Editorials

Well, the election’s over, and I’ve already spent the better part of two days on mutual condolence calls with friends who are bent out of shape over the many losses suffered by the Democratic Party around the country. I feel their pain, don’t think otherwise.

From what I read in the mass and left-leaning media, it looks like the Dems once again have managed to shoot themselves in the foot on the national level by being too timid in claiming Obama's real achievements. During this election I’ve learned more about the Democratic Party, nationally and especially right here in Alameda County, than I ever wanted to know.

Basically, I come from the Molly Ivins tradition: you hold your nose and pull the Democratic lever most of the time. I’ve participated in my share of insurrections against the party, notably in dumping a pro-Vietnam-war Democratic congressman in Ann Arbor in the sixties, but I’ve never seen a probability-based viable alternative to the Democrats which lasted for the long haul.

I’m not talking about an ideological alternative here. Various manifestation of SDS, the Greens, the Democratic Socialists, and dinner table conversations with my own friends have offered inspiring ideas that I’d love to see adopted in an ideal universe. But when it came to voting in elections, it has most always seemed prudent to try to get people elected to office as a prerequisite to change, though I’ve tried other paths from time to time. And mostly, that’s meant voting for Democrats, some of them real stinkers.

The Green Party in Richmond is currently a shining counter-example to this theory. They’ve now managed to win control of their city council in multiple elections, and they’ve also cooperated with an independent but politically congenial mayoral candidate to counter 3+ millions of Chevron dollars which were hurled at them. 

Their Richmond Progressive Alliance slate managed to beat two “official Democratic candidates” for the (supposedly non-partisan) Richmond city council, who also just happened to be Chevron’s candidates. Since the Green slate had identified themselves as a different party, it’s not too shocking that the Dems chose others to endorse. However, the new Mayor-elect, Tom Butt, is a registered Democrat, but despite that his party didn’t endorse him either. 

But what I did find deeply shocking, outside my experience, though I had paid little attention to the California Democratic Party in the last 20 years, was the “official” endorsement in the 15^th Assembly District in this election.  

This is the first general election after the “top two” primary system went into effect. This innovation, Congressman-elect and current State Senator Mark DeSaulnier told me, is the bastard child of a late night compromise in the legislature over a different matter entirely, and it’s made a mess of things.  

The state legislative districts were redrawn by a supposedly impartial commission after the last census, and one result is that some districts (not as many as there used to be) are irrevocably single-party. The top-two system was pitched as a remedy for that.  

Formerly parties had separate spring primaries, with turnout even less than in the general election, in which voters who had registered as members of parties could vote to choose their candidates. With the new system, voters can choose among all candidates regardless of party affiliation—which is how here in the 15^th District we ended up with two Democrats on the November ballot.  

That would be fine, wouldn’t it, except that we ended up with piles of election junk mailers bearing the legend “Elizabeth Echols is the only candidate endorsed by the Democratic Party”.  

What? Who asked me, or any of the rest of us registered Democrats, who the Democratic Party should endorse? 

Echols’ opponent, Tony Thurmond, is a lifelong Democrat and an excellent progressive candidate, which his eventual election on last Tuesday by the rank-and-file voters proves. So who is this “Democratic Party” which endorsed against Thurmond? Is it too much to ask that they could remain neutral if two respectable Democrats make the final cut? 

A bit of inquiry produced other examples of bad outcomes from endorsements by the “Democratic Party”. In the city of Santa Cruz, the “Democratic Party” hacks endorsed the right wing slate, and since it was an at-large election conservatives now control this formerly progressive council. 

I’m still trying to figure out what’s going on. It seems that in the June primary we voted for—delegates, central committee members for the parties, endorsement czars…? Who knew? Did non-Dems get to vote to choose these people? 

This whole system turns out to be Byzantine, arcane enough to need a book to explain it, or perhaps a fully footnoted Ph.D. thesis. Berkeley Councilmember Kriss Worthington tried to explain it to me, with examples drawn from his experience as president of the Stonewall Democratic Club when he tried to make some modest clarifying changes to the process, but I still don’t come even close to getting it.  

It appears that some elected officials, around here notably the Bates/Hancock entourage, can put heavy thumbs on the scale in the decision process, but on the other hand Thurmond was endorsed by Senator DeSaulnier and Congressman George Miller. Regardless, “the Democratic Party”, whoever that might be, endorsed against him in both Alameda and Contra Costa counties.  

But here’s the good news: in both Alameda and Contra Costa counties, the—I suppose we’d be tempted to say—machine candidates lost in a bunch of places. For example, in Berkeley an endorsed former Bates aide running for Berkeley Unified School District seems to have lost. The Alameda County Democratic Central Committee didn’t endorse Worthington, who has devoted many hours to party work, but he won anyway.  

And Tony Thurmond, also unendorsed by the party honchos, will be our new State Assemblymember. Ironically, he might owe a good part of his margin to Chevron. The obscene amount of money the corporation spent opposing Tom Butt and the Richmond Progressive Alliance ensured that every last progressive voter in the city of Richmond turned out to vote on Tuesday, and while they were at the polls they probably voted for Tony (who used to be on the Richmond City Council). We won’t know for sure until the precinct votes are certified, but it seems likely. 

In the next couple of years, we really have to try to figure out where the gears of this machine reside. I could explain to you how the College of Cardinals chooses a Pope, but not what “endorsed by the Democratic Party” means in California. As a result, my new mantra is simply “watch out for those Dems”.  

On election night, I spoke briefly with Tony Thurmond, and he told me that figuring out this endorsement policy and doing something about it is high on his agenda. The rest of us can do our part by documenting how it works now and how it can be fixed before the next election. Input from knowledgeable readers would be welcome.