Splitsville in the Democratic Party?

 

Wesley Knott

 

 

The dyspepsia in the Democratic Party is generational. I see the rising tide of younger, sharper, more confrontational candidates as the yeast producing the gas that makes the dough rise, and my sympathies are almost entirely with them. I was pretty yeasty myself in my youth and had Bobby Kennedy and Eugene McCarthy to inspire me (not that McCarthy was any spring chicken by then, but he didn't think like an old man).

So I'm fairly philosophical about the kerfuffle that's erupted in the Wake County Democratic Party over the party chair's open and public endorsement of the insurgent Nida Allam, the 32-year-old Durham County Commissioner, over the "safer" incumbent Congresswoman Valerie Foushee. Endorsements in party primaries are supposed to be off-limits for party officers, and some county parties adhere rigidly to that hands-off principle (like the Watauga County Democratic Party, sometimes to its actual detriment). What party officers are not supposed to indulge in, individual rank-and-file Democrats can. Any Democrat can advocate for whomever they favor, loudly and obnoxiously if necessary.

But here's the thing: that principle of non-interference by our party leaders is already in tatters. The Governor himself made very public endorsements in more than one primary for General Assembly seats (and his candidates all won), while the state party chair cut off campaign resources for several NC House members who had voted with Republicans on veto overrides (and all those candidates lost). So I'm almost amused to see a petition arise in Wake County to eject Wesley Knott from his position as party chair, because he endorsed Nida Allam over Valerie Foushee in the 4th Congressional District primary. When asked about his coloring outside the lines, Knott, a 29-year-old who just became party chair last year, articulated the generational judgment of Foushee, the 70-year-old political veteran with municipal, county, and General Assembly elected positions behind her and a history of taking AIPAC money (the Israeli lobby). Knott called Foushee “risk-averse,” a “carefully-calculated” friend of the status quo who has failed to inspire voters. 

"Risk aversion" cuts succinctly to the point. In the current situation of both the NC General Assembly and the US Congress, where Trump Republicans rule and in NC's case rule almost absolutely, some Democrats become hesitant to advance ideas or initiatives that they know can't win approval (because, math) and they become simultaneously resigned if not outright comfortable sitting on their small seats of advancement and doing nothing to raise hell for policies that make sense and that need public drum-beating. Wesley Knott is a drum-beater.

I wrote about the younger version of Wesley Knott in 2022 when he himself ran a primary against Democratic House incumbent Sarah Crawford in NC House Dist. 66 and came within 140 votes of actually beating her. I was impressed then by the way he put things:

"I’m a mixed-race progressive who grew up in the Deep South. Politics isn’t abstract to me. I didn’t need critical race theory to learn about racism, and I didn’t need a policy analysis to know the importance of Medicaid. So when I talk about policy, it’s from a place of shared experience. I know what’s on the line. That’s why I’m running."

 

To get rid of Wesley Knott, who by other accounts has been an effective ball of fire for the Wake County party, strikes me as a foolish cutting off of one's nose to spit one's face.

 

A Peculiar Democratic Primary in House District 66

 

The newly drawn NC House District 66 is wholly in Wake County and heavily weighted with Democrats. As Dallas Woodhouse said, "Republicans can’t win this seat, no matter how good 2022 is for them."

So perhaps it's no wonder that three Democrats have filed to run in the May primary, as the winner will most likely take the seat in November.

One of those three is a first-time candidate. The second ran unsuccessfully for the Wake County Commission in 2018. And the third is currently an elected member of the NC Senate who is abandoning her senate district to run in this House district, a jump that is both unusual and debilitating to the Democratic goal of keeping Republicans from winning a super-majority in the Senate.

Wesley Knott

Knott is a 26-year-old Democratic Party precinct chair. He trained in accounting and economics (where? he doesn't say) and has worked as an auditor for PwC, a tax and auditing service. He says he "stepped away" from that job to run for this office. His website is thin on specifics and biography (maybe we'd expect that from a 26-year-old running for the first time), but I like this personal statement:

"I’m a mixed-race progressive who grew up in the Deep South. Politics isn’t abstract to me. I didn’t need critical race theory to learn about racism, and I didn’t need a policy analysis to know the importance of Medicaid. So when I talk about policy, it’s from a place of shared experience. I know what’s on the line. That’s why I’m running."

As an observer who believes that the rise of "mixed race" perspectives and personalities could save us from the toxicity of white nationalism, I welcome his candidacy.

Frank Pierce

He says he's a small business owner (landscaping) who decided to make a personal sacrifice when schools began to come out of the pandemic:

When Wake County went back to school full time this year, they where faced with a shortage of staff from teachers to bus drivers and everything in between. While most people stood on the side and yelled to help them, I actually stepped up to help our students and their teachers. I applied and received a temporary license to teach in WCPSS this year and make a difference in a child's life. I did this at a great cost to me and my business. Yet in this life, you should be measured by the deeds you do not the money you make. I would not change anything about my choice. I am now running to be the difference maker in the NC House and bring that “get it done” attitude to public office. Children are our future! It is time we put a leader in the legislature that puts others before himself.

Pierce is 36 years old and has also been active in the Wake Democratic Party. I found more personal info on him from his 2018 run for the Wake Commission.

Sarah Crawford

Crawford right now holds the NC Senate seat in District 18. I wrote a lot about her back in late 2019 (here and here). I was mildly critical of her vanilla presentation and her eschewing of progressive platform positions, even though she was endorsed by Lillian's List. She won that Senate seat easily. When she made it known less than a month ago that she would run for a House seat instead of for reelection to her Senate seat, Republican operative Dallas Woodhouse could not stop himself from chortling derisively about her pursuit of "self-interest" in the switch, implying she would have a much tougher race for reelection to the Senate.

Interestingly, she doesn't say a word about being a state senator on her revamped website. Big guns in the NC Democratic Party are lining up to support her. First Lady Kristin Cooper and Secretary of State Elaine Marshall are co-hosting a fundraiser for her next month.