Downballot

The Hill is a trash publication, by and large. And this is a week old. But as I was going through the stories I had tagged, I wanted to highlight this insider whine fest about how Bernie isn’t supporting Biden enough and instead focusing on downballot races.

I’m not even going to quote it. There are always Democratic insiders willing to trash Bernie and Beltway people of all stripes who want to push their own narratives to this DC gossip column.

What drives me crazy though is this–focusing on downballot races is exactly what Bernie should be doing! It’s what we should all be doing! Biden is going to get plenty of money and plenty of attention. There are going to be lots and lots of well-off people who support Biden and give him the needed cash. Moreover, the presidential election is going to be a referendum on Trump. It makes sense for Biden to just hang around in the background for as long as possible.

It’s downballot where we build power. It’s where we find good candidates at the local and state level and promote them. It’s where we build that bench. It’s where we create the next people to take on some fascist or to primary some lame Democrat who needs to be replaced. This is what pays off down the road. It’s really just Howard Dean’s 50-state strategy moved forward a generation. And with the demographic political shifts happening in the nation, a 50-state strategy is exactly what we need. Sure, it’s going to be hard for Democrats to compete in Arkansas and Mississippi, but then Doug Jones is senator from Alabama and we have a Democratic governor in Kansas. You never know what opportunity might present itself and you need credible candidates to take advantage.

In any case, Bernie hasn’t done one thing since dropping out to hurt Joe Biden and he has no intention of doing so. Avoid bad gossip columns and focus on some downballot candidates. I plan on adopting some campaigns this fall, probably as part of my dream to make the West blue. We should all do so if we can.