Two other things are in play (plus others). (1) Too often state parties have spent their time and money on the easiest wins and IGNORED RURAL parts of their states and HANDED them to Republicans who gladly stepped in and took them. And worse used their control of RURAL to bad mouth Democrats and make them appear to be bad for RURAL voters and uncaring about the issues RURAL voters care about. Need proof? Look at almost EVERY state in America and check out the RURAL areas of the state. Almost ALL of them are RED as far as the eye can see. It did NOT used to be that way. (2) Too often state parties have NOT been focused on year round efforts to stay in front of voters and keep in front of voters and listen to the concerns of voters, and work on the concerns of voters so voters can see that Democrats CARE about them and are working on their behalf. And NOT just show up during election years in an attempt to get votes. The voters are asking who the hell are you and what do you want, I have never seen you until now and now you want me to care about you???? Where have you been????? Why should I care about voting for you now????
This is absolutely the case in New York State, where I co-chair a rural County Dem committee. Many Dems don't even show up here during election years. There is no effort to strengthen or grow the party or develop a bench from which to choose good candidates. Rural is expendable to them. A State party official recently told us to take an issue to one of our Dem electeds. Problem? We don't have any. Oh yeah. There is no connecting of the dots, that this could be important. And at the same time, urban electeds ( Dems are the supermajority here) are making decisions for rural areas about which they have ZERO knowledge - right down to the size that dairy farm herds should be. And how our precious farmland should be saturated with solar farms ( we support renewable energy - just not to our detriment and the devastation of needed farmland, and now the State is in charge of determining that, not localities). And then WE connect the dots and realize that those solar farms are meant not for constituents, but for fueling the Data Centers that are being built through our water-rich areas - including smack dab in the middle of a VILLAGE two miles from my home. This goes well beyond poor vetting.
The vetting point is the one worth sitting with longer than the segment allows. There's a difference between a consultant class that misjudges what "working class" means demographically, more childcare workers than loggers in Maine is a good corrective on its own, and a consultant class that skips the vetting a serious campaign requires because the character already tested well in focus groups. Those are two separate failures stacked on top of each other, and the second one is the more damaging habit, because it's repeatable in the next cycle with a different candidate and a different backstory.
The caucus-over-primary point also cuts against the usual instinct after a race collapses, which is to centralize control and tighten the process. Handing the choice back to Bellows, Jackson, Kleban and the people who actually show up to county meetings is the opposite move, and it's the more interesting bet: that local judgment, closer to the ground than an out-of-state consulting shop, produces a more durable nominee than another round of casting from a spreadsheet.
Two other things are in play (plus others). (1) Too often state parties have spent their time and money on the easiest wins and IGNORED RURAL parts of their states and HANDED them to Republicans who gladly stepped in and took them. And worse used their control of RURAL to bad mouth Democrats and make them appear to be bad for RURAL voters and uncaring about the issues RURAL voters care about. Need proof? Look at almost EVERY state in America and check out the RURAL areas of the state. Almost ALL of them are RED as far as the eye can see. It did NOT used to be that way. (2) Too often state parties have NOT been focused on year round efforts to stay in front of voters and keep in front of voters and listen to the concerns of voters, and work on the concerns of voters so voters can see that Democrats CARE about them and are working on their behalf. And NOT just show up during election years in an attempt to get votes. The voters are asking who the hell are you and what do you want, I have never seen you until now and now you want me to care about you???? Where have you been????? Why should I care about voting for you now????
This is absolutely the case in New York State, where I co-chair a rural County Dem committee. Many Dems don't even show up here during election years. There is no effort to strengthen or grow the party or develop a bench from which to choose good candidates. Rural is expendable to them. A State party official recently told us to take an issue to one of our Dem electeds. Problem? We don't have any. Oh yeah. There is no connecting of the dots, that this could be important. And at the same time, urban electeds ( Dems are the supermajority here) are making decisions for rural areas about which they have ZERO knowledge - right down to the size that dairy farm herds should be. And how our precious farmland should be saturated with solar farms ( we support renewable energy - just not to our detriment and the devastation of needed farmland, and now the State is in charge of determining that, not localities). And then WE connect the dots and realize that those solar farms are meant not for constituents, but for fueling the Data Centers that are being built through our water-rich areas - including smack dab in the middle of a VILLAGE two miles from my home. This goes well beyond poor vetting.
The vetting point is the one worth sitting with longer than the segment allows. There's a difference between a consultant class that misjudges what "working class" means demographically, more childcare workers than loggers in Maine is a good corrective on its own, and a consultant class that skips the vetting a serious campaign requires because the character already tested well in focus groups. Those are two separate failures stacked on top of each other, and the second one is the more damaging habit, because it's repeatable in the next cycle with a different candidate and a different backstory.
The caucus-over-primary point also cuts against the usual instinct after a race collapses, which is to centralize control and tighten the process. Handing the choice back to Bellows, Jackson, Kleban and the people who actually show up to county meetings is the opposite move, and it's the more interesting bet: that local judgment, closer to the ground than an out-of-state consulting shop, produces a more durable nominee than another round of casting from a spreadsheet.