Serving the Flathead Valley & Montana since 2006. A reality based independent journal of observation & analysis. © James Conner.

 

15 May 2014

Should Kalispell Democrats cast crossover votes?

Will Democrats in Kalispell cast crossover votes in the Republican primary? Yes. In large numbers? That’s possible. Should they cast crossover votes? That’s not an easy question, but in some situations crossing over is not just an ethical choice but a moral imperative.

The predicate for this dilemma is the Flathead Democratic Party’s failure to recruit strong Democratic candidates in two Kalispell legislative districts in which there are clear choices between standard conservatives and tea party reactionaries in the Republican primaries. If Republicans are destined to win those districts in November, Democrats might be wise to consider using their primary votes to rescue the GOP's moderates from their party's Taliban.

Where Democrats can win

Democrats have an even chance of winning a midterm election in only three Flathead legislative districts: HD-3, Columbia Falls and north (map); HD-5, Whitefish (map); and HD-7, Kalispell (map).

In HD-3, Democrat Zac Perry is taking his third crack at Republican incumbent Rep. Jerry O’Neil, a libertarian leaning Republican whose zany politics are a good fit for his district. If Perry wins, and he could if O’Neil stumbles, it will be by just a handful of votes.

In HD-5, the Democratic candidate is incumbent Rep. Ed Lieser. He’s a good fit for Whitefish, an economically conservative but socially liberal community that generally sends Democrats to Helena. Expect Lieser’s re-election in November, but by a narrow margin.

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Alex Schaeffer

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Catie Henderson

In HD-7, there’s a Democratic primary between Alex Schaeffer (email), a 43-year-old reading tutor, and Catherine Henderson (email), an 18-year-old senior at Flathead High School. Schaeffer was the 2012 Democratic candidate in HD-10, the hopelessly Republican district south of Kalispell now represented by termed-out Republican Rep. Mark Blasdel, but he didn’t mount a visible campaign for the office. Henderson is the granddaughter of Flathead Democrat Dale McGarvey, a former state representative and close to legendary trial lawyer with a fine singing voice.

If either Schaeffer or Henderson is campaigning, let alone campaigning hard, it’s a mystery to me. Neither seems to have a campaign website (Henderson didn’t answer my email asking whether she had a website). I’ve driven through the district looking for yard signs, but found none for either candidate. If they’re campaigning, they’re doing a very good job of keeping their activities under the radar. We’ll know in a couple of weeks whether they’re raising meaningful money, but I suspect they are not.

Meanwhile, Republicans Frank Garner, who announced his candidacy last summer, and Ronalee Skees, who filed the first day she could, are campaigning hard, festooning lawns with political signs, pestering people at their front doors, and probably sending voters “Hey, vote for me!” mail. Garner and Skees are both conservative, but Skees is far more conservative than Garner and has the support of the tea stained wing of the GOP.

For Democrats, HD-7 is a tragedy. This is a district that Democrats can win and have won, Cheryl Steenson, who beat incumbent Craig Witte in 2008, being the most recent Democratic victor. But no strong Democrat filed for the seat despite a full court press recruiting effort by the Flathead Democratic Party. Some potential candidates chickened out because they believed Garner was ten feet tall. Others reckoned Garner was a liberal Republican who wouldn’t be that bad. So at the last minute, with time to file about to expire, Henderson and Schaeffer filed to ensure there would be a Democrat on the ballot, a commendable exercise of civic virtue for which they’ve earned the thanks of all Democrats. But neither is a strong candidate, and it probably doesn’t matter which one wins the primary.

Crossing over’s attraction for Democrats

Faced with placeholder candidates in HD-7’s Democratic primary, a good many Democrats may cast crossover votes for Frank Garner in the Republican primary. That’s an especially tempting maneuver given they can also cast crossover votes for Tammi Fisher in the Republican primary for Senate District 4 (map). Fisher, a former mayor of Kalispell, is no flaming liberal, but compared to her opponent, Rep. Mark Blasdel, who as speaker of the house successfully led efforts to not expand Medicaid in Montana, she’s downright moderate and reasonable.

Whether crossing over to the Republican primary is ethical is something Democratic voters must decide for themselves. Crossing over is legal — Montana has an open primary — but generally it’s a good idea for voters to vote in the primary of their own political party. Still, there are circumstances in which crossing over is not only defensible, but something close to a mandate from Heaven. That may be the case in HD-7 and SD-4. Democrats in these districts who have not already cast their ballots should give long and careful thought to the ethics of crossover voting in this situation.