How an Underdog Dem Candidate in a Red State Won on a Campaign Finance Platform

No, of course I don't blame you for thinking the Democratic Party is dead in Kentucky. Between repugs owning the congressional delegation, the repug-lite "leadership" in the state house killing all progressive legislation and the state party rolling over for repugs at every opportunity, it's easy to think a real Democratic candidate doesn't have a chance.

That's when you throw the rule book out the window and just go for it. The way political neophyte Jonathan Kreiss-Tomkins beat an 8-term incumbent.

Russell Mokhiber at The Nation:

“To represent, I believe you need to know who you’re representing,” he wrote in one. “That means spending time in communities, knocking on doors, building relationships, listening and learning. There aren’t any shortcuts to spending time in the place that you represent.”

And he pounded his opponent for voting for that $2 billion tax break for the oil industry—a hot-button issue in oil-rich Alaska. The tax break was killed last year in the state Senate, but a smaller tax cut for the industry is expected to pass this spring.

“There was the process. The process was: I put in the time, I showed I care,” Kreiss-Tomkins says. “That was important. But we also ran our campaign on an issue endemic to Alaska—oil taxes. State government is entirely dependent on oil royalties. And the question is: What percentage of the money that comes from that oil patch is retained by the state, and what percentage goes to BP, Exxon and ConocoPhillips? Our governor, and most but not all of the Republicans in the Legislature, supported a tax cut that would shift $2 billion from the state to BP, Exxon and ConocoPhillips.”

But it wasn’t the issues that hurt Thomas so much as it was the perception that Kreiss-Tomkins cared more. In what many believe to be one of the biggest upsets in Alaskan legislative history, Kreiss-Tomkins defeated Thomas by thirty-two votes, 4,130 to 4,098. And though he ran as a Democrat, Kreiss-Tomkins doesn’t believe that party affiliation was a determining factor.

“The kind of campaign I ran was so personal, the party label didn’t make that much of a difference,” he says. “Alaska politics aren’t highly partisan relative to other states. There is a strong sense of community across the state. You know the candidate as a person, not necessarily as a Democrat or a Republican.” Kreiss-Tomkins adds that he could have run and won as an independent.

In New York, another upset win by a campaign finance reform challenger has given Governor Cuomo the legislative votes to establish clean elections in the state, if he chooses to do so.

Meanwhile, all 100 members of Kentucky's state house and 19 of the 38 state senators are up for re-election in 2014.  The dems are on the verge of losing the house majority, which would not be bad if it got ride of Greg Stumbo and company, but which would put fucking insane repugs in charge.  Nobody expects a challenge - general or primary - in these races.  They're wide open for somebody with balls and passion to step in and take it.  The deadline for filing to run is January 30, 2014.