Maryland just held its long-awaited Democratic primary this week, after a nearly 14 month campaign for the U.S. Senate and two suburban Washington Congressional races, all generated by the announced retirement of Senator Barbara Mikulski on March 2, 2015. Unsurprisingly, the view from outside the state was very different from the view within, and therein lies a big problem.
Yes, the "establishment" won. Yes, we will soon have an all-male delegation. I can certainly see how that looks from the outside. For those of us inside, however, this was about something other than "identity politics," which Congresswoman Donna Edwards derided as a Republican concept (sorry, Donna, "identity politics" is very much a Democratic concept; "political correctness" is the Republican characterization of "identity politics"). It was about something that Aristotle once called Ethos, and which today we characterize as Integrity. Honesty, Civility, Credibility, Decency, Loyalty and maybe even the archaic concept of Honor, all make up Integrity.
Progressive Neighbors, the county progressive political advocacy group, held a town hall meeting last month prior to our staging the last Senate debate before the primary, entitled, "What's a progressive to do?" It was a question which was challenging many of us. Whereas ten years ago we had virtually no progressives in state, local or federal office, suddenly we were forced to choose between qualified individuals.
The town hall had a panel of current and former elected officials, and I participated as well, as an activist and former candidate. While many of my colleagues tackled their thoughts about specific races -- Sanders/Clinton, Edwards/Van Hollen, Raskin/Matthews -- I teased out the philosophical rules I use regardless of the particular race. For me, first and foremost, it comes down to Integrity.
In politics, integrity means something a little different from its common usage. The currency of politics is not money, which we have too much of anyway, but loyalty, of which we have way too little. It's about committing to, and investing in, a candidate, who then reciprocates by holding to the standards of your social contract with her. It's about the first law of politics in a representative democracy -- that outside of issues of war and peace, the most important role an elected representative plays is in representing us. Not herself, not her caucus, not her party. If she's not playing the trustee role and representing her country, she should be representing you and me.
What all that means is that identity politics, while important to the left, is not, and should not be, the primary consideration. It's important -- Ms. Edwards' story does represent a history which is not, and has never been, visible in the United States Senate. I understand the power of that narrative very well, as a candidate for state office running in a country that has never elected an out trans person to a legislative office. Trans people, like gay people, black people, men and women of all types, should all be represented. I get it, but I have never asked anyone to vote for me solely because of my gender history.
Donna Edwards made her campaign all about her identity. That inspired many voters, though far from the number of African-American voters she needed to win. Many black women in my county proudly supported her opponent, the white guy, Congressman Chris Van Hollen. I heard from too many young people who said not that we really need a single black mother in the Senate, but that they'd never vote for another white guy. That kind of thinking, similar to the Bernie bros for whom it's Bernie or no one, will continue to undermine this country and lead us further down the road to increased polarization.
I'm not defending the status quo. Nothing irks me more than the incumbency protection racket, which generates a legislature of too many complacent members wherever and whenever it occurs. We may get the chance to vote on county term limits this fall, which would really upend our local and state politics. That can only help engender a much more diverse crop of future candidates. And because of the manner in which the county and state are diversifying, that means there will be more women candidates and candidates of color.
Those candidates who will get the most votes in the future will be, I hope, the best candidates, regardless of identity. Joan Walsh, writing in The Nation, who as an MSNBC commentator is a woman I deeply respect, wrote:
In the end, the bitter Maryland Democratic Senate primary came down to this: Representative Donna Edwards, the exemplary progressive outsider, couldn't defeat the ultimate insider, Representative Chris Van Hollen, the well-liked scion of the state's Democratic establishment, with ties to big party donors he forged running its congressional campaign committee. To be fair, Van Hollen's record is nearly as progressive as Edwards's.
Putting aside the fact that the primary could not be characterized as bitter during any point in the past 14 months, though "heated" would be accurate for the last three weeks; Donna was not "the exemplary progressive outsider." Had she been so, in a state where exit polls show black voters made up 46% of the electorate, she would have won. As Chris Van Hollen pointed out, helped by former gubernatorial candidate, Heather Mizeur, and all the voters who, because of redistricting had spent at least four years being represented by both of them, her constituent service was the opposite of "exemplary." That was documented by black and white voters, yet Ms. Edwards claimed such talk was tinged with racism.
She raised very little money, not because Chris somehow plugged the tap, but because her lack of constituent services left her with few local donors. Finally, the national progressive community should not be particularly proud that roughly half of her money during the campaign came from a white hedge fund manager, Donald Sussman, though that didn't stop her from claiming Van Hollen was a tool of Wall Street.
People noted the basic failure in poorly representing her constituents, the disgraceful ad using the President to tie Congressman Van Hollen to the NRA, and the hypocrisy of taking hedge fund money. The fundamental job of a representative is representing your constituents. Full stop.
I'm not the only writer with this perspective. I recommend Jamelle Bouie, writing in Slate, who said:
Symbolic representation matters, and that's especially true for incredibly underrepresented groups such as black women. And the only way to build a presence of those groups is to work for it.
She followed that up, however, with this about the boring nature of quotidian politics:
But Maryland shows that these contests are just as often about the boring parts of politics as they are about rhetoric and belief. Donna Edwards may have made a fine senator, but Maryland voters were looking for someone to help them now.
I also recommend Jon Shurberg's take, as well as David Lublin's, two observers laser-focused on the state political scene and no strangers to trenchant criticism.
One day, probably soon, we will have more highly qualified candidates who can mobilize the voters for progressive policies and who also happen to be female, African-American, Hispanic, Asian-American, Jewish, gay and even trans. Not only just in Maryland, either. If that revolution is to come, it won't come from the top, as Bernie promises, but from the bottom, where all successful revolutions are nurtured.
Get to work.