(Editor's Note: Ranger Bob sent the following in an email a couple of days ago and invited me to post it in the blog if I wished. Bob is a deep thinker and a talented writer, and I never pass up an opportunity to share his thoughts on any matter - even when they aren't in sync with my own - as with this piece. It is a rebuttal to a posting that I wrote in praise of NYC mayoral candidate Zohran Mamdani a few days earlier.. One point Bob made with which I totally agree is that friends can disagree without being disagreeable. We invite others who have opinions on this matter to post them in today's comments' section, or if you have a lengthy response and wish to have it presented as an independent blog posting, email it to me and I will make that happen. Enjoy the discussion - and refer back to my original posting of August 14th for my take on the matter. Stay out of the heat! Pa Rock)
by Bob Randall
I'm not a Democrat, I consider myself independent. I was a fiscal hawk and law-and-order Republican for years. The Repubs drifted away from me as they don't save money, they just waste it differently. They became too Christian, insisting there is no separation between church and state. They also went MAGA which I consider to be the American version of fascism. I could go on.
I wrote in a Pa Rock comment about ranked choice voting a while back. My preference for that is because a moderate has at least a chance of winning because they don't have to go through a primary process. Said another way, the current system gives us extremists. Well, New York City just used the ranked choice system and came up with a far-left candidate. Pa Rock calls the winner, "the people's choice." It was only a primary. It is appropriate to call him the NYC Dem choice, but he's not yet the people's choice. He will probably win the general election because there are so few Repubs in NYC. We can argue the use of "people's choice," but it's not an important point.
This is the point: Rock (our Pa, not the wrestling movie star) also says other Dems should support him publicly. I say they should run like hell from him and his Democratic Socialist label. NYC is not the US. It's only NYC. I would consider Zohran Mamdani's potential win as a loss for the Democrats on a wide swath.
Without deconstructing the political ideas here, the Repubs will make hay with his candidacy and more so with his probable win. "Yep, this proves the Dems are communists. We gotta vote against all them commie pinkos." Yes, they are still fighting the commies and NYC Dems just handed all Repubs and many moderates an argument against blue. If I were a politician (I'm not), I would include the NYC primary phenomenon in my campaign speeches, and it wouldn't be pretty.
Dems supporting far, far left candidates will not save the Democratic Party. They are leaving the moderates (and some of the non-MAGA Repubs) desperate for candidates. Don't make me vote a third party that stands no chance of winning. I don't want to waste my vote
P.S. I'm not an adversary of Pa Rock, we are old friends who have our own opinions. We can disagree without being disagreeable or angry with each other.
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