The Post doesn't get it, or at least it didn't in terms of its editorial endorsements. Those of us with the conventional wisdom--from "Bucking a Tide in D.C." in the Post:

It's been dismaying to see a tide of conventional wisdom dismiss Mr. Mara solely because he is a Republican in a Democratic city. Even before the election, some have declared faux independent Michael A. Brown the winner and incumbent Carol Schwartz, who is waging a write-in bid, the next runner-up.

were thinking about the reality of how you get elected in this town, the demographics, and the reality of precinct-ward based political mechanics.

Although Mark Fisher wrote a blog entry (I don't know if it ran in the paper) "Mara vs. Schwartz vs. Brown Is One to Watch," the reality was that Michael Brown was a shoe-in after the primary, unless for the first time Schwartz could run a disciplined campaign comparable to that of President-elect Obama, and win a write-in campaign. Like now deceased former City Councilmember and Council Chairman David Clark, who had city-wide appeal that transcended demographics, Carol Schwartz has some of that kind of appeal, but evidently not enough, and as the city is changing, politicians from the old days are less well known to increasing numbers of the electorate. Mara was unknown.

Just like how the presidential election isn't just about popular vote but about the Electoral College--a state by state process--local elections are ward by ward, and precinct by precinct. If competence was the basis of qualification, then we'd have different results. But the people on Council win because of their ability to meet a variety of preferences and "qualifications" demanded by various tranches of the electorate. The things I care about--planning, transportation, building a local economy, energy, the built environment--don't matter too much to large sections of the electorate, or at least, people who think like me haven't done a good job in making the case that those issues should matter to the rest of the electorate.

(E.g., sit on the dais at a Council hearing, and face the wrath of "you care about this issue, but where were you in our Ward when we had to deal with X issue?" The questioner isn't too interested in a discourse on good government, and open, fair, transparent and robust processes.) ----------

I do think by the way that Muriel Bowser is likely a future Mayor. She's smart and I think she can pull it off. The challenge is to strengthen her knowledge about issues towards the progressive end of the issue continuum, and towards transformational rather than bureaucratic thinking which because she worked for a county government, is tough for her...