Biden Democrats vs. Democracy North Carolina party bosses join Florida in keeping Biden competitors off the ballot. James Freeman
https://www.wsj.com/articles/biden-democrats-vs-democracy-6e1d47fb?mod=opinion_lead_pos12
“Coronating an unelectable candidate and disenfranchising voters enables the erosion of democracy itself.”
Team Biden is going to extreme lengths this campaign season to protect the President from the judgment of Democratic voters. Last month this column noted how his allies managed to cancel the Florida primary rather than expose him to competition from other Democrats. Now it appears that Biden loyalists have eliminated a competitive primary in North Carolina as well. Yes, the man who will spend the next week haranguing about threats to democracy seems to be doing an exceptional job of preventing it in his own party.
Will Doran reports for Raleigh’s WRAL-TV:
President Joe Biden will be the only Democratic candidate for president in North Carolina’s 2024 primary elections…
Tuesday’s vote by the North Carolina State Board of Elections echoed its initial decision, made in December, based on the North Carolina Democratic Party’s request to have Biden alone on the ballot. At the time, North Carolina Democratic Party spokesman Tommy Mattocks told WRAL that Biden has been the only candidate seriously campaigning in North Carolina.
“In order to get on the ballot, you need to have donors in the state and be actively campaigning in the state,” he told WRAL last month, adding that the rule is “the standard that we have used in all previous cycles.”
Really? A December 2019 press release from the North Carolina State Board of Elections announced the Democrats who would appear on 2020 primary ballots:
Michael Bennet
Joseph F. Biden [sic]
Michael R. Bloomberg
Cory Booker
Pete Buttigieg
Julian Castro
John K. Delaney
Tulsi Gabbard
Amy Klobuchar
Deval Patrick
Bernie Sanders
Tom Steyer
Elizabeth Warren
Marianne Williamson
Andrew Yang
Ms. Williamson is running again and currently holds the support of 8% of Democrats nationwide, according to the RealClearPolitics average. Is there an argument that she’s a less serious candidate than she was in 2020? Gary Robertson reports for the A.P.:
State law directs parties to provide lists of candidates whose bids for the nation’s highest office are “generally advocated and recognized in the news media throughout the United States or in North Carolina.” The law gives the board discretion to add more candidates whom a majority believes meets the same standard. But none of the board’s members proposed doing so.
Yet in 2020 the board chose to add Joe Walsh and Bill Weld to the Republican ballot. Is the North Carolina standard that Democratic incumbents get protected from competition but not Republicans?
“North Carolina goes all in with the DNC. No Democrat but Biden gets to be on the ballot,” writes Ms. Williamson on X. She also shares a statement from her campaign:
We are disappointed that the North Carolina Board of Elections abdicated their authority to protect North Carolina voters from the North Carolina Democratic State Party’s attempt to circumvent democracy.
It is not the job of the State Board of Elections to protect incumbents. It is their job to oversee elections in a non-partisan manner.
By the standards of inclusion set in North Carolina state statutes, Marianne Williamson is a FEC-certified Presidential candidate, has received extensive national news media coverage, is a member of the Democratic Party, and meets all the requirements for the Office of President as set forth in the United States Constitution.
Another Biden rival who will not be permitted on the ballot, Rep. Dean Phillips (D., Minn.), adds on X:
Democrats suppressing competition, suppressing voters, and suppressing debate. In America.
We did it by the book, but the party plays by its own rules.
Coronating an unelectable candidate and disenfranchising voters enables the erosion of democracy itself.
Comments are closed.
