General Discussion
In reply to the discussion: Why doesn't the Democratic Party have a platform anymore? [View all]tabbycat31
(6,336 posts)But in my own state, there are many offices that don't even have candidates running for. And you mentioned statewide offices in a large state. I'm not talking about the higher offices, I'm talking about the farm system--- mayor, council, school board, etc. Even in the reddest of the red states, the state party should be able to find someone to run for governor or senate. To use a baseball analogy, the local offices are the minor leagues for the state and county level offices (assembly, state senate, etc), which are a farm system for federal office.
Last fall I voted in a (non partisan) race for mayor of my town. There were four candidates running and not a single one of them was a Democrat (they actually tried to draft me for the seat, but I declined as I'm gone 6 months of the year and would be unable to govern). And not a single Democrat ran for council in my town either. So now my town is 100% GOP controlled (our elections are nonpartisan meaning they can't run on the official party line but it's easy to tell based on the ballot-- ie 'bringing conservative values').
One of the frontrunners to run against my idiot GOP congressman in 2014 is a mayor who built up quite a name for himself by his handling of the Sandy recovery.