So finally someone heard me! The DelDems Executive Committee decided to not endorse for statewide candidates this season. This is an excellent decision and one that recognizes that it is the voters’ job to vet and select the candidates that they thnk will best represent them in government.
In a break from tradition, the Delaware Democratic Party will not make endorsements in this fall’s statewide Democratic primaries for Congress, lieutenant governor and insurance commissioner.
The decision, made during a tense meeting of the party’s state executive committee, results from having many qualified candidates and a concern that party leadership’s endorsement would cause division following the Sept. 13 primary, committee members said.
I appreciated the history from Theo Gregory on how candidates were selected in a convention nomination process. But since that is no longer operative, it is well past time for the party apparatus to find other roles.
Daniello agreed there is the potential for division, but said the lack of endorsement marks what he sees as diminishing influence by the party apparatus. Part of the challenge for the party, he said, is popular sentiment toward less emphasis on the party’s role.
“Playing up voting for the man, not the party, does not help,” Daniello said. “It is a constant fight to keep the parties relevant, but that is our job,” Daniello said.
He said it has given rise to a situation where some candidates are not truly active in the party, which makes the party’s function of vetting them difficult.
“They never ran for anything and they come out of the woodwork and want to run for statewide office,” Daniello said.
What is difficult about Daniello’s take here is what is the Delaware Democratic Party’s value proposition? Who — even in the Party — could talk to you about the DelDem party platform? The party itself doesn’t have much of an identity outside of its candidates. Those candidates run off to get endorsements from a wide range of groups and who knows if these groups have goals, ideas, governing targets that align with the DelDem platform or whatever gets articulated as the Party’s value proposition. You have legislators at the top of the party apparatus who are just barely Democrats and yet the Delaware Dems endorse them routinely. The Party itself has a serious Identity Crisis and yet Daniello wants to provide endorsements that do little to clarify the relationships of these candidates to either the Party or to the Party’s platform.
Delaware is pretty solidly Blue for now. Which means that now is the time to make some progress towards racking up some achievements in tackling platform goals; energizing party apparatus and expanding the volunteer base; developing a more functional funding stream. From where I sit, it sure looks like finding candidates is definitely working. What needs work is some increase of quality of candidates — at least in being able to represent and endorse the party’s platform. Now we need to figure out how to get the RDs to stop endorsing before a primary.
(h/t to a anon friend for the idea of aligning D candidates with the party platform. This is an excellent use of the Party vetting time, really.)