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Christopher Hooks, writing at Texas Observer about what he views as the folly of the “Beto for President” movement:

The nationalization of American politics and an overemphasis on the top of the ballot is a nationwide sickness, but it mostly afflicts the Democratic Party. In 2008, Democrats won the presidency and then forgot about the rest of politics — the state legislatures, the governors’ mansions — and, as a result, they spent much of the next decade in political hell.

Democrats lost control of the state legislatures in charge of redistricting, which begat election wipeouts, which meant that they lost many potential candidates for higher office. Making matters worse, Obama raided the states to stock his cabinet, a sort of political brain drain that left a shortage of good candidates to run for governor and Congress. Now, their prospects for the next years look a bit better. Democrats, taking advantage of the president’s unpopularity, stand a chance of winning control of more state legislatures in 2020 and building the foundations of their party, just as Republicans did in 2010. It’s a great opportunity, and yet Democrats seem singularly focused on the upcoming presidential primary. Democrats, God bless them, are slow learners.

While I am not terribly thrilled with the idea of the Democrats running a US Senator for the White House in 2020, I think I mostly agree with Hooks here.

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