The kumbaya period has ended, at long last.

Local Democrats are worried that the resignation of the volunteer chair of a campaign advisory committee signals a problem.  

It doesn't.  Relax. It signals engagement.  A little turmoil was overdue.

The Democratic candidates for the State Senate seat held by the retiring Alan DeBoer has finally gotten real. There are four candidates--Julian Bell, Athena Goldberg, Jeff Golden, and Kevin Stine. This is a tournament and only one can win. 

Most voters have had near zero exposure to the campaigns. Some of this is due to the hollowing out of local media, so coverage has been largely limited to coverage of their campaign announcements. Some of it is due to campaigns moving to Facebook and friends-of-friends instead of battles between press releases.  

Most important, though, in the aftermath of the Bernie-Hillary divide an idea has settled into the minds of Democrats: don't create divides, don't disagree publicly, "can't we all get along?" There was an informal peace-pact, and disagreements, however gentle and accurate, were considered "negative" and they broke the peace.

The forums consisted of everyone essentially agreeing on everything, all adopting positions of "Bernie-complaint" liberal environmentalism. The candidates are essentially four flavors of the same vanilla, differing in age and gender and issue knowledge, but not in policy.

Kumbaya among the Democrats.  Until now.

The hard feelings of the Bernie-Hillary campaign came to the surface locally this weekend, when the Executive Committee within the local Democratic party asked the campaign committee chair to resign. Ostensibly, the issue was whether the chair had assisted one candidate in a contested election by giving access the names and data in a Neighborhood Leaders group.The information was of little value, but the situation touched a nerve: was the local official Democratic Party acting in any way like Debbie Wasserman-Schultz, who favored Hillary over Bernie in 2016. Bernie progressives remain suspicious and alert to the "official" Democratic party favoring familiar, establishment candidates. Meanwhile local activists want to avoid at all costs any appearance of unfairness. The result was a resignation and then a long email conversation within the party including demands for investigations and questioning of motives, explanations from several sides, all amid a majority of voices urging people to mellow out.

Not enough news yet.

Is this controversy a self inflicted wound for Democrats?  

No. I consider this ongoing evidence of engagement and participation. People care. And net-net the publicity is good. 

The controversy gave Kevin Stine an opening, calling on Jeff Golden to drop out of the race. "Jeff Golden should put the Democratic Party above his own ambitions and announce that he will no longer seek the nomination for Senate District 3." The suggestion is preposterous, but at least it required people to consider: did anyone do anything wrong here? At long last, Democrats are faced to make choices. 

Did this help Stine? My sense is that this probably hurt Stine more than it helped him, since it quotes him making a non-credible point, but Stine needs visibility, and he got some. Did it hurt Golden? My sense is that it may have given his long time supporters a useful startle--maybe Jeff isn't a sure thing after all. Golden's response was consistent with his brand: mellow, lightly condescending to the young whipper-snapper, urging everyone to play nicely.

The candidate forum scheduled for today surely received more notice by Facebook and word of mouth by being cancelled than it would have were it held as scheduled, viewed by a couple hundred attendees who came to the event knowing in advance who they favored, and then was--once again--ignored by the local media other than Facebook chatter, a Democratic Party video, and this blog. Controversy made news.

Stine raises the issue of "influence"

Kevin Stine made a second charge, this time within Facebook. He called Jeff Golden "the big money candidate" and showed his list of largest contributors, which include people giving $10,000, $9,000, and $3,500, and several additional people giving  $1,000 contributions. Jeff Golden responded saying there was clear difference between individual money and the money of special interest PACs. Stine said both are potentially big money and both are dangerous. Again, controversy.  People have to make decisions.  

Stine's Facebook pages report people unhappy with him and deciding to "unfollow" him. (A former brokerage client called me to tell me that I should tell Stine that he "will never, ever vote for Stine for anything ever again. Tell him his comment is stupid and immature.")  Others, no doubt, agree with Stine. A $10,000 contribution seems like a lot. Who is that Katheryn Thalden, and what does she want? Perhaps nothing whatever other than good government, but now there is something to talk about. Golden can handle the questions, and if he cannot, better to know it now, in the primary.

It isn't all perfect. There is too much controversy over process and not enough over issues. I welcome this new phase of the campaign, but I have reservations. All of the controversies involve process:

  ***Is the local Democratic Party utterly impartial?

  ***Are Jeff Golden's campaign contributions clean and pure?

  ***Do Athena Goldberg's upstate endorsements mean she is good, or that she is influenced?

The GOP race has its own problems, with discussion of personality and campaign process rather than policy options. Jessica Gomez's introductory video projected a mood and tone of bipartisan community building, not specifics that would assure Republican voters she is one of them. 

[Post revised.  I have removed all references to any opponent of candidate Gomez.]

Controversy over issues will not destroy useful politics in southern Oregon. It will enable it. Six candidates will appear on the ballot and one of them eventually will be elected.  We need to make choices.

[Note: I consider myself impartial on the State Senate race. I have made contributions to candidates in this and other races, but not because I necessarily plan to vote for them. My contributions to campaigns have an idiosyncratic motivation. When I was a candidate for County Commissioner in 1980 I sorely wished there were some business-oriented Democrats who did not pepper me with litmus test issues, and who instead just genially wrote me a check and said "good luck." Southern Oregon needed people like that, I thought. I still think that. So now I try to be one of those people.]