What is it with Colorado Democrats and offers of positions and titles to shove aside primary contenders from challenging incumbents? Last year the Obama White House offered Andrew Romanoff a government gig if he decided not to run against "Accidental Senator" Michael Bennet. Today comes news that gay veteran Brian Carroll has dropped his primary challenge to state Rep. Andy Kerr (D-Lakewood) in exchange for running the Democrats' Veteran Council.
Democrats were so desperate to avoid a primary challenge that they invented the Veterans' Council to bribe Carroll out of the race, appointing him Interim Chair of the newly-created council. It’s so new it’s not even listed on the state party’s website.
Carroll made a big national news splash upon announcing his run, being the first gay veteran to run for public office after the repeal of Don't Ask, Don't Tell. All of that ink was spilled for naught it appears, as the power brokers in the Democrat Party worked behind the scenes to push Carroll out of the race.
Despite their love of identity politics, Democrat politicians sided with the status quo over allowing their party's voters from choosing their nominee in a primary.
We're betting Andy Kerr wished he had the same type of establishment support last November when he lost to Rep. Sal Pace (D-Urination) in the House Minority Leader race.
Andy Kerr, once the rising star, now looks like a pampered lap dog of the Left, incapable of defending himself against a little ole primary challenge, relying on the Big Boys for what he cannot do for himself.
I doubt it went down that way.
I can’t respond to CPP’s diary, I’ll respond to your comment instead, Ari. But I’m really responding to their diary.
There’s nothing more ironic than a self-referential parody. CPP strikes me as a worse copy of a bad original, a right-wing Colorado Pols knock-off, evincing the same shallow cynical pseudo-sophistication, but doing so in an even more insubstantial way.
A progressive Democrat decided to run for office while districts were still in flux, not really knowing the political landscape he was challenging. That’s forgivable; he was wading into unfamiliar territory. Life is a learning curve.
Others who shared his general goals for society advised him that those goals were not best served by that personal ambition at this moment, and, after taking a reasonable amount of time to internalize that message, he heeded it. That’s admirable, because, since life is a learning curve, those who are actually responding to such information deserve our respect.
Since politics is an articulation of personal and collective ambitions, when someone with enough of a following, or enough implicit or potential political influence, is encouraged to sacrifice their own personal ambitions for the greater good of the movement to which they belong, they are often acknowledged with the offer of some alternative position. That makes sense: If they have enough juice to demand such attention, then they have enough juice to make the utilization of their appeal and talents something both functional and reasonable from an organizational point of view.
We live in a real world, not some sanitized ideal. Our own national history, from beginning to end, is an illustration of that fact. When the Constitutional Convention, for instance, convened in the summer of 1987, the delgates had to deal with the realities of the then-extant distribution of power. Larger states had to be given greater power (in the form of population-based Congressional representation), because if they hadn’t been, they would not have signed on to the new national constitution. They were “bought off,” because that is the inevitable nature of realistic and functional politics. And, as a result, we have our incredibly robust and impressive national Constitution.
Brian Carroll is an up-and-coming Colorado Democrat, who we are all glad to have as an asset and resource for our shared ambitions to move this state, nation, and world in the direction of reason and goodwill. This race in this district at this time was not the best venue for his advance as a force in the state Democratic party, and so, in a wise and functional arrangement, the realities of both his potential and our shared current needs were simultaneously accommodated. That’s just plain smart.
You want to pretend that everything that does not adhere to some bloodless abstraction is an afront to our ideals (except, of course, when that lack of adherence occurs on the conservative side of the ideological spectrum). That’s very convenient, for those who are playing a game of one-upmanship. But, in the real world, politics (and economics), at its best, is about the alignment of individual wills with collective welfare. That’s exactly what occurred here.
teachable moment. Namely Dem’s LOVE identity politics until it’s used on one of their insiders. Hell, even Sarah Fong and the ghouls at CPols were going off on Carroll for using his sexuality and military experience as spring boards for his campaign.
How isn’t this a payoff? It’s confusing what he will do in his new role. Aside from the Colorado Nat’l Guard, which recieves nominal and indirect state funds, what will Carroll be doing? Lobbying the legislature for VA funding? Can one of you liberals please explain to me what role the Colorado Democrats play in national veteran affairs? There is no description of what he’ll actually do.
Also, this shows Palencio’s weakness and the Colorado Dem’s weakness as a party. He isn’t well rooted in CO politics, so he clearly is just a patsy who was strong-armed by Trimpa and the Fab Four. The Democratic party in the state is so beholden to it’s puppeteers that the chairman was basically a pawn in gettting Carroll out of this race.
You can think Carroll is a future star all you want, but don’t believe for a minute this debacle won’t be brought up again when he runs.
Sweeping statements in service to ideological warfare may be your idea of the height of political discourse. To me, it’s just counterproductive noise.
There are challenges we face as a society, at all levels, from our communities to our state to our nation to our world. The focus of all of us who claim to be interested in participating in our shared political enterprise should be on confronting those challenges. When I criticize others participating in this discourse (both conservatives and liberals, when appropriate), I criticize the policy positions they are advocating, because that’s really what should be at the heart of our discussions.
For someone crowing about “identity politics,” your whole world seems to revolve around identifying who is in your in-groups, and who is in your out-groups, and finding any excuse you can to vilify the latter.
Of course, when you’re weak on substance, form is really all that’s left for you to harp on….
I also criticize people for factual inaccuracy, unsound reasoning, and belligerence or indifference to the interests of others, as well as for poorly conceived or bigoted policy positions. All of these are relevant to political (and academic) discourse.
like yourself, I was responding to the post, not you specifically due to technical difficulties in posting.
For a smart guy, you go on a lot of tangents. The points I raise are far more “nuts and bolts” than yours, which doesn’t necessarily discredit them, but we’re on two different wavelengths. My specific reference to “identity politics” is in response to the many comments on Sarah Fong’s blog and Pols hypocritical complaints about Carroll’s use of “identity politics” in his announcement of his candidacy. All of this coming after months of targeting SOS Gessler for “voter suppression” and “racism” for pushing voter ID laws. Identity politics are always going to be present among all of us, but, like you said, it doesn’t necessarily benefit our political system.
that incidentally involve our various categorical identities, such as, for instance, The Civil Rights Movement of the 1950s and 1960s. And there are recources to identifications that involve no legitimate issues, such as, for instance, racist, sexist, xenophobic, and homophobic “out-group” identifications.
The issue, for instance, of one party pursuing policies intentionally designed to reduce democratic participation of particular minorities due to the realization that the greater the participation of all those other than the historically dominant group is not in the interest of that party, is a legitimate issue. The empty labelling used to dismiss those who espouse ideas you oppose (“identity politics,” “socialists,” “statists,” etc.), on the other hand, the purpose of which is to avoid discussion and consideration of the ideas and positions on their own merits, is the real identity politics that you should be concerned about.