For Democrats, this election season is not just about trying to help their candidates crawl successfully over the finish line, it’s about running the most far-left candidates they thought they could get elected without too many people noticing.
Even if this strategy meant eliminating other, now deemed less worthy, Democrats.
The previously, in-favor, most-stalwart liberal Democrat, ex-Speaker of the House Frank Chopp, is facing a radical socialist challenger in his re-election race. It should be a shoo-in for Chopp, but these days you just can’t tell (and he did finish with under 50% in the primary).
Chopp touts his experience as the longest serving Speaker in Washington State history. If you hadn’t noticed, incidentally, all Democrats think that just showing up for work equates to experience. His challenger, Sherae Lascelles, has experience of a different kind, and is pushing for more rights for sex workers, rent control, and higher taxes. This is the new Democrat vision for Seattle, and Chopp just might be too conservative for his home district in 2020.
But don’t panic Frank, if you lose, just dye your hair blue, and you’ll stand out from the crowd next time.
The race to the far Left doesn’t stop in Seattle. As Shift has previously reported, Democrats are trying to take out one of their own in the suburban legislative district that surrounds Issaquah. Veteran Democrat Mark Mullet is defending his 5th District seat against big-money progressive Democrat Ingrid Anderson. Anderson is enjoying massive financial support from the Washington Education Association, which is trying to buy her the election. Sen. Mullet’s crime against the WEA? He voted, as his district did when charter schools were on the ballot, for giving parents more choices and against a regressive tax increase being demanded by unions.
Mullet, a very rare Democrat who actually owns a business and understands who is responsible for creating jobs (spoiler alert: it’s not the government), has at least some legislative experience. Anderson cites one of her accomplishments as living in the district for 30 years. There’s that favored Democrat trend, just showing up or living nearby, equates to experience.
Failed Presidential wannabe Governor Jay Inslee stepped away from his taxpayer-funded press conferences long enough to endorse Anderson, which should tell you everything you need to know about her position on new taxes. That may not help her with the district’s more rational voters, who until four years ago were providing Mullet with two Republican House seat mates.
At the statewide level for Lieutenant Governor we have a similar single-party choice, with. extreme progressive Democrat Senator Marko Liias vs. the more moderate Democrat Congressman Denny Heck. Heck wants to focus on rebuilding the economy and actually helping his constituents. Liias, who has become an expert at ripping off the taxpayers in his various government jobs, now thinks he deserves a bigger salary and wants to raise taxes to fund Medicare for all and the Green New Deal. Liias claims he will support “bold, transformational changes”, including reducing penalties for criminals and taking guns away from the police. Liias even thinks Democrat Governor Inslee isn’t being radical enough, and says he’ll do a better job at pushing for new progressive taxes. However, from a fiscal standpoint, the only thing Liias has proven he understands is filing for bankruptcy.
Unfortunately, the race to the Left doesn’t stop with state races. In the 10th Congressional District race to replace the aforementioned Congressman Heck, we have former Democrat Tacoma Mayor Marilyn Strickland in the left corner and in the far-left corner we have Democrat/Socialist State Representative Beth Doglio.
Strickland at least opposed the employee head-tax in her role as the Seattle Chamber of Commerce president. Doglio, a climate change extremist and consultant, is endorsed by wacky Democrat U.S. Representative Pramila Jayapal, and would be a much better fit in Jayapal’s Seattle-based district.
Doglio’s primary goal is to spend trillions of taxpayer dollars on the Green New Deal, the legislative rip-off dreamt up by a freshman congresswoman whose main previous experience was tending bar.
The pattern seems clear. After Seattle Mayor Jenny Durkan set the bar with her anti-police “Summer of Love”, and Governor Jay Inslee has kept upping the bidding though his attacks on the economy with emergency lockdowns now in their eighth month, these Democrat candidates have to really get out there in vying for the award for the ‘Most Left Politician’ elected in 2020.
It’s also apparent that the Democrats are in a hurry to see how fast they can eat their own as they go.
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