Who Are Your Delaware Progressive MVP’s For 2018?
Pretty sure I didn’t do a list last year as there were so few possibilities. And/or b/c I was deep into a Trump funk. This year is different. So many choices. So, here are the rules: Nominate someone for the list. The standard is: Who most helped the progressive cause in Delaware in 2018? While you can nominate more than one, you must explain your rationale for each nomination. The nominee doesn’t (a) have to be a person; and (b) doesn’t have to be a progressive. For example, Christine O’Donnell ‘won’ the award the year she took out Mike Castle. And we’ve honored organizations and/or teams of people in the past as well.
Your deadline is 11:59 p.m., Nov. 30, 2018.
Keep in mind that this is ultimately my list and mine alone. (All the better to have you bitch about.) However, previous lists are full of suggestions from our readers, including a couple of winners who I hadn’t even thought of.
OK, have at it.
Stephanie Berry, Guillermina Gonzalez, and Don Allan for running progressive campaigns in Republican held districts. They were successful in the end, but we need progressives willing to engage and talk about progressive values to those that haven’t heard from a local progressive in years.
Mike Mathews. I think it self-explanatory.
Kerri Evelyn Harris — she took on Carper when no one else would, gave him a good fight while working on a low budget and energized thousands of Delawareans across a broad demographic swath.
(Honorable mention) Laura Sturgeon and Krista Griffith — they took on experienced Republican power brokers in traditionally GOP districts and knocked off both of them. They could become the new faces of progressivism in Delaware.
Drew Serres.
See everything above. It’s not even close.
Ask Kerri, Laura, GG, &c.
Seconded
And, as I think everyone knows, this is not in any way meant to diminish the work of all these women. They’re brave heroes. I have a particularly close relationship with Kerri and she’s a warrior. One of the best. Comrade in every sense.
But in the context of this question the answer is Drew.
I’ll show my bias here, but I think any list of progressive MVPs has to include Chris Johnson on it. While he lost fairly handily in the AG primary, he spoke forcefully on topics that don’t get talked about much like the abolishing the death penalty, marijuana legalization, ending massing incarceration, and environmental justice. His presence and advocacy forced Kathy Jennings to move much more leftward then when she started in the race. Time will tell if she sticks to her word, but we have her on record now.
Tough, but fair.
(I was thinking the same thing.)
totally true
Chris Johnson…
Sean Lynn. Anybody who makes the NRA so mad that they run a primary against him is doing something right.
Here’s a progressive idea. As long as the middle class continues to disappear from politics and the economy, then the debate will never rise above some Third World Haves versus the Have Nots. End illegal caravans and immigration by only allowing tax payers or property owners to vote. Don’t just bring a photo ID to the polls, bring your W-2, also ! Let the focus be on productivity in this country and not just diversity. Let that be the kind of bias we all can agree upon.
No.
I would prefer hunting down people like you, capturing them and letting them loose in a Third World country. Sounds like a lot more fun to me.
Yes.
Maybe you people went to college and pulled yourselves up by your bootstraps instead of being educated on talk radio et al, you wouldn’t feel such fear of competition, resentment and antipathy toward poor Hispanics refugees.
Reptiles that believe shit like this should be disenfranchised long before ordinary Americans that can’t afford to own fucking land.
Mike Matthews. Because, duh.
You are awesome!
4 unlikely nominees. Matt Denn, Gene Truono, Matt Meyer, and Judge Strine.
Matt Denn at least deserved honorable mention for doing us all a favor and knowing when to fold ’em and call it a day thus making room for someone with an internal drive and maybe leadership. Thank you Matt for tapping out.
Gene was a gun nut, and picked the wrong coalitions to pander to for support, but you got to give an openly gay and married man props for running for congress in DE as an R. Of course he was never going to win, but at least got a lot of NCC republicans to finally admit that it is OK to be gay and cast a vote for a gay man (and a black guy for AG as well which might have been harder to do than vote for a gay guy for some of them). I would say that’s an accomplishment…even if his facebook page was littered with gun nut propaganda.
Matt rides his bike most places. Really?!. A New Castle Executive that does not need 5 armed police to move him around like Gordon? He lives in the city, not trying to be a politician for life, and is right on most middle class issues. And while he might not be as liberal as you might like, he seems to at least know how to sort of do math with the budget so it tends to work. Most libs are not good at math (see Kerri’s platform of free everything and also her debt). Learning curve for sure. Matt deserves a look also because instead of legislate like some in Dover have to do, he actually has to budget, manage, and run a county and police force on top of that.
Chief Justice Strine is a bit too smart for his own good at times, but made a respectable effort on sentencing reform and trying to fix some fucked up parts of the states criminal code. Only to be blocked by Denn every step of the way. Strine meddles a ton where others don’t think he should be, but he spent a huge amount of time thinking about this, examining it, and working on it with a coalition of people who also could have been doing a lot of other things with their time and money. While it might be reallllllly hard to imagine a highly educated white male judge could be a nominee, tell me one other person in DE as powerful as he is who has spent as much time working on these issues (in addition to performing their full time job) as Strine in DE. Crickets. Nobody is the answer. Odd, right?
PS–Chris Johnson was the man behind the man for his career. He was literally down the hall from Carney until he decided to cast himself as a progressive. What?! He and Jennings basically did the same thing. No way to make him seem like he came out of nowhere and arrived to save us. He is an establishment guy.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yptXkLglKkA
Josh wins this round. Zero points.
Lots of candidates listed here but as an honorable mention: Margaret Rose Henry. An unapologetic progressive with a major legacy on drug policy reform, criminal justice, and social justice.
Hey, I do a Top 10. MRH deserves consideration.
Keep the suggestions coming.
Don Allan, for running an honest and unapologetically progressive campaign in a really tough district. He put in the work, knocked doors, and ran because he genuinely wanted to do the job.
The biggest win for the progressive movement will be taking on these tough battles and proving that these aren’t “leftist” ideas, they’re policies that work for all of us, especially those at the bottom.
Those wins won’t happen overnight, but Don was one of the first to recognize how much it matters and was brave enough to lead the way. That’s the courage we need to move us forward.
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