What happens now that a socialist is leading a Democrat for Seattle City Council by 41 votes?

[eridani]

(Crossposted from the Washington State Forum)

Other than a recount, I mean. I know a person who knows a person who knows Sawant's database manager, and the word is that their voter database--constructed only for this candidate, but potentially useful for other races--is very well done. Thinking about that, I am reminded of one of my recurring nightmares about the Democratic Party voter database VoteBuilder, to wit that the corporate types might just get rid of it someday because the "wrong sorts" are using it too effectively. (This would be shooting themselves in the foot, but since when has that stopped some Dems from doing things like supporting chained CPI?) In that case, a backup, even if only local, is very reassuring to me.

I don't live inside the city limits, and I live in one of the less progressive legislative districts, so I haven't openly supported Sawant. Other Dems are un much more secure positions, to wit--

Sawant’s campaign has caused some divisions within local Democratic Party organizations.
http://kuow.org/post/activist-democrats-support-socialist-candidate-kshama-sawant

Jeanne Legault is the vice chair of the 37th District Democrats and a long-time Democratic Party activist. Her district has endorsed Councilmember Conlin, so his name shows up prominently on the literature that party activists are hanging on people’s doorknobs. When Legault goes door-to-door, she hands out Sawant’s literature as well.

“I have gotten a lot of complaints filed against me,” Legault said. But since this is a non-partisan race, Democratic Party bylaws allow members to support non-Democratic candidates.

“It doesn’t matter to me, I am going to speak my truth and what I believe in.”

According to Legault, many other Democratic activists in the 37th District are distributing Sawant’s literature and displaying her yard signs.

Of course, to an FDR Democrat, she'd just be a regular old Democrat anyway (like Bernie Sanders). I personally think that if she had been a Bernie Sanders type socialist running as an independent, she'd have pulled much farther ahead by now.

Democrats are not the only people being changed by this campaign. At a health care meeting tonight, I ran into Merle, a very alienated guy pissed off at the system for all the right reasons, who has for years printed out complicated screeds and left copies on his neighbors' doorhandles. I've always teased him about whether there was a special school where one could learn how to make excessively verbose leaflets with crappy unreadable layouts. In the Sawant campaign, he participated in an organized effort with a lot of other people, and now has an idea of what serious voter outreach looks like. He'll probably help out with the recount and get familiar with that end of things also. What I don't think he will ever do again is leaflet his neighborhood with unreadable screeds.

Win or lose, I can't imagine a better illustration of the Progressive Democrats of America's inside-outside strategy.

[freeplessinseattle]

1. Very exciting! Thank you for the post:)

[eridani]

2. What Democrats should do in response--

--get back to our old habit of stealing ideas from socialists and doing the actual implementation. Both mayoral candidates (Murray and McGinn) have already hopped on the $15/hr minimum wage bandwagon.

[eridani]

3. Sawant's lead is up to 402 votes as of 4:30pm 11/13 n/t

[eridani]

4. 11/14 4:30pm: Sawant's lead is now 1148 votes

Thursday afternoon's breakdown was 55/42 in favor of Sawant, 86223/85075 total votes for a 50.17%/49.50% lead, or 1148 votes.

[liberal_at_heart]

5. Love it, love it, love it. It's despicable how the parties try to tell people who they are allowed

to support and campaign for. No one gets to tell me who I can support. I'm curious how Sawant feels about how many WA democrats in Olympia are trying to destroy medical marijuana rights. We need socialists and other far left democrats to really step up and fight for medical marijuana patients' rights here in WA.

[eridani]

6. The defenders of MMJ rights also happen to be Democrats

Sawant is probably focussed specifically on Seattle issues right now.

[liberal_at_heart]

7. I haven't found very many democrats that are willing to defend MMJ. It's a non issue just like

education is. Problems is those two issues are my most important issues. I cannot vote for democrats who want to privatize education or won't support MMJ rights.

[eridani]

8. Senator Jeanne Kohl-Wells of WA State 46th LD is leading the fight to defend MMJ

This is absolutely crucial, as recreational users mainly care about THC, and I can't see the state stores offering high CBD/low or no THC strains, which many medical users prefer for analgesia.

[liberal_at_heart]

9. well at least we have one democrat with enough courage to fight for sick people. I don't know how

this is going to turn out here in WA. The patients are waiting to see if the law that was passed 15 years ago will hold up or if they will now be treated as criminals. One thing is for sure though. Patients will not stop using cannabis as medicine no matter what the laws say.