Upthegrove's Choice Disrespects the Democratic Party

Andrew at NPI informs us that one of the national Obama delegates chosen today in Spokane to fill a "party leader and elected official" (PLEO) position, was 33rd District State Representative Dave Upthegrove.

You may recall that the past couple of weeks I have been writing about the candidate filings for this year's elections, and the couple dozen candidates who initially filed as "Prefers Democrat Party". I emailed every one of these candidates to alert them to their filing, as the form they had to fill out probably tripped them up.

One of these candidates was Representative Dave Upthegrove, but while he did not respond to my emails and phone calls, David Postman seemed to have no problem getting the following quote from him on the matter:

"I don't think it matters one way or the other. Voters just want to know which party we belong to. Either wording gives them that information. Any concern is much ado about nothing."

Now Mr. Upthegrove is the only Democratic candidate whose filing still reads "Prefers Democrat Party", and whether he likes to think so or not, that does matter.

While 157 Democrats are now uniformly listed as "Prefers Democratic Party", Upthegrove seems to think he knows better. Instead he has filed as belonging to another party in my view. There is no such thing as the "Democrat Party".

When you go to the party Web site at http://www.democrats.org/ it says "Democratic Party". On their history page it states:

"Thomas Jefferson founded the Democratic Party in 1792 as a congressional caucus to fight for the Bill of Rights and against the elitist Federalist Party. In 1798, the "party of the common man" was officially named the Democratic-Republican Party and in 1800 elected Jefferson as the first Democratic President of the United States."

And then adds:

"...In 1844, the National Convention simplified the Party's name to the Democratic Party."

Furthermore, any self-professed Democrat wanting to refer to the party as the "Democrat Party" should read this.

Upthegrove has now been chosen to represent hundreds of thousands of Washington State Obama supporters in Denver in August as a State Delegate. While he continues to stubbornly insist on belonging to the "Democrat Party" he does not represent this Obama supporter, and I'm sure it will irk many other Democrats. Needless to say, I am not happy to know that he was chosen as a delegate over other PLEOs.