Wasn't this what primaries were for? (hackett)

[The Witch]

Just posted on Last Midnight

On Hackett's withdrawal from the Senate race

A lot of people are saying Hackett was not as qualified as Brown. Fine. I actually agree that Hackett would be better in the House. I felt the same way about Cindy when she considered running against DiFi.

However.

It's our job to decide who the best folks are. That's what the primary is for. Establishment Democrats have no business pressuring anyone to run or not run. They should open up the field and work with the folks the people select. This is cronyism politics at its worst no matter what party's doing it. When asked about the race, folks already in power should have said "They're both excellent candidates, and we'll see who the people of Ohio decide will be better to represent their party."
That's what Howie Dean said about it.

What's more, the influence of party leaders in this particular race was misplaced. It shows the establishment to be overly concerned about this particular "outsider" coming into the race. Concerned enough to take action. They should have had enough savvy to realize the following:

a) Their pressure would not remain in the background. Being an outsider, Hackett has no inside connections, and no reason to stay quiet about why he was dropping out. This sort of internal pressure only works when it isn't exposed.

b) The fact that Democratic party leadership stepped in makes it look like Hackett had a better chance of winning than Brown. Let's face it--if he had little to no chance to begin with, the public would take care of him in the primary. He had a good enough chance that the Democratic leadership had to step in on Brown's behalf. Now it looks like they've eliminated the more popular guy in favor of the less popular guy. And who wants to vote for second best?

If our party has lost faith in the ability of the political primaries to decide who should represent the party, we've lost faith in being the party of the people and are now the party of the establishment. To paraphrase you, Harry... I'm sure we can do better than that.