Opinion: Utah Democrats bet on the wrong Senate candidate

When I was a young Second Lieutenant in the US Air Force, my mentor, a formidable full Colonel, asked me “what is the first rule of command?” A new ROTC graduate, I replied, “accomplish the mission.” He responded that I was completely wrong; the first rule is “take care of your people; if you don’t, you’ll never accomplish the mission.”

This came to mind during the catastrophe at the Democratic State Convention on April 23rd. In a well planned and executed hostile takeover, one faction, having packed the convention with supportive delegates, chose to accomplish their perceived mission — defeating Mike Lee — over taking care of people — the candidates — in supporting Evan McMullin’s chimeric run for the US Senate, promising to unseat Mike Lee. Choosing mission over people, especially Kael Weston, the only Democrat running for Senate, they virtually guaranteed Lee’s victory. Worse, this takeover has severely damaged the Utah Democratic party; it will take years to repair that damage, if it can be done at all.

The McMullin cabal missed the point of supporting the Weston campaign. My personal friendship with him notwithstanding, this is not about Kael. It is all about keeping our party’s sacred obligation to nominate and elect Democratic candidates for public office as is stipulated in Article 1, Section 1 of the Utah Democratic Party constitution. It is not about this election; it is about every future election. As chairman of the Iron County Democratic Party, I am painfully aware of the difficulties in recruiting Democrats to run for office in a rural, deeply conservative Utah county. I can envision trying to recruit a candidate for the Senate when Mike Lee runs for his fourth term. Any likely candidate would have second thoughts considering what our party did to Kael Weston this year.

The down ballot implications are equally catastrophic. This makes it extremely difficult, if not dooms, our ability to recruit viable candidates, especially in the fight over state legislature seats in this and coming years, enabling Republicans to maintain their tightfisted control over our state, and to once again gerrymander our state, reinforcing the effective disenfranchisement of rural Utahns after the next census.

Endorsing a non-Democrat won’t accomplish the primary objective of unseating Mike Lee. I cannot envision a scenario in which McMullin can win this election. The best chance to defeat Mike Lee is now in the June Republican primary. In the most likely scenario, Ally Isom and Becky Edwards will split the anti-Lee vote in that primary. McMullin, Democratic “endorsement” in hand, will be shunned by mainstream Republicans, who will vote in droves for Lee. The votes of the “McMullin Democrats” won’t be enough to overcome this; Kael Weston’s supporters absolutely refuse to vote for McMullin. Ironically, in supporting a non-Democrat, the McMullin faction has essentially guaranteed the failure of their convention gambit.

The McMullin faction’s weakest argument is that Weston had no chance to win in November. This is absolutely untrue. McMullin has cited polls in which Kael is in third place, but these were mere snapshots. Kael’s low numbers are the likely artifact of the smear campaign led by Ben McAdams and Jennie Wilson, the leaders of the “McMullin Democrats”. Furthermore, demographics favor the Democrats. In a recent op-ed in The Spectrum, I argue that Weston, running statewide, could easily win over the voters who enacted the three ballot initiatives of 2018, which would easily give him a victory.

As it is, the McMullin faction has betrayed the strongest Democratic Senate candidate at least since Ted Wilson — who had endorsed Weston’s 2020 run for Congress — and probably since Frank Moss, in favor of a right-wing charlatan. McMullin’s stances on key issues are more in line with the Tea Party than the Democratic Party. After the Democratic convention, McMullin reaffirmed his position that if elected he would caucus with neither Democrats nor Republicans. Were he to keep his word, he would be a caucus of one. It is doubtful that he would keep this promise, but that doesn’t matter — he is unelectable.

Glenn Little is the chair of the Iron County Democratic Party.

This article originally appeared on St. George Spectrum & Daily News: Your Turn: Utah Democrats bet on the wrong Senate candidate