Democrats Nominate Nutcase for Senate In Tennessee; Could Have Been Adverted
Democrats Nominate Nutcase for Senate In Tennessee; Could Have Been Adverted
Written by Michael Allen Monday, 06 August 2012 17:04
In 2008 a strange fluke in
American politics happened that turned out to be one of the most bizarre events
of that election cycle. Of course I’m talking about Alvin Greene, the
inarticulate, mentally-deficient Air Force flunkey who won a statewide primary without
even campaigning and became the Democratic nominee for U.S. Senate from South
Carolina.
That watershed moment should’ve been a wakeup call to the democratic establishment. Now history has repeated itself and a true lunatic has become the Democratic nominee for Senate in Tennessee in the form of Mark Clayton. He’s not just dumb, he’s deranged. He believes in the existence of FEMA prison camps, the existence of plans for a NAFTA superhighway, and opposes abortion rights for women and equality for gays.
Obviously Mr. Clayton is a real winner
who embodies the values of Tennessee Democrats. Oh wait; except for he doesn’t,
as the Tennessee Democratic Party lambasted him, saying that he’s a member of a
hate group. Of course, this could have been prevented.
The man who could’ve stopped it is none other than Howard Dean.
After an amazing insurgency in the 2004 Democratic primaries, followed by a screaming fall from grace, Dean found grace as chairman of the Democratic National Committee.
While in that position he formulated the 50 State Strategy, allocating funds to candidates even in deep red states that were long thought unwinnable. This campaign paid off in 2006 by restoring Democrats to the majority in both House and the Senate. It ultimately led to Obama winning races in North Carolina, Indiana, which hadn’t sent a Democrat to the White House since 1964, and even one electoral vote in Nebraska’s second congressional district. Obama isn’t expected to be competitive in any of those contests in 2012.
For some reason, unbeknownst to all but a few democratic political insiders, none of whom are talking about it publically, President Obama really, really doesn’t like Howard Dean. They ousted Dean as DNC chairman; they didn’t give him a position in the White House, and after the withdraw of Tom Daschle’s nomination for Secretary of Health and Human Services, Dean was passed over once again, despite healthcare being his signature issue, and notwithstanding his supporters in the party making a vocal push for Dean’s nomination to the position.
How did Alvin Greene and Mark Clayton win statewide primary races in the first place?
It is not as if there wasn’t a serious candidate running against Greene in 2008, in the form of Charleston County Council member and former state legislator Vic Rawl, or against Clayton in 2012 in the form of actress turned activist Park Overall.
The problem is that these candidates didn’t have funding from any national or statewide Democratic organization to get their message out. The problem is that the party doesn’t want to spend money on races it can’t win.
Let this be a wakeup call to the Democratic establishment. They have to spend money on underdog races, especially when it’s a race as serious as one for the office of the United States Senate, simply to ensure that the candidate actually represents the views of the party.
Is a Democrat going beat Bob Corker in Tennessee in 2012? There is virtually no chance of that. Did Vic Rawl have any chance of unseating Jim DeMint? Extremely unlikely. But in a race for senate, a statewide race for federal office, it’s important that the candidate, even if they’re assuredly going to lose, be serious in nature and have the effect of raising issue awareness and registering voters.
That’s what Dean’s 50 State Strategy was all about; using each election cycle as a springboard for the next one. And sometimes maybe a candidate just might win an extremely unlikely race, as Sen. Jim Webb did in Virginia and Sen. Jon Tester did in Montana in 2006.
The nomination of Mark Clayton in
Tennessee is not a failure of the people of Tennessee. They didn’t know the
candidates because there was no media awareness. The failure is on the state,
and more so, on the national party for inadequately finding, funding, and
promoting a real candidate.