In yesterday’s Post Mortem thread, heragain made an interesting point that lead to some discussion of Party endorsements and Party future:
The Delaware Democratic party is now the victim of its own success. Anyone who wants to win runs as a D, so we have a slate full of people who have NO relationship with the party or its platform going into the general carrying our standard. [more]
I can’t even tell you how many of the people at polls and in the campaigns of these people are not even registered Democrats in Delaware, but they included most of the ones I talked to yesterday. I’ve had my own RD talk about putting people on the committee who were active in a campaign but ARENT REGISTERED DEMOCRATS.
Anyone want to firm up the rules in the party? Make candidates sign off on the platform? because although the folks that showed up to vote yesterday, registered Green, or I, or whatever, weren’t allowed to vote, that doesn’t mean they’re not picking our candidates.
The NJ this AM picks up a discussion we routinely have re: endorsements and frames it as the Parties having less influence than they once did.
I see the endorsements issue as a symptom, but not the entire problem. As heragain seems to suggest, the Delaware Democratic Party seems to have a branding problem. The endorsements by the party and their committees don’t mean as much as they used to, because the Party itself doesn’t mean as much as it used to. So that party endorsements are functionally decisions by committeepeople on how to spend their resources for an election. Primary voters are often people who have been paying attention for the duration of a campaign and by the time that endorsements are made, lots of folks have made up their minds. So what does an endorsement mean? Given the recent track record, it only means that the Party will expend its resources on your behalf. There doesn’t seem to be any effort to connect candidates to party platform or principles (the What We Stand For portion of the website) and if there is, there is little effort to communicate why these candidates get the Party endorsement. But more importantly, it doesn’t look like most Democrats care about endorsements or the endorsement process and the Local party doesn’t give the local Democrats a reason to care.
The City of Wilmington committee works abit differently, in that many of the ward chairs are sitting politicians or very reliable allies of sitting politicians. Committees themselves are typically long-term operatives and insiders. This could change if more people showed up, but the odds are stacked against the newbies. So that their endorsements are largely of each other and their allies, with city committees being something of an old-school loyalty protection racket. But much like the rest of the state, the City Committee doesn’t doesn’t communicate with the City Democrats in any way that might connect them to this committee. You just get pronouncements of endorsements without connecting any of that to platform or What We Stand For and then the expenditures begin.
This is John Daniello from the NJ article above:
Delaware Democratic Party Chairman John Daniello said endorsements still are valuable, as evidenced by the nine endorsed candidates who won. But he admits endorsements may not mean what they used to, and he fears the party may be weakening itself.
“I fear for our party and our candidates and our elected officers,” he said. “We’re riding on success through the last decade or maybe a little more. But if we keep going the way we’re going, that’s going to change.”
Recent Delaware primary history has demonstrated that party backing or endorsement doesn’t seal victories.
Go back and re-read that. What is missing from this comment? His Party’s voters, that’s who. Delaware Democrats are fortunate that the opposition party is so very weak. That is also the Party’s bad news too. A blue state’s official Party apparatus with a weak connection to their rank and file is ripe for exploitation. By candidates (including the Corruptocrat Wing and the stealth GOP wing) and by the GOP (if they could get their act together). In a Blue State with a weak GOP, it is the party itself that has to make sure that it is fielding a strong team AND that its voters have some connection to that team. Lackluster recruiting, iffy endorsements and largely no connection to its rank and file looks like lots of unforced errors to me. Here’s hoping that there is some new leadership SOON who will focus on the Delaware Democratic Party and not just its candidates.