A little over a year ago, I wrote an essay for the New Mexico Mercury entitled, “Why progressives should welcome independents into Democratic primaries.” As this issue has become more visible in recent weeks, and as I find myself advocating for this position, I was asked recently how I came to this strongly held belief. For all of us who run for public office, each election (win or lose) has its share of lessons to be learned…
His teeth are like a row of stumpy razors, and his black hair has a sheen like the sun on black
coral. He drinks Diet Coke instead of the filtered rainwater preferred by the Progressives, who
incidentally make him very nervous.
"What bills are you going to steal from me today, young man?" he teases me on the House
Floor.
Walking slowly, with the deliberation of a champion mule, his decades of office passing like so
many forgotten arguments. That quizzical look that he always gives me, impossible to read…
First of all, let me express my disdain for "conventional political wisdom", or these narratives that emerge among the political class (that would be me) and somehow become predominant in political conversation. I am instinctively skeptical of anything– local or national– presented as political truth, deemed an unassailable political reality. That Governor Martinez is a shoe-in for re-election in New Mexico, for example. Or that Democrats are going to lose the U.S. Senate in 2014…
First of all, can we acknowledge that there is significant disillusionment amongst the voting public with the partisanship and lack of compromise that has Congress virtually paralyzed at the moment? In a similar way, can we admit that the gerrymandering of congressional districts to the point where less than 10% of these same districts are considered "competitive" is largely to blame for the systemic edge that House Republicans will enjoy for the next decade? There is absolutely no incentive for these Republican incumbents to listen to the middle, concerned as they are about their unforgiving right-wing base…