Let's Talk About Primaries, Where Not Any Blue Will Do— What Kind Of Democrat Do We Want To Back?

Saikat is worth going to the mat for... click his image

A couple of months ago, we noticed that New Dem André Carson, who represents most of Indianapolis, was drawing a primary opponent, George Hornedo, who was making the point that Carson isn’t active enough at a time like this. “Having a warm body in an empty suit is one thing if we were in a blue state and had this strong congressional delegation with other good Democrats in there, but that’s not the case here in Indiana. Right now, [Hakeem Jeffries] is acting like a manager of the caucus, as opposed to a leader of the caucus. I’m not sure exactly what he’s waiting on, but I’d love to see a little bit more blood lust.”

The 34 year old Hornedo has jumped into the primary in the safe blue seat (PVI is D+21; Trump scoring just 28% last year) and he’s still singing from the same hymnal, one of many young insurgents challenging the Democratic Party’s status quo across U.S. His experiences show that when it comes to the Democratic Party establishment, “The people in charge of the Democratic Party don’t just fight Republicans; they fight anybody who challenges them. And that’s why we keep losing ground… Rather than lift up the best candidates or the best ideas, we’re protecting the same people year in and year out no matter what! That’s not democracy, that’s machine politics.”

Yesterday, Leonardo Pini reported that “In Indianapolis, at the end of April, Hornedo was busy trying to appeal to constituents and show them he can be an alternative to the party’s old-guard. Dressed in sweatpants and a black hoodie, he had just finished cutting weeds at a community event by Fall Creek in Indianapolis when he spoke about the challenges facing the Democratic party. ‘We’re just trying to go where people are civically engaged, because they’re probably voters,’ Hornedo said. ‘And if they’re not, they can be. But right now, most voters aren’t active in Democratic politics anywhere. So how do we help people see themselves in our party? I think that’s important.’... His candidacy, Hornedo said, is not about him or about Carson, but about ‘whether the government can work for people that need it the most. The real divide in the party is not left versus center and not even young versus old,’ Hornedo said. ‘The reality is that, with Trump and Musk dismantling things day in and day out, when Democrats come back in power, we are not walking back into a government that resembles that of which we knew. And I just don’t think that the leaders that got us into this are the ones that are going to get us out of it.’”

Hornedo criticizes Carson as one of the least effective lawmakers in Congress, pointing to the ranking of the University of Virginia and Vanderbilt University’s Center for Effective Lawmaking, that sees Carson ranked 197th out of 220 Democrats in the 118th Congress for effectiveness…

Carson, 50, has held his seat for 17 years. He never had a competitive primary since he took over the seat of his grandmother, Julia Carson, in 2008. He has a strong base of support and has already held a town hall with House Democratic Whip, Katherine Clark on 2 May.

… Before launching his grassroots campaign, Hornedo, a lawyer, spent years inside the Democratic party machine. He worked on Obama’s 2012 inaugural committee, handled press for Attorneys General Eric Holder and Loretta Lynch and advised Pete Buttigieg’s 2020 presidential campaign.

“I came up with this idea of radical proportionality. In one phrase: how do we align the scale of our solutions to the scale of our challenges?” Hornedo said. “I don’t care if a solution is up into the left, up into the center, up into the right. I just care that we’re moving up and actually doing a better job of trying to meet people’s needs in solving these challenges.”

When asked if the party has an internal ideological struggle and which side he’s eventually on, Hornedo dismissed the framing.

“I’ve been called a dem socialist, I’ve been called a moderate. My answer to that is: ‘Call me whatever you want, just call me effective.’”

Effective is important… but only if it serves a worthy purpose. Hornedo doesn’t want to say if he’s a democratic socialist or a conservaDem. There’s a great deal of space between those two ideological homes. Imagine the damage that a more effective Kyrsten Sinema or Joe Manchin would have been. Today, I hope right-of-center Democrats like Texas crook Henry Cuellar, New Jersey corporate whore Josh Gottheimer and Likud handmaiden Jared Moskowitz are completely ineffective. Hornedo’s platform looks OK— standard Democratic Party fare, no different in any real way from what Carson is selling, just someone 34 instead of 50 selling it— not enough for me.

So what should we be looking for? Not just youth or hustle. Not another smooth operator with a polished brand and a five-point plan that melts on contact with power. What distinguishes a candidate worth supporting is vision— paired with the courage to fight for it in hostile territory. A candidate who doesn’t just adjust their message to fit the district but who can bend the district toward justice by organizing and energizing new coalitions of voters. Someone who talks plainly about wealth and power and who knows how to challenge both— inside the Democratic Party and outside it. Wouldn’t you rather back someone who understands that the biggest threat to democracy isn’t just coming from the right—but also from the rot inside a party that’s spent too long chasing donors instead of defending the people? And someone whose record, or at least whose life choices, show us that their commitment is to people, not to donors, consultants or career advancement.

We should be looking for candidates who are building movements, not just campaigns, who organize with working people, not over their heads. That means showing up in hard fights where there's no immediate political upside— on picket lines, in environmental justice communities, in solidarity with Palestine and in resistance to red-state abortion bans. Candidates who tell hard truths, even when party leadership wants them to shut up. Candidates who won’t just slip into the next available rung on the ladder, but who are prepared to use power differently. Do we really need more Democrats who “know how Washington works?” We need candidates ready to break the machine and build something better. Candidates who understand that effectiveness in service of injustice is just a more efficient way to lose your soul. The party doesn’t need more résumé-polishers or message technicians. It needs moral imagination and political courage. That’s what we should fund. That’s what we should be fighting for.