NEA is small change as far as public employee unions here. It is mostly AFT, AFSCME, BTU (Baltimore teachers union) and MCEA (The union that pretended to represent me when I was a classified employee).Ken wrote: ↑Tue May 21, 2024 12:06 amLike I said, I'm not super familiar with Maryland Senate primaries but NPR did profile this race a couple of weeks ago which I listen to while riding to work. And I looked it up to read more.Judas Maccabeus wrote: ↑Mon May 20, 2024 11:07 pmIt is not so much donors as the amount of pull she got from the “machine “. If you want to know, Trone was the more “progressive “ candidate. He was simply not part of the party’s preferred demographic. Trone would have been far easier for Hogan to defeat, as he is even further towards the progressive side than Alsobrooks.
The machine controls the public employee union and the money and footsolders they deploy in get out the vote efforts. In a thinly contested primary, that is critically important.
How do I know this? Wife was a member of the public employee union. She refused to participate, but they still got her money. Opt out will incur an “agency fee” roughly the same as union dues. They got you both ways.
It very much sounds like it was the primary voters who decided this and not some "machine". Both candidates were Democratic insiders who had lots of establishment support and funding. As for public employee unions? The biggest public employee union in Maryland is the teacher's union (NEA).
They have the most "foot soldiers" of all spread across the entire state and not just the DC suburbs. But they endorsed Trone. What does that do to your theory of machine politics determining this race? https://www.marylandmatters.org/2023/11 ... -official/
It appears from what you said that the more moderate candidate won and the candidate who has the better chance of winning in November. From which I would conclude that the voters chose wisely. I'm not sure what race has to do with it. Why are you bringing up race?Rep. David Trone (D-6th) officially garnered the endorsement of the National Education Association in his run for U.S. Senate, based on a recommendation from the Maryland State Education Association.
The Trone campaign hopes the national association’s three million members will help galvanize support in the congressman’s quest for the Democratic nomination next year.
“David Trone is a proven champion for America’s students and Maryland’s working families,” Becky Pringle, president of the National Education Association, said in a statement Tuesday. “In a time when some extreme politicians are focused on banning books and taking away learning opportunities for students, David Trone has partnered with parents and educators to ensure students can get the one-on-one support they need, keep students and educators safe from gun violence, expand school-based mental health programs, and address educator shortages.”
Trone thanked the association and highlighted how he will work to protect project labor agreements for workers who renovate and build new schools.
“I thank the National Education Association and the remarkable educators they represent for their support and recommendation of the United States Senate,” Trone said. “The stakes of this election couldn’t be higher for our educators, our students, and our communities.”
And yes, candidates do dump lots of money into Senate races. But to dump this much personal wealth into a primary campaign is quite unprecedented and apparently it broke records. Normally the big money gets rolled out for the general election campaign for all the marbles.
NPR is an absolute joke around here. They are so far on the progressive side that I can no longer listen to them. Their AM host is transgendered, they spend more time reporting on happenings in the “alphabet” community than on the loss of supermarkets in poor communities, which they seem to ascribe to evil capitalists than stealing. Their local reporting is just amazing. I assume you are talking WYPR, right?
In one of our thin primaries, the Election Day effort of the clubs and unions is essential. It largely decides a primary election here. Our turnout is about 20% for primaries, if that. Where Trone failed is that he had no “get out the vote” effort in Baltimore. Alsobrooks, from the DC burbs as well did have one. There were AFSCME workers at the pooling place across from school, shilling for Alsobrooks. I speak their lingo, my grandfather and father were heave involved in city politics. Their club more or less propelled Martin O’Malley to prominence. (O’Malley-Coggins regular third district democratic club). It no longer exsiste, largely due to redistributing, it had its turf divided into three parts.
