267…A Quick Hit
I finally finished sending out my letter to the Senate candidates, and got responses from Chris Russell and Kyrsten Sinema. Chris Russell’s campaign manager sent me a note letting me know that she had forwarded my email to the candidate and that he would be responding to me directly. From Rep. Sinema’s campaign I got an automated response asking for donations.
Let me preface this next bit by recognizing that I am a newcomer to Arizona and Arizona politics. But I think that this can be addressed to literally every Democratic front runner in every race in the country. Don’t assume you have us locked up.
That type of thinking got us into the situation we’re in today. Hillary Clinton and the rest of the Democratic establishment figured that the Bernie wing of the party would follow along. That clearly was not the case. (I would argue that taking any action that would allow POTUS to win — voting for him, voting 3rd party, or not voting — is a really weird way to push for progressive policies, but not interested in re-litigating it for the 10¹⁰⁰⁰⁰X, so before you even start an argument, you win. You’re right, this is all Hillary Clinton’s fault.) Taking solid Democrats for granted is a fairly consistent problem for the party as a whole, especially for a Big Tent Party like ours. Of course no Democratic candidate is going to be perfect for every one of us on every issue. But chances are that we will mostly agree on most issues. Make sure that we know where you stand on things. Even if we disagree, if you’re up front with us about it, and we agree on most things, we’ll still vote for you.
Representative Sinema, please don’t assume that we will vote for you just because we’re Dems. Please work to earn our votes. That goes for all the candidates, but you are the front runner, and what I have seen from your campaign so far does not inspire a ton of confidence.
