Where Was The Farm Team?

One of the things I was glad to see launch in the last couple years was "The Farm Team", an organization that was supposed to help increase the number of Democratic women in public office.  Northern Virginia, which was once home to most elected Democratic women in the state has seen a number of seats once held by women all flip to men in the legislature  For some unexplainable reason Democrats have in particular been very hesitant to nominate women in many of the "swing" seats in Northern Virginia.  By my count 38 of the last 43 Democratic nominations in NoVA swing seats have gone to men.  Discounting incumbents, the number is 21 of the last 23 key nominations in swing seats in NoVA going to men.

Despite this obvious problem- The Farm Team apparently decided to go on a nap during the last month as Dave Marsden outmaneuvered three quality female candidates (Janet Oleszek, Luann McNabb, Kathy Smith) for the nomination in the 37th Senate District.  As I have explained earlier- the issue here wasn't that other candidates were unwilling to run- but that the process was intentionally set up differently from the 2002 Special Election in order to intimidate other candidates from challenging Marsden.  Even worse- Marsden claimed a fake move to the Seward's house in order to run- while the three women have lived in the 37th District for a combined 70+ years!!

Female candidates being shoved aside in a process set up to discriminate against female candidacies seem like exactly what The Farm Team was formed to stop.  Yet it appears they were either unable or unwilling to step in and stand up to the party leadership.

How sad.

  

Comments

[Salem Republican]

After the Farm Team's awful work in 2009 and Mary Sue Terry's embarrassing meltdown at the LG Debate, I'm not sure any candidate should go out of her way to get FT support.

[Gretchen Laskas]

I'm personally less interested in the idea of a farm team specifically related to gender (or any other identity specific criteria.) However, one of the things I've learned over the past few years is that the Democratic Party, locally, state-wide, nationally, seriously needs to be looking at a farm team at every level. We need to be looking for, recruiting, and preparing candidates not only for any given race taking place now, but for all of the races we know are coming.

[kelley in virginia]

gretchen, I'm with you. Each party (& I'm a Republican) needs to be looking down their bench to find candidates that represent the values/ideas that the party puts forth or stands for.

personally, i don't think this has anything to do with gender or color.

[Bwana]

Mary Sue Terry did what at what LG debate?

[Oh please...]

If it was the case that all of these candidates were willing to run, then why didn't any of them file?

Janet certainly is from the same part of the district as Marsden, so if it were the case that she really wanted to run, then the siting of the firehouse primary wouldn't make any difference whatsoever. Kathy Smith was only a potential candidate in your own mind, or at least she never made any public assertions of interest.

Luann McNabb would have been a great candidate and if she had gotten in this thing publicly and announced then you might have a point. BUT she was either uninterested or still on the fence when the primary location was announced. Moreover, if she had been committed to the race, then the location would have almost certainly been somewhere else or there would have been additional locations (at great, but fully justified, expense in terms of volunteer time and FCDC money might I add).

Nobody muscled anyone out of anything; one candidate announced, that's it. If any of these three candidate had been willing to give this very difficult race a shot then each would have had the opportunity to get her supporters out and may the best person win.

If you don't announce, then the committee (or Richmond or the FCDC or the black helicopters or whomever Ben's trying to vilify these days) can't push you out of anything.

But none of that happened and all you have left are sour grapes. Poor Ben.

As far as developing farm teams is concerned, I'm totally with Gretchen and everyone else. Candidates should make their potential future interest known to their local committees and the local committees should ALWAYS be looking for good future candidates. A formal process for doing this would probably by a great initiative for FCDC and all the democratic committees to consider. It wouldn't be public, in the sense that we don't want to tip off the opposition, but there should be some verifiable way of showing that future Candidate X has been interested in running for a few years, this is what s/he has been doing over the last few years, and most importantly, this is what we're doing to support future Candidate X's efforts to get there. That support should include leadership positions in the local committee, working with local elected officials to get the future candidates involved with local issues to gain a better understanding of the community's needs, working with the state elected officials in some formal way to give the future candidate exposure to and understanding of the most pressing state issues, candidate prep classes for lack of a better term and other forms of preparation.

We shouldn't just expect people to be born knowing how to successfully run for office any more than we expect high school pitchers to start for the Nationals immediately after graduating.

[Gretchen Laskas]

Parties are at our best when we're flexible -- when we can train the people we need to fit the offices we have, and when we're ready and eager to jump behind a great candidate who does have some natural born talent.

Political office is not a reward, athough both parties know this is often how it's handled. When that does happen, it's usually to the party's detriment long term. On the other side, campaigning is grueling, demoralizing and often thankless work (especially when you lose.) Good candidates need good parties, not only for the obvious support, but also to keep each other focused, energized and encouraged.

It's become somewhat fashionable in the blogosphere to think finding the right candidate is all it takes -- and I'm not saying that finding the right candidate should ever be underestimated or underappreciated. But it takes more than that not only to win, but also to govern.

[Not Larry Sabato]

Please- the entire point of a process is to make it open and fair. Saying Marsden was the only announced candidate- and that makes it ok to skew the process is so wrong on so many different levels. That's not how democracy should work.

[Oh please...]

Respectfully, that's exactly how democracy works. It's why write-in candidates (despite your popularity as a viable LG candidate in Arlington) don't win elections in 99.9999% of the cases.

You've got to get your name out there and put it on the line if you want to win. Only one candidate was willing to do that and so the process only accounted for one candidate.

I just don't think your argument that they got shoved out makes any sense logically when none of them was ever in the race. You can only get pushed out of a race that you are engaged in.

I mean, would you argue that we should never have any requirements to get on a ballot so that we don't possibly exclude any candidates who might decide in the month before the election to run? It just doesn't make any sense.

If you can explain why none of these candidates, who supposedly wanted to run, announced her candidacy BEFORE the arrangements were made, then maybe you've got a point. But you haven't done that. If one had, then you might have a point there also. That's just not the case.

[DanielK]

Well, in all honesty we have already seen this play out once before and there are many similarities in this case. Look at the Pennsylvania Democratic Senate Primary.

Everyone was all happy that Spector came over to caucus with the Democrats because he was going to be the 60th vote blah blah blah.....Everyone is jumping on the Spector wartrain now because they want to keep him in the seat to include the President, Governor and many others. Now, enter Joe Sestak.

He intended to run for the Democrat nod for a while and I give him major props on that. No one has ever questioned his Democratic credentials and some still do with Spector on certain issues especially when he said "I'm not going to be the 60th vote" and everything else. Sestak has said many times that higher ups in the party attempted to push him out of the race. The funny this I picked up on was his conversation which probably went down like this: Hey, I'm running for Senate. Higher ups: But Spector is going to run as a Democrat so you can't run. Sestak: I didn't ask you if I can run, I'm telling you that I'm running. Pretty badass if you ask me.

All three female candidates could have easily done that if they really wanted to run. I know it's about being "good democrats" and going with the flow and everything else but if you really, deep down believe that you are the best candidate in the race then it is your duty to run even if everything is stacked against you to include the Party leadership. We see that in PA right now. That is Democracy working at it's best!

I don't know what to make of this whole thing right now. I don't know if Marsden was the chosen one from the beginning or if this is simply last minute planning on the part of the leadership because they didn't anticipate this opening since they thought Steve was a shoe-in to win. Hopefully they are vetting candidates in case Marsden does win this election because the last thing we need is to be scrambling for candidates although, I'd be curious to see if one of these above mentioned females runs for Marsden's seat if he wins......Just some thoughts.

[Not Larry Sabato]

Dan- none of those women live in Marsden's house seat, and none of them are sleazy enough to rent a room in the district to run.

Please- Two points. One, I just checked the dates. The arrangements were made the day before Marsden formally announced (even though he was making noises and his former staffer Mike Burns knew that when he reserved Fairview).

Secondly- how early do you need to announce to have a fair process? Since no one has announced against President Obama yet, why not just have one polling place in Chicago for 2012?

[Ghost of Susan B. Anthony]

Poor Ben. Marsden is living what should have been Ben's life. Marsden is the elected Democratic representative; Ben couldn't get enough support to mount a reasonable challenge in a primary and ran off to Vegas to cry in his beer. Ben should be running for the Senate seat (I'm sure he would have stayed in him moms basement long enough to have residency). And the carpetbagger talk is just crap. Isn't Ben madly in love with one of the country's most successful carpetbaggers - Hillary Clinton?

[Salem Republican]

Bwana - Long story short. Everyone heard about the rules "snafu" at LG Debate. (I put that in quotes because it was really the Wagner camp that screwed up and the VBA took the blame to give her cover). Anyway, when it ended, Mary Sue went absolutely nuts outside the room screaming at the organizers. She was yelling something to the effect of "you've cost us this election, it's all your fault that Jody is going to lose!" Literally went off for 5-10 minutes. Done in public with lots of observers. It was a stunning meltdown, especially since these people had just taken the blame for Wagner campaign's screwup.

[Bwana]

Dang-I am never around when the good stuff happens...

[Gretchen Laskas]

While I cannot personally speak to anything said to anyone behind closed doors in this race in particular, I don't think I could say with any honesty that potential candidates aren't pushed out or dismissed by people within parties. DanielK's example is well chosen, because it illustrates the point clearly without implicating anyone here in VA.

But I'd be beyond naive if I believed that party powers that be here in Fairfax County couldn't or wouldn't push someone out. They may do this for purely practical reasons, but we're all flawed people, and sometimes we do unwise things and justify them. It's a human flaw, and as much as I love the Democratic Party, we're as human and as flawed as any group of people can be.

[Mike]

I won't comment on the Farm Team or the special Senate elction in particular, but I will say that in general, both parties ought to be doing a much better job of recruiting female candidates. There are two main reasons for this: one, it will bring a diversity of viewpoints to a legislative process which exerts control over so many aspects of local politics. And secondly, it will increase the likelihood that women will trickle upward into statewide or congressional seats or be selected for gubernatorial appointments.

[Janie]

>>>it will bring a diversity of viewpoints to a legislative process which exerts control over so many aspects of local politics.<<<

Would you mind explaining what that means and how it will benefit citizens in the Commonwealth?

Until then, I see no reason to support candidates based on gender.

[kelley in virginia]

yeah, janie, supporting candidates based on gender is the same as supporting candidates based on race.

[Reality]

I'm sorry, you can't use the terms "quality" and "Janet Oleszek" in the same breath.

[Salem Republican]

Bwana - Mary Sue and the FT have been targeting 2009 for awhile. They put all their resources into local, HOD and statewide races and got destroyed top to bottom. I think Terry's meltdown was the result of her grand plans collapsing. Frankly, it was painful to watch. Second most uncomfortable 2009 political moment I witnessed. First was Deeds standing by himself at Olde Salem Days as thousands of voters walked past him and completely ignored him. Brutal.

[donkette]

VA Republican Party offers their Jennifer Byler Institute specifically set up for training women Republican Candidates.
http://www.rpv.org/publications/page/the-jennifer-byler-institute

The VA Democratic Party has the "Women's Caucus"..that doesn't offer any training. Its basically a "female cheering section" for whoever is nominated.

As a former Dem Chair of
a local committee, its been a longtime lamentation of the lack of training programs for Dem Women who want to run for office. The Farm Team sounded great on paper but it didn't appeal to me. The name conjured up images of ...pastures ..and barn critters.

[Mike]

Janie and Kelley, I'm not saying that candidates are worthy of support based on their gender. I don't want to rehash the whole Sotomayor "wise Latina" controversy, but I don't think that anyone will argue that women often bring a different set of perspectives to the table based on their own experiences that may cause them to view issues in different ways. To use a broad example, I have seen polls where women place more value on diplomacy in foreign policy than men do and are more supportive of government intervention in social welfare programs. I don't think it's outside the realm of possibility that such differences of view also are generalizable at the state and local levels.

That having been said, I'm not advocating that we run liberal, empathetic, Democratic women against white Republican men. I'm just saying that it would eventually be a nice place to be as a country when we have an equal chance of two women running against each other for an office as we now have of two men running.

[laura]

With all due respect to the Farm Team, they held multiple training sessions and supported many women candidates.
The Virginia Dem Women's Caucus sponsored over 20 women to go the the DFA training in NNews and other trainings.
Both groups got together on other occasions to sponsor state wide training.
The Farm Team did all they could. They helped the campaigns, the are NOT the campaign.
Robin Abbott won in NNews and had the backing and financial help of both groups.
We don't just give them money, they have to apply and be rated as to their campaigns viablility, as any candidate should.
Also Mary Sue worked herself to death for the Farm Team and was very accessible. Give her a break.

[laura]

Oh, and Donkette, the mission statement for the women's caucus is to help state and local women run for office. We are doing this.
While we may not sponsor training, our members are part of many organizations that DO sponsor training all over Va.
We are not a "Female cheerleading" group, as in our local districts, we do fundraising, canvassing and phone banking.
I don't know where you get your info, but it is totally wrong.
We raised and donated a whole lot of money for statewide and local women.
We are way past the cheerleading session. Many of us are professionals with careers that give our time to the organization on many levels.

[Phil C.]

Two points that I feel need to be addressed...

1) Janet Oleszek is the last person you should name as a "quality" candidate, considering she was given all the momentum in the world and she still couldn't beat Cucinelli in 2007. She botched that whole campaign, and most people know this.

2) I agree with Oh Please above...if any of these women were interested in running, they could have very well filed. Marsden is not so powerful a figure he could have suppressed a challenge for the nomination.