After losing the ‪#‎MdPrimary‬, Donna Edwards had a message for the Democratic party

That always bugs me when election time comes politicians always want to show up on Sunday morning to show good face.

 

I don't think its sour grapes its more of a critique of an organization/ party she loves and is apart of.

 

But what other options do we have? Some see the Democratic Party as the only pragmatic option. Even Bernie had to become a Democrat to be taken seriously.

 

I suppose if she had won, then that would've proven the diversity of the party? I'm with @Ockydub on this one. This sounds like some grapes that ready to be made into wine.

 

Obviously this primary was a referendum on Donna Edward's vocal opposition to the police misconduct in the Freddie Grey murder.

 

As @mojoreece said, what other option is there? Seriously.

Without knowing all the inside baseball/inside the beltway politics, it's not so much sour grapes. On the surface of it all, it's easy to see what she's talking about. You have an establishment white guy running against a credible and arguably just as capable black woman from the outside and to the left of the establishment, in a race to replace the only woman who has held power in that state. She has a great narrative and has proven herself to be an effective campaigner and voice for her constituents. Again, on the surface of it all, it would seem like a missed opportunity for Democrats not to get behind a woman who could be the next black woman to be in the US Senate.

Now, if you knew what was really going on, you would know that this is PRETTY MUCH sour grapes. Chris Van Hollen has been a golden child of the party for some years now, and some say, was the heir apparent to leading House Democrats whenever ole Nancy P decides she wants to hang it up. He was chairman of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee when Democrats locked up even more seats in their majority after the 2008 election. Donna Edwards is pretty new on the scene and won her seat in Congress running against the establishment--against someone who was relatively well-liked. When she came to Congress, some of the CBC was hating, but for the most part, she was a go-getter, she was well-received and leadership initially liked her. At some point, though, she started rubbing people the wrong way and developed a reputation of not getting along well with folks.
Long story put short, Donna picked the wrong man to run against and it didn't help that she didn't have the most stellar reputation within the party. And then she pissed President Obama off on top of that and he basically endorsed Van Hollen without endorsing him.

@Purple_Is_Wack I don't think Freddie Gray factored in too much, otherwise Donna would have probably performed much better with black people. And while she won B-more, one would think her support there would have been overwhelming there, and I don't believe it was. She also lost women pretty badly too. But this was Van Hollen's race to lose, all thing considered. He's very well liked.

 

I actually did some campaigning for Donna (I'm in her Congressional district) but I will say the biggest things that hurt her were:

1) Her attack ad on Van Hollen being shut down by President Obama for the use of his picture (while he allowed Van Hollen to use his image in a different ad.,)
2) She ran a very racially driven campaign in which her message was essentially "I'm a black single mother who understands the struggle" which, unfortunately, alienated a lot of white/rural voters,
3) Her constituent services/customer service track-record is notoriously bad. She actually listens to her constituents, but she's not good at COMMUNICATING that to them,
4) The CBC hates her because she doesn't like to play their games and called out a few of them publicly,
5) She threw her hat in with Sheila Dixon, former Baltimore mayor who was running for the office once again, who was removed from office a few years ago due to some scandal involving stolen gift cards.

I do agree that unfortunately she probably isn't a Democrat (being an Air Force brat like myself, she's probably an independent like most black officers and their families seem to be) but threw her lot in with the Democrats because they at least pay lip service to various progressive interests. I also agree that the Democratic party has taken the black vote for granted for years, and HRC is continuing the trend.