To the editor: Columnist Mark Z. Barabak dispenses pablum from individuals with critiques of Democratic messaging in 2024. (“She’s won twice in Trump country. What can this Democrat teach her party?” column, Nov. 19)
Washington state’s Democratic Rep. Marie Gluesenkamp Perez instructed Barabak, “It’s the improper concept to remove from this that I’ve obtained some 10-point plan.” However the subsequent piece of recommendation from Gluesenkamp Perez, as summarized by Barabak, is incoherent: “Maybe above all, run extra candidates who’ve gotten filth below their fingernails.”
She says, “The monitor file of success shouldn’t be whether or not you went to an Ivy League establishment.”
This evaluation ignores the non-Ivy League presidential candidate with french-fry grease on her arms who ran towards a College of Pennsylvania alumnus with bone spurs through the Vietnam Battle.
Barabak would do effectively to keep in mind that Kamala Harris can be the president-elect if 237,000 swing-state voters had not chosen Donald Trump, Jill Stein or Robert F. Kennedy Jr. Among the many 7 million voters in Pennsylvania, Harris misplaced by just one.7 proportion factors.
Based mostly on the precise outcomes, I’d say the Democrats’ messaging wants minor tweaking, not wholesale revision.
Kathi Smith, Ojai
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To the editor: In writing about Gluesenkamp Perez’s victory in Washington’s third Congressional District, Barabak missed one thing.
Whereas receiving extra votes county-by-county (there are seven in her congressional district) than Vice President Kamala Harris, she decisively misplaced the 5 “rural” counties, together with Skamania County, the place she resides. The one county she gained by a large margin was Clark County, the one actually city county in her district, and solely a bridge away from Portland, Ore.
The election consequence clearly demonstrated that Gluesenkamp Perez’s political fortunes don’t lie within the rural counties of the third District, however in Vancouver, Wash. An economics graduate of the elite Reed Faculty, she definitely is aware of this.
Gluesenkamp Perez’s cowboy boots schtick probably must be deserted sooner fairly than later. I occur to love a variety of what she says she stands for and gave her my vote.
John McDonald, Vancouver, Wash.
