Texas Berniecrat Tom Wakely Goes To The People's Summit-- Gets Home And Withdraws His Candidacy

-by Tom Wakely

I just returned from the People’s Summit in Chicago. It was a jammed-packed long weekend of progressive politics. It culminated on Saturday night with remarks from Senator Bernie Sanders who gave the 4,000 plus crowd at the Arie Crown Theater a reason to believe. Now, depending on what you wanted to get out of the Summit, you had your choice of attending any of a dozen workshops or group sessions like the "Voices of Resistance Power" and learning from the likes of Jorge Aguilar with the Food & Water Action Fund. As for me, I attended, as many working group sessions as I could and listened to as many of conference speakers as I could but no way could I get to everything or hear everything I wanted to hear.

However, I did manage to wake up early Sunday morning to attend the "Our Movement Moment: Beyond Neo-Liberalism and Trumpism." I particularly liked Linda Sarsour from the Arab American Association who made a point of reminding us to use everyday language, language that people could understand, language that Trump used, simple, easy to understand language like "Make America Great Again." She was right when she said that many of the voters that progressives need to reach don’t have a college education and don’t have an hour or so to spare for you or I to explain to them what "neo-liberalism" means.

The Summit, as far as I could ascertain, was heavily weighted to reforming the Democratic Party on the East Coast and West Coast. Very little was said about the rest of the country and what we should do in deep red states, like Texas, where I live. When I got a chance to button-hole Congresswoman Pramila Jayapal after she spoke at one of the working group sessions, "Transforming the Democratic Party," I asked her this question. What kind of strategy do those of us in deep Red States use? Her response, "I don’t know, you have a better idea than I do as to what needs to be done."

I also spent a considerable amount of my time just mingling with people, introducing myself and listening to why they were at the Summit. I must have met and talked to a least 200 people over the course of the 2½-day event and this is what I came away with. Keeping in mind that I spoke to less than 5% of the attendees, maybe even less, without exception none of them was up to the task of transforming the Democratic Party. Every one of them wanted to form a 3rd party. Whether it was joining the Green Party or the People’s Party or forming a new party, it didn’t really seem to matter to any of them. What mattered to them was electing progressives to public office and they just didn’t see the Democratic Party willing to do that.

That general feeling, spending the time and energy to transform the Democratic Party was a waste of time, seemed to be confirmed by my conversations with the individuals I met who had actually run for political office like me. All of us were inspired to run by Bernie Sanders last year and all of us had the same story to tell. The Democratic Party didn’t left a finger to support us. Those of us in Red States all agreed, at least in the short-term, we needed to run progressive independents, like Bernie Sanders, instead of looking to the Democratic Party for institutional support.

Now, on a more personal note, I found myself being constantly stopped and questioned by Summit staff asking to see my entrance badge. They were all young and their attitude was, to say the least, very hostile. My guess is that it was because they saw this old guy (I’m 64) wearing a ‘Vietnam-era veteran cap’ and they must have thought I was some type of alt-right subversive nut-job looking to disrupt the conference. It is unfortunate but I understand their caution and concern.

In conclusion, I’d like to say I was totally impressed by all the excitement and energy of the Summit. I also have only a few suggestions for next years Summit. First, a working group session focused on organizing veterans. We are a powerful force. We just need to develop strategies on how to reach them and bring them into the progressive movement. Second, I would like to see more, a lot more, time and energy placed on developing and implementing strategy in Red States. Looking to transform the Democratic Party on the East coast and West coast is fine but the real heavy lifting is going to be transforming the Democratic Party in those deep Red States like Texas. Third and perhaps the most important, is that I would like to see a working group session on generational cooperation. The Summit was overwhelming packed with young people and that is what it was all about, what it should be about, getting the under-30 folks fired up and ready for the battles to come. However, the real power, I believe, lies in generational cooperation, that is what the alt-right, and Republicans fear the most, the two most progressive group of voters in America today, the ex-hippies and millennials getting together, sharing ideas and strategy. If we ever got together, learned from each other, we could and would change the United States forever.




UPDATE: Tom Withdraws

Tom sent me a note yesterday telling me he had withdrawn as a candidate for 2018 for the seat occupied by Lamar Smith. It's a crowded race with lots of candidates, many of them pretty bad. We like Derrick Crowe. Tom has endorsed Rixi Melton. In 2016, Tom had he managed to do something no one else has been able to do in over 30 years-- he managed to drop Lamar Smith's percentage vote total to 56.9%, the lowest of his career. In addition, Wakely’s campaign garnered more votes in 2016 than any Democrat in the State of Texas running against an incumbent congressional Republican.

“I entered the 2016 Congressional campaign on the heels of Senator Bernie Sanders bid to secure the 2016 Democratic Party nomination for President," he wrote to his supporters. "When Bernie lost the Texas primary, I was inclined to drop out of the race. However, I ultimately decided that I could best serve the progressive movement by running as a Movement candidate and I feel I accomplished what I set out to do. To demonstrate that a non-politician running a progressive campaign can move the needle. The fact that there are now 5 candidates running in the Democratic primary proves that the people in the 21st Congressional District were receptive to my message of Medicare for All and that the best way to create jobs and save our environment at the same time is to move from a fossil fuel economy to a renewal energy economy... [T]he question for me is, which of the remaining Democratic primary candidates has the best shot of winning the general election. In my opinion, that candidate is Rixi Melton. Like me, Rixi is not a politician. She never worked in DC or for the Democratic Party. We all are sick and tired of establishment politics and establishment economics. As Senator Bernie Sanders has repeatedly said, the Democratic Party model and strategy is a failure. It needs fundamental change and I believe that Rixi is the only candidate capable of doing that. I therefore urge all of my supporters, volunteers and donors to consolidate around the one candidate I truly believe can win the general election and that person is Rixi Melton."

-DWT