Democrats will pretend to be anything to win your votes. This time around they are pretending to be independents. Here’s my new column from RealClearPolitics.
By FRANK MIELE
Democrats are nothing if not exceedingly inventive in their efforts to retain or regain power – up to and including pretending they aren’t Democrats at all.
Of course, it’s not unusual for Democrats to back away from the more extreme examples of their party’s extremism such as Michigan Senate candidate Abdul El-Sayed. His embrace by the even more extreme Hasan Piker, for instance, resulted in some Democratic politicians withholding their endorsement. Likewise, candidates in closely contested House races are shying away from inviting Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez from appearing with them on the campaign trail despite her national popularity.
In those cases, of course, they aren’t disowning the Democratic Party brand, just keeping their mouths shut about why that brand is poisonous to a large number of voters.
But this election cycle has seen something new – Democrats in red states who are convinced the best way to beat Republicans (and gain control of the U.S. Senate) is for Democrats to get out of the way and let so-called independents run in their place.
The first I heard of this new technique was when it surfaced last winter in my home state of Montana. Former Democratic Sen. Jon Tester recruited Seth Bodnar, president of the University of Montana, to run as an independent against Republican Kurt Alme, who became the de facto GOP candidate when Sen. Steve Daines withdrew from the race minutes before the filing deadline passed. It made sense in a way. After all, Tester was the last Democrat to win statewide office in Montana, and that was all the way back in 2018.
Of course Tester isn’t going to support an independent who votes like a Republican. And you can expect most independents supported by Democrats to caucus with the Democratic Party if they get elected. Bodnar says he will be an exception, but if he did refuse to caucus with either party he might very well miss out on important committee assignments, which are controlled by the two major parties. Not a big selling point to Montana voters if they want their voices heard in Congress.
It wasn’t till after Montana’s June primary had come and gone that I learned our state is not alone in this peculiar gambit of Democrats seeking out independents to carry water (and presumably the agenda) for them. And surprise, surprise, it only seems to be happening in states where Democrats have almost no chance of winning – solid red states like Idaho, Nebraska, and South Dakota.
In all three of those states, the Democrat who won the primary election withdrew from the ballot, leaving the independent as the main opponent to the Republican candidate and thus improving their chance of victory. Unsuspecting voters seem willing to accept the gambit at face value, believing that the independent candidates who are suspiciously in bed with Democrats will nonetheless serve as bipartisan statesmen after the election.
In Nebraska, former labor union leader Dan Osborn is running as an independent for the U.S. Senate for the second time, having come within 7% of Sen. Deb Fischer in 2024. And he may be even closer to victory this time. Back in the spring, he polled 5 points ahead of incumbent Pete Ricketts, and a poll last month still had Osborn up by 4%.
The mainstream media is thrilled by the prospect. NBC News ran a headline the other day that practically chortled with glee: “Democrats eye Nebraska as an opportunity to take a Senate seat away from Republicans.”
Notice: The Democrats won’t win the seat. They will just be happy to see it snatched from a Republican candidate like Ricketts. That’s why Cindy Burbank, who won the Democratic primary, dropped out of the race in July, and why the party voted not to fill the vacancy in August.
One lone Democrat stood up and protested. Crystal Rhoades tried to nominate another candidate to replace Burbank but was shut down by Robert’s Rules of Order. That didn’t stop her from telling her party what she thought of them, reminding all assembled in convention that they were the Democratic Party, “not the Nonpartisan Party, not the Everybody-but-Republican Party … And the conversation that we are having here is the wrong conversation, because the conversation we need to be having is why won’t Nebraskans elect a Democrat?”
Osborn is a poster child for my argument that almost all of these independents are really Democrats in sheep’s clothing. After all, how many labor union leaders since Jimmy Hoffa can you name who have identified with the Republican platform? And it probably doesn’t help his independent bona fides that one of his top advisers, Daniel Moraff, is a former Democratic Socialists of America organizer who helped recruit Osborn to run in the first place.
Even worse for Osborn, audio tape surfaced of him insulting not President Trump, but Trump voters who just want to be “on the winning team” because “their lives probably suck.” The leaked tapes led the Wall Street Journal to call him “a risky bet” for Democrats.
But maybe not. Remember that NBC article I mentioned up above. They led that story with a quote from Marine Corps veteran Gunner Arellano, who voted for Donald Trump three times but plans to vote for Osborn this time around. Why? Because he’s “more for the people.” So far as I can tell, that just means he’s better at selling corn to Nebraskans than the other guy.
In Idaho, it’s been pretty much the same story. David Roth won the Democratic Senate primary to oppose incumbent Jim Risch in May with 62% of the vote, then found himself persona non grata as fellow Democrats told him to drop out of the race to make room for “independent” Todd Achilles. Was it because Democrats didn’t think an openly gay candidate like Roth could win in conservative Idaho? No one is saying so directly, but the message could not be more clear.
When Roth filed to withdraw from the ballot on Aug. 28, he cited “lack of support” from the Democratic Party. “When you have so many people who hold leadership positions in the party advocating for a candidate besides their nominee, it makes it really just impossible.”
So who is independent Todd Achilles? A former Democratic state legislator who, when he announced his plans to run as an independent, said he had become an unaffiliated voter “over the weekend.” You know, the way most of us decide which movie to see on Saturday night, Achilles was trying to decide whether he was a Democrat or not. You believe that, and I have a sunny beachfront resort in Idaho I want to sell you.
In South Dakota, it was more of the same again. Democrats nominated Julian Beaudion in a primary on June 2. But on Aug. 4, Beaudion announced the end of his campaign. Oddly enough, he didn’t say he was endorsing independent Brian Bengs as a means of consolidating support to oust incumbent Sen. Mike Rounds.
Quite the opposite. Instead, Beaudion said he was dropping out in response to threats made against him if he didn’t. Promising a full explanation later, Beaudion told the Washington Post that Bengs has “proven to stoop to whatever level he has to to make sure he gains power.” Perhaps the same could be said of South Dakota Democrats. Whether the party applied pressure to Beaudion to clear the runway for Bengs is unclear, but let it be noted that Bengs ran for Senate as a Democrat in 2022, and no one expects him to suddenly change stripes if he gets to D.C.
In any case, whatever caused Beaudion to leave, Democrats subsequently had the opportunity to put another Democrat on the ballot and chose not to. Just like Nebraska and Idaho.
The only place where the pattern has been broken is Montana. Seth Bodnar declared as an independent for Senate in March, two months after resigning as president of UM. His candidacy weighed heavily over the Democratic primary, with one of the main campaign issues being whether any of the candidates would drop out to make way for Bodnar.
Ultimately, political novice Alani Bankhead won the primary in June, and faced immediate calls to withdraw. Former state party chair Nancy Keenan was one of the first, but not the last, to speak directly to Bankhead in an effort to convince her to step aside. Twenty-two Democratic legislators sent her a letter making the same case. But unlike her counterparts in Nebraska, South Dakota, and Idaho, Bankhead stood her ground:
There has been a lot of noise about this race, so let me cut through it, plain and simple: I am in this race to win it and I am staying through Nov. 3rd. I will never bow down.
Considering that Bodnar had a war chest of over $3 million and Bankhead had a paltry $60,000, that was a bold move – and though I’m not a Democrat, it made me respect her for standing up for herself and her principles. She’s what I would call Montana-strong, and though it may not pay off with a victory over the Republican, there’s a chance that she can teach the Democratic Party a lesson. In the most recent poll, Bankhead is only one point behind Bodnar, an improvement over a poll just taken two weeks prior when she trailed by 14%.
Which illustrates the wisdom behind a couple of sayings that resonate in Montana: Stick to your guns. Don’t change horses in mid-stream. And dance with the one that brung you.
You may not win, but you’ll still have your dignity.
About Heartland Diary USA
HeartlandDiaryUSA.com is solely operated by Frank Miele, the retired editor of the Daily Inter Lake in Kalispell, Montana. If you enjoy reading these daily essays, I hope you will SUBSCRIBE to www.HeartlandDiaryUSA.com by leaving your email address on the home page. Also please consider purchasing one of my books. They are available through the following Amazon links. My new book is “What Matters Most: God, Country, Family and Friends” and is a collection of personal essays that transcend politics. My earlier books include “How We Got Here: The Left’s Assault on the Constitution,” “The Media Matrix: What if everything you know is fake?” and the “Why We Needed Trump” trilogy. Part 1 is subtitled “Bush’s Global Failure: Half Right.” Part 2 is “Obama’s Fundamental Transformation: Far Left.” Part 3 is “Trump’s American Vision: Just Right.” As an Amazon Associate, I may earn referral fees for qualifying purchases through links on my website.
