To the editor: Columnist Mark Z. Barabak dishes out lip service from people who criticize Democratic messaging in 2024 (“She's won twice in Trump country. What can this Democrat teach her party?” column, Nov. 19).
Democratic Washington state Rep. Marie Gluesenkamp Pérez told Barabak, “It's a misconception to take from this that I have a 10-point plan.” But the following advice from Gluesenkamp Pérez, summarized by Barabak, is incoherent: “Perhaps, above all, present more candidates who have stained their nails.”
She says, “Success track record is not whether you went to an Ivy League institution.”
This analysis ignores the non-Ivy League presidential candidate, with french fry grease on her hands, who confronted a University of Pennsylvania alumnus with bone spurs during the Vietnam War.
Barabak would do well to remember that Harris would be the president-elect if 237,000 swing state voters had not chosen Trump, Jill Stein or Robert F. Kennedy Jr. Among Pennsylvania's 7 million voters, Harris lost by just 1.7 points percentages.
Based on actual results, I'd say Democrats' messaging needs minor adjustments, not a total overhaul.
Kathi Smith, Ojai
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To the editor: In writing about Gluesenkamp Pérez's victory in Washington's 3rd Congressional District, Barabak overlooked something.
While he received more votes county-by-county (there are seven in his Congressional district) than Vice President Kamala Harris, he decisively lost all five “rural” counties, including Skamania County, where he resides. The only county that won by a wide margin was Clark County, the only truly urban county in its district, and just a bridge away from Portland, Oregon.
The election result clearly demonstrated that Gluesenkamp Pérez's political fortunes do not lie in the rural counties of the 3rd District, but in Vancouver, Washington. An economics graduate from the elite Reed College, she certainly knows this.
Gluesenkamp Pérez's cowboy boots will probably have to be abandoned sooner rather than later. It turns out that I really like what she claims to defend and I gave her my vote.
John McDonald, Vancouver, Washington.
