Smarter?

Lynn Allen seems to think state Party Secretary Luis Moscoso has a good idea...

A Unity Coalition of several different Party caucuses, including the African American, Agriculture Rural, Asian Pacific, Disability, Federation of Democratic Women, Hispanic/Latino, Jewish, Labor, Progressive, Stonewall, Veterans and Young Democratic caucuses, is planning to hold a Candidate’s forum and try to get the people running for Chair to come and talk with the Coalition and answer some questions.

  I'm not sure that's a way to get "smarter about how we select the next Democratic Party State Chair." First, the 'coalition' seems to be so broad that the laundry list of concerns from one of the affiliated caucuses is bound to conflict with another, raising the specter of some very public disunity if, say, the YD's ho-hum the worries of aging vets, or the progressive folks admit that they think the labor crowd is a bit too defensive of some of those defense contracts that keep them on the job. Would that happen? Maybe not. Could it? Sure. So, just how smart is it to set up the conditions that would make it possible?

We convene like crazy in this state - statewide, by county, by district - although too often we come together only to split up into our sundry factions. There's plenty of opportunity for family fights when we hash out platforms and endorsements. Do we really need another one, especially over such an inside politics issue as the election of a Party chair? This isn't the time, and some ad hoc forum isn't the place.

In fact, the only people with a vote are the State Committeepersons, who will convene and hash it out among themselves, which is the appropriate forum for questioning the candidates. To the degree they do it well, they'll do it as Democrats, without prefix, without suffix, looking to the good of the whole Party and the pursuit of our platform. I'm not at all convinced we need a public display of our divisions under the guise of 'unity' in the meantime.