Notes from the Chair - August, 2010

Written by Andrew Graham | 05 August 2010

There continues to be confusion about nomination versus approval versus endorsement. I believe it's more complicated than necessary and we may wish to reexamine our process, but here is an explanation of how we identify candidates and what it means.

Nominated: In years past the primary election would sift out all but one candidate from each party and the remaining Democrat was, by definition, our nominee. However, the Top-Two Primary can no longer serve as a Nominating Primary, so we had a Nominating Convention in May, at the requirement of the state party, in which we nominated one candidate for each race. Nominating a candidate gives the party, as per the Washington State Constitution, the right to select replacement candidates should the nominated candidate be elected and then fail to complete their term. Unofficially, we strive to nominate the candidate who we think is most likely to win at the time of nomination. This nomination process is new to the party and I believe that it has problems. In particular, we nominate candidates too early, before we know enough about them to reliably make the best choice. It could happen that our nominee doesn't make it through the primary, in which case we would reconvene our Nominating Convention to select a new nominee.
Approved: Our bylaws state that an approved candidate has been determined by the party to be a good citizen, qualified for the position they seek, committed to the Democratic Party and to the race. They are officially supported by and may receive non-financial aid from the Party. We may approve of any number of candidates for an elective office.

Endorsed: An endorsed candidate has all the qualifications of an approved candidate. Additionally, only one candidate for an office may get the Party's endorsement, they may receive financial aid, and endorsement is a statement that the Party believes that the endorsed candidate is the best qualified for the office and should be elected.

"Preferred" is not a term that has any defined meaning to Mason County Democrats. I know some candidates have been using that, and it's arguable that once we have nominated or endorsed a candidate we are expressing a preference for that candidate, so I haven't put a stop to it even though it's somewhat ambiguous. For example, we could nominate candidate A and endorse candidate B in the same race.

The next Executive Committee meeting is August 4; call me for time and location. I'll see you all at the next Central Committee meeting, Wednesday August 11, 7pm, at the PUD 3 meeting room.

Andrew Graham
MCDCC Chair