Seth Moulton lost to U.S. Senator Ed Markey in Tuesday's Democratic primary in Massachusetts.
The 46-year-old moderate lost to the 79-year- old progressive.
I identify three lessons.
Lesson one: An incumbent senator, who has been in political office for 50 years, has a lot of good goodwill and is hard to unseat, even if his age worries people.
That lesson won't be lost on people who consider opposing my own 77-year-old senator, Oregon Democrat Ron Wyden, who I expect will stand for re-election in 2028.
Lesson two: On paper, Moulton was the right person at the right time. He is a combat Marine veteran, an incumbent U.S. Representative, a graduate of Harvard and the Harvard JFK School of Government, and a political moderate at a time when Democrats are getting uncomfortable with candidates who are too progressive. Many Democrats are backing away from the positions of the recent past. Yet there are contrary currents, with progressive candidates defeating moderate, establishment candidates in high profile races. Democrats want electability, but they also want a progressive fighter. There is the crosscurrent of Democrats wanting to replace old Boomers with a new generation. Markey survived this primary challenge because he represents something people wanted more than a new generation: true, blue, liberal policy. He did not leave credible room on his left. People voted for the more progressive candidate.
Lesson three: Moulton blew the trans issue and it defined him as too conservative. News stories and commentaries about Moulton's campaign quickly get to a comment like this one in The New York Times:
If Massachusetts were a general election battleground state, perhaps Mr. Moulton’s skepticism about trans athletes’ participation in youth sports might have played better among primary voters.
But from the moment Mr. Moulton entered the race last October, Mr. Markey used his remarks questioning transgender girls’ participation in girls’ sports as a battering ram against him. Not only did it galvanize the L.G.B.T.Q. vote for Mr. Markey, it also helped frame him as the progressive candidate
Moulton expressed an opinion that is a majority opinion in this country, that allowing trans women to play in competitive sports creates problems of fairness and safety. But in Massachusetts, in a Democratic primary, it played badly.
I don't think Moulton was on the wrong side of that issue, even in a Democratic primary in blue Massachusetts. His problem was how he framed what likely is the majority opinion in the state. By saying he worried about his daughters' safety when competing against potentially larger, stronger trans athletes he framed trans women as threats.
That was an error.
He needed to have begun by expressing compassion and support for trans women. He needed to have said he wants the very best for them, free of discrimination. Live and let live, let freedom ring. Having established that, a Democratic politician needs to say that his opposition to trans women playing in competitive female leagues is intended to benefit and protect trans women. Putting them into competition with women in women's leagues raises the question of unfair advantage. It pits the value of fairness against the value to women of having leagues where women are athletes, not cheerleaders, like in the bad old days of my youth. Women's athletics is a good thing. Say so. Say it needs to be protected, too. Trans women in competition creates enemies for trans people because it pits their interests against the group of people born biologically female. A fight between those interests focuses on distinctions and differences, which is terrible for trans women seeking live-and-let-live inclusion. Trans women athletes get judged as advantage-seekers, and in serious competitions is is read as cheating. That hurts the broad goal of inclusion. Limiting trans women in athletics is done to protect them.
Moulton's apology walk-back made his situation worse, because it defined his original statement as anti-trans. A better message strategy would have been to have affirmed his original statement, saying he was damned if he was going to advocate a position on trans competition that would end up hurting his trans friends. Then the competition with Markey would have been on who is really the better friend of trans women being allowed to live their lives in peace. Moulton could have won that argument.
This lesson is too late for Moulton, but not too late for other Democrats.
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7 comments:
What if some 60 or 70 year old men were in a sports league (soccer, basketball, softball, bowling, or volleyball), and some 20 year old guys wanted to join the league? How fair would that be? The 20 year old guys would knock the snot out of the old guys. That's no different than if trans guys played against bio-girls. Where is the fairness?
Eventually trans girls/women will need to be limited when it comes to sports out of fairness to all. I wish liberal Democrats could just let go of this idea of they are equal, they’re obviously not the same. All you have to do is look at them. I support treating them with love and respect, so restrict them out of that love.
Massachusetts is ultra liberal. It is similar to Crazy California. People find Baby Boomers annoying for various reasons. One reason is that quite a few Early Boomers think that the sun rises and sets on them and them alone. It's obnoxious. The Baby Boom generation extends from 1946 - 1964. It should be easy to remember because the last two digits are reversed.
Many Baby Boomers are Only in their early 60s. Many are still employed and are just beginning to be eligible for Social Security. Because of the disgust with Early Boomers (who may be our older siblings and cousins), Late Boomers have given themselves a different name: Generation Jones.
I have seen different dates for Gen Jones, but it is approximately 1955 or 1957 through 1964 or 1965. Many people in Gen Jones (Late Boomers) experienced Vietnam as children watching the news on tv. We heard about Woodstock but we were not there. The last of Gen Jones graduated from high school in 1982 or 1983.
All Baby Boomers are not alike. There are many Generation Jones groups on Facebook if anyone is interested in learning more about the Other Baby Boomers.
I was born in 1946. I'll let you know when I decide the sun sets.
We are all shaped to some extent by the circumstances we’re raised in, but attributing individual characteristics to an entire generation is fanciful because we’re all different. Just look at the number of sects among those who call themselves Christians. The 'Greatest Generation' was the last to make sacrifices enabling their offspring to have a better life or fight in a war that made any sense, but even many of them supported Hitler and the fascists. All of us today have been shaped by long, stupid wars such as Vietnam and Iraq, yet many still support them. We will never all agree; the question is how agreeable we can be.
By the way, what you call ‘Generation Jones’ is better known as ‘Generation X,’ for whatever difference it makes.
The progressive Left is uncompromising not only on trans athletes but on proactive medical responses to the most recent sex-identity announcement of children as young as middle school age. Anything short of unadulterated validation for all self-declared trans-community prerogatives is fighting words, and especially so for practical purposes in Blue states like Massachusetts. You won't hear Ron Wyden backslide or equivocate either.
Markey looks like a fighter. Moulton looks like a pouter.
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