What happens now that a socialist is leading a Democrat for Seattle City Council by 41 votes?

[eridani]

Other than a recount, I mean. I know a person who knows a person who knows Sawant's database manager, and the word is that their voter database--constructed only for this candidate, but potentially useful for other races--is very well done. Thinking about that, I am reminded of one of my recurring nightmares about the Democratic Party voter database VoteBuilder, to wit that the corporate types might just get rid of it someday because the "wrong sorts" are using it too effectively. (This would be shooting themselves in the foot, but since when has that stopped some Dems from doing things like supporting chained CPI?) In that case, a backup, even if only local, is very reassuring to me.

I don't live inside the city limits, and I live in one of the less progressive legislative districts, so I haven't openly supported Sawant. Other Dems are un much more secure positions, to wit--

Sawant’s campaign has caused some divisions within local Democratic Party organizations.
http://kuow.org/post/activist-democrats-support-socialist-candidate-kshama-sawant

Jeanne Legault is the vice chair of the 37th District Democrats and a long-time Democratic Party activist. Her district has endorsed Councilmember Conlin, so his name shows up prominently on the literature that party activists are hanging on people’s doorknobs. When Legault goes door-to-door, she hands out Sawant’s literature as well.

“I have gotten a lot of complaints filed against me,” Legault said. But since this is a non-partisan race, Democratic Party bylaws allow members to support non-Democratic candidates.

“It doesn’t matter to me, I am going to speak my truth and what I believe in.”

According to Legault, many other Democratic activists in the 37th District are distributing Sawant’s literature and displaying her yard signs.

Of course, to an FDR Democrat, she'd just be a regular old Democrat anyway (like Bernie Sanders). I personally think that if she had been a Bernie Sanders type socialist running as an independent, she'd have pulled much farther ahead by now.

Democrats are not the only people being changed by this campaign. At a health care meeting tonight, I ran into Merle, a very alienated guy pissed off at the system for all the right reasons, who has for years printed out complicated screeds and left copies on his neighbors' doorhandles. I've always teased him about whether there was a special school where one could learn how to make excessively verbose leaflets with crappy unreadable layouts. In the Sawant campaign, he participated in an organized effort with a lot of other people, and now has an idea of what serious voter outreach looks like. He'll probably help out with the recount and get familiar with that end of things also. What I don't think he will ever do again is leaflet his neighborhood with unreadable screeds.

Win or lose, I can't imagine a better illustration of the Progressive Democrats of America's inside-outside strategy.

[eridani]

1. Sawant's lead is up to 402 votes as of 4:30pm 11/13 n/t

[suffragette]

2. It's been fascinating to read and hear the reporting on this, especially all the

"Who could have predicted this?!?" And "no one thought this could happen" scrambling after those same papers and stations made their early prediction of the race's outcome.

[eridani]

3. It's entirely possible that a recount may not be necessary.

Thursday afternoon's breakdown was 55/42 in favor of Sawant, 86223/85075 total votes for a 50.17%/49.50% lead, or 1148 votes.