Kitsap Caucus

There is a lot you can read these days about divisions within the Republican party, primarily on a national level, with Sarah Palin seeming to often be at the focal point.

Locally, however, the most pronounced division is within the 35th District Democratic Party. You may recall that in 2006 there was an effort to replace incumbent state Sen. Tim Sheldon, D-Potlatch, with Kyle Taylor Lucas. Sheldon received 57 percent of the vote in the Primary, which at the time was a pick-a-party affair. If you as a voter picked “Democrat,” you had to choose between Sheldon and Lucas. If you picked “Republican” you only had Mark Shattuck as an option. Yes, Sheldon won easily, but it technically wouldn’t have qualified as a landslide. And there are still many Democrats who would love to see Sheldon lose at least one of his elected positions.

So I was somewhat surprised when I read a blog post on the official site for the 35th Legislative District Democrats. With Daryl Daugs’ resignation as chairman so he can focus on his run for Bremerton mayor, Nancy Frank became chairwoman. In a post to fellow Democrats she wrote:

“If we are to maintain a strong Democratic representation in at the state level we must assure the re-elections of Representatives Kathy Haigh and Fred Finn, along with Senator Tim Sheldon.”

As of this reading there was one comment in response to the post, submitted by a reader calling himself Mike Mosbarger:

“I am a Democrat because of the issues that I believe in, I will support candidates that support those beliefs. I am not convinced that Senator Sheldon supports those beliefs.”

Could this be a sign that Democrats would support Lucas (She was the press contact for Green Party congressional district six candidate Gary Murrell in 2008.) or another Democrat more in line with party basics than Sheldon should he decide to run again in 2010?

Well, here’s one reason backing Sheldon now might make sense to some in the party, even if they don’t like most of his views. Absent a successful court challenge, the 2010 election will be top-two again. This has the effect of everyone in the district being able to vote for anyone, not just for those in the same party. Remember that 57-43 percent win for Sheldon in the primary? In the general election, when everyone in the district could vote for him, Sheldon received 72 percent. Is there any reason to suspect that Democrats would have any better luck in replacing Sheldon under the top-two system than under the pick-a-party? If there is, I don’t see it.

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This entry was posted on Thursday, July 2nd, 2009 at 4:43 pm and is filed under Democrats, Legislature. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.