- Jun 4, 2004
- 17,433
- 15,333
- 146
This is a pretty good article on what it’s like to run as a Democrat in the most republican district in the country. (Amarillo TX)
https://splinternews.com/the-loneliest-democrat-in-america-1829426449
Greg Sagan is 70 years old. He has the swept-back gray hair and assured, learned manner of a former corporate consultant, which he is. When he campaigns he wears a navy blue suit jacket and a blue name tag that reads: “Greg Sagan. Democrat for U.S. House. District 13.” Even though he had a column in the local newspaper for 14 years, he needs the name tag, because he hasn’t run any television ads. He hasn’t put up any billboards. His opponent, House Armed Services Committee Chairman Mac Thornberry, has raised $1.1 million, and Sagan has raised a little over $20,000. He’s spent most of that money driving around the district for the past year, holding town halls, asking people what they want. His driver is his wife Dianne, who is also his campaign manager. The fact that he is, statistically, the Democrat with the biggest uphill battle in the nation does not appear to bother him a bit...
...Notwithstanding the daunting party numbers in the district, there are things to be learned here. It’s not unreasonable to see Greg Sagan as a Frankenstein’s-monster type of Democratic candidate, assembled out of the ideal pieces of many different constituencies in the party. On one hand, he’s an old white man with a background in the corporate world; on the other, he uses that technical expertise to argue in detail for single-payer healthcare and leftist pro-worker economic policies to fight inequality. He carries a handgun, but he favors gun control. He’s a military veteran with a decorated family history, but he calls the invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq “two magnificently myopic disastrous decisions.” He discusses the dangers of climate change with ranchers. He speaks Spanish. He dismisses Trump’s border wall as the idea of a “dope.” And he is zealous on the topic of good government, with specific plans to do away with gerrymandering, roll back Citizens United, and expand voter registration. He is not a California Democrat or a Chicago Democrat or a New York Democrat. He is an Amarillo Democrat. To a degree remarkable for an aspiring politician but unremarkable for a Texan, he truly seems to be guided only by his own logic and convictions to the stubborn exclusion of all other concerns. If the Democratic Party ever decided to really try and compete in the reddest part of this country, it might consider getting behind a man like him.
...The reliability of this critique is interesting when you consider it is coming from the same organization that produced the official 2018 platform of the Republican Party of Texas. There may be no better document for pegging the current sanity level of the redder portions of America’s political spectrum. Among the illuminating sentences included in the platform: a commitment to “the traditional marriage of a natural man and a natural woman”; “We oppose all efforts to classify carbon dioxide as a pollutant”; “No laws or executive orders shall be imposed to limit or restrict access to sexual orientation (change) counseling for self-motivated youth and adults”; “We support the defunding of ‘climate justice’ initiatives, the abolition of the Environmental Protection Agency, and repeal of the Endangered Species Act”; “We believe the Minimum Wage Act should be repealed”; “We oppose mandates on personal firearms storage”; “we believe the Department of Education should be abolished”; “We demand the State Legislature pass a law prohibiting the teaching of sex education”; “The official position of the Texas schools with respect to transgenderism is that there are only two genders: male and female”; and much more along these lines. The Texas Republican Party platform outlines an ideal state that is just one vast, heavily armed oil field, punctuated by churches preaching that homosexuality is a sin.
https://splinternews.com/the-loneliest-democrat-in-america-1829426449
Greg Sagan is 70 years old. He has the swept-back gray hair and assured, learned manner of a former corporate consultant, which he is. When he campaigns he wears a navy blue suit jacket and a blue name tag that reads: “Greg Sagan. Democrat for U.S. House. District 13.” Even though he had a column in the local newspaper for 14 years, he needs the name tag, because he hasn’t run any television ads. He hasn’t put up any billboards. His opponent, House Armed Services Committee Chairman Mac Thornberry, has raised $1.1 million, and Sagan has raised a little over $20,000. He’s spent most of that money driving around the district for the past year, holding town halls, asking people what they want. His driver is his wife Dianne, who is also his campaign manager. The fact that he is, statistically, the Democrat with the biggest uphill battle in the nation does not appear to bother him a bit...
...Notwithstanding the daunting party numbers in the district, there are things to be learned here. It’s not unreasonable to see Greg Sagan as a Frankenstein’s-monster type of Democratic candidate, assembled out of the ideal pieces of many different constituencies in the party. On one hand, he’s an old white man with a background in the corporate world; on the other, he uses that technical expertise to argue in detail for single-payer healthcare and leftist pro-worker economic policies to fight inequality. He carries a handgun, but he favors gun control. He’s a military veteran with a decorated family history, but he calls the invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq “two magnificently myopic disastrous decisions.” He discusses the dangers of climate change with ranchers. He speaks Spanish. He dismisses Trump’s border wall as the idea of a “dope.” And he is zealous on the topic of good government, with specific plans to do away with gerrymandering, roll back Citizens United, and expand voter registration. He is not a California Democrat or a Chicago Democrat or a New York Democrat. He is an Amarillo Democrat. To a degree remarkable for an aspiring politician but unremarkable for a Texan, he truly seems to be guided only by his own logic and convictions to the stubborn exclusion of all other concerns. If the Democratic Party ever decided to really try and compete in the reddest part of this country, it might consider getting behind a man like him.
...The reliability of this critique is interesting when you consider it is coming from the same organization that produced the official 2018 platform of the Republican Party of Texas. There may be no better document for pegging the current sanity level of the redder portions of America’s political spectrum. Among the illuminating sentences included in the platform: a commitment to “the traditional marriage of a natural man and a natural woman”; “We oppose all efforts to classify carbon dioxide as a pollutant”; “No laws or executive orders shall be imposed to limit or restrict access to sexual orientation (change) counseling for self-motivated youth and adults”; “We support the defunding of ‘climate justice’ initiatives, the abolition of the Environmental Protection Agency, and repeal of the Endangered Species Act”; “We believe the Minimum Wage Act should be repealed”; “We oppose mandates on personal firearms storage”; “we believe the Department of Education should be abolished”; “We demand the State Legislature pass a law prohibiting the teaching of sex education”; “The official position of the Texas schools with respect to transgenderism is that there are only two genders: male and female”; and much more along these lines. The Texas Republican Party platform outlines an ideal state that is just one vast, heavily armed oil field, punctuated by churches preaching that homosexuality is a sin.
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