Reply to “Sack Jack [Evans]” Happy Hour

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[quote=Anonymous]The number of challengers is a worry for me. Despite "blood in the water," which is an assessment that I agree with, someone needs to get the majority of the votes in the Democratic primary on June 2 in order to unseat Evans. I worry about vote splitting with so many candidates in the race. In talking to voters and people who have been out canvassing, a lot of DC voters are low information voters. Many in Ward 2 know who Jack Evans is but do not know that they are his constituents. Others are not in a great position to evaluate the experience of the candidates. For example, they do not know what the Advisory Neighborhood Commission system is. (ANC's are the lowest level of elected government in DC. Commissioners are not paid and serve in an advisory role only over a limited scope of things such as liquor licenses, zoning variances, and certain aspects of DDOT projects.) This information is important because Patrick Kennedy, John Fanning, and Kishan Putta have had experience as ANC commissioners in Ward 2. Jordan Grossman and Daniel Hernandez do not have any experience working in local government. While I respect Grossman's experience on the federal level, there are a lot of quirks to DC government, and I want someone who understands the day-to-day implications of the Home Rule Act of 1973, MPD issues, the Comp Plan, etc. before he arrives on the Council. (FWIW, I don't think that many of our current Councilmembers had a good grasp on these things before entering the Wilson Building, and it shows.)

All of this is a long way of saying, I hope that we get a lot of local press coverage about these candidates soon and that voters pay attention. We need to narrow the field and start coalescing around a couple of strongly qualified people if we're going to have a chance of unseating Evans. As awful as the news about Evans has been, he has deep-pocketed donors. Also, his power base is in Georgetown where voters lean on the more conservative side. Those constituents have forgiven Evans a lot over the years; they may do so again. In the eastern portion of Evan's Ward where the median voter age is much, much younger, participation in local elections is lower and knowledge of DC politics is less.

Also, if you're someone who cares about such things, today would be a really good day to donate money to a qualified candidate. It's the financial reporting deadline, so your donation will count toward showing that Evans has opposition. And please volunteer to canvas for a candidate of your choice. Awkward and time consuming as it is, it is the single most effective strategy for changing people's minds and mobilizing voters.

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