U.S. 6th District Rep. Derek Kilmer is facing town hall meetings packed with constituents.
Kilmer is the vice-chair within the New Democratic Coalition.
Founded in 1997, the NDC consists of Democrats in Congress who support a moderate, pro-business agenda.
One can argue that social justice and the poor have been ignored.
Although the 2016 Washington state Democratic presidential caucus declared a strong winner among his constituents, Kilmer ignored the results and continued his allegiance to the loser, Hillary Clinton.
Issues such as support for working families, protecting American jobs and expanding Social Security and Medicare, seemed to be unimportant issues.
The Democratic Party failed to fight for “the little guy.”
Prior to the election, Democratic U.S. Sen. and party leader Chuck Schumer made the mind-boggling claim, “for every blue-collar Democrat we lose in western Pennyslvania, we’ll pick up two moderate Republicans in the suburbs, and you can repeat that in Ohio and Illinois and Wisconsin.”
We know how that worked out.
As Kilmer, the Clintons and Obama call themselves “New Democrats,” the 2010, 2012 and 2014 elections produced losses totaling 913 state legislative seats, 30 state legislative chambers, 11 governorships, 69 U.S. House seats and 13 U.S. Senate seats, according to the Jan. 14, 2015, Washington Post article, “Republicans Have Gained More Than 900 State Legislative Seats Since 2010.”
Forty-two percent of eligible voters didn’t even bother to vote for the two people who I believe were among the most unpopular choices in history.
In the face of such losses, a town hall suggestion for Kilmer and other Democrats would be to emulate any successful football coach who goes back and relentlessly studies film of prior games to see what worked and what didn’t.
Diane Jerich-Domin,
Port Ludlow