new column:

"Strong Enough to Bend"

Primaries can be a difficult time for partisans like you and me. We have to choose among our friends and colleagues in the Democratic Party who should lead us into the general election. And we all know that the general election is the one we really want to win.

There are so many issues to consider. Do we choose electability in the general election over core values? Do we have to choose between the two? Which Democratic candidate will appeal to the masses? Which Democratic candidate will help us move forward as a party and as a public? Is it worth falling on our swords over a fight between Democratic primary candidates when we know the real contest isn’t for another 6 months?

Everyone seems to have the answers to these questions each time there’s an election. And every time there’s an election everyone seems to have another set of answers that works with their current mood, historical analysis, hopes, dreams, and political persuasion. Our party is constantly in a swirl over these issues, especially after considerable consternation over losses in recent years in general elections.

We keep looking for electability in all of our races. We also still push candidates who will win over the mass public with our core values so that we can have our core principles be electable too. This neverending quandary is before us each primary election.

And so every primary for every partisan race in local, state, and national races we argue over what’s the best strategy, what’s the best plan for the future, what’s the best for the party, what’s the best for the people, what’s the best for you and me, and what’s the best hope for winning. And every primary we struggle with arguing these ideas while trying to remember that we’re all in this together to win in the general election.

And that’s the toughest part. Because it’s so easy to fight over these principles and ideas constantly when we all know that we’re right and that we have the best plan for winning in the long run. And we all may just be right. And we each may be wrong. And the biggest difficulty of all may just be moving past our own individual preferences, swallowing our pride, and going forward together once we’ve made a decision as a party to win the general election against the real enemies.

Primaries are always a love/hate relationship for me. I love that we get a chance to push our party’s candidates forward on issues we care about and frame the debate within our party on core values we believe in. I hate that we often fight between ourselves over electability and who’s the most core-believer and so on.

Agreeing to disagree is easier said than done. And it takes real strength and grace to recognize small disagreements are less of an obstacle when considered under the auspices of the larger agreements and love for each other. The country singer Tanya Tucker once had a song way back that talked about being ‘strong enough to bend.’ And bending just ain’t that easy, let me tell you.

But when we remember that our cause is greater than our individual inter-party fights, these disagreements can be seen as a testament to the strength of our party as a whole. Our primaries can prepare us for the real fight for the future of our public. And they can help us remember who we are as individual players and as a team. It’s never easy to fight amongst friends, but we can agree to disagree for the time being, bend towards each other’s perspective a little bit more, and move forward together for the larger goal of winning the general come November.