The Democratic party needs to embrace open competition for leadership of the party.

[Oopsie Daisy]

24. It's incorrect to call it annointing. In the real world, WINNING and gaining the MAJORITY are of the utmost importance.

It's a foolish game to intentionally lose-on-principal simply because it was too painful to vote for the BEST candidate rather than needlessly kneecapping strong incumbents. These needless charades of primarying Democratic incumbents (in hopes of getting the perfect rainbows-and-unicorns candidate) typically only serve to benefit the GOP challenger.

This type of primarying is foolish and it only depletes the funds of incumbent Democrats and makes it easier for the GOP candidate to outspend. It also risks the "sore loser" phenomenon where the losing candidate claims that they were "cheated" and the system was "rigged" by "oligarchs" and "elites" ... which results in that candidate's fan-base not turning out to vote AT ALL, as a form of protest because they believed the lies of "election rigging".

For all of the effort and money spent to damage and hobble incumbent Democrats, it makes better strategic sense to target the most vulnerable Republican candidates. Why not hobble and kneecap them? Why not damage their campaigns and deplete THEIR resources so that they can be replaced with a Democratic candidate, or at the very least a Republican who doesn't want to destroy women's healthcare rights, or the rights of LGBTQ Americans.

The type of strategy that you're describing and advocating for does does not acknowledge political reality and it's one that appeals to ill-informed and emotional voters who fail to think ahead, or to think strategically, and who cannot swallow their pride and move-on to support the party's eventual nominee.

This isn't some Student Council election. The stakes are much higher. We must DEFEAT REPUBLICANS at every opportunity. Even the "worst Democrat" (ie: Manchin) is 1000-times better than having a Republican filling the seat. Even if the "worst Democrat" votes 100% with the GOP, as long as they still caucus with the Democrats, that seat is OURS and it helps us to keep (or get closer to) being the Majority.

Still there are those who deny reality and pretend like their vote is as sacred as their virginity and that it can only be given once to "the right one, the perfect one, and ONLY that one" rather than being able to see the BIG picture. That's just a nonsensical way to think of things.