Good news, for a change: Watson-Coleman wins
Good news for those who remember when the Democratic Party championed causes other than those of George Norcross, his doppelganger Chris Christie, and his poodle, Steve Sweeney, the anti-union union guy. Bonnie Watson Coleman won the Democratic primary for the 12th Congressional district.
Other commentators have made a point of saying she will–if we’re lucky–become the first African-American woman to represent New Jersey and the first woman since the newly crazy Republicans forced out the sane psychologist Marge Roukema in 2003 to give us, yikes, Scott Garrett, who needs one.
I also read another commentator who said Watson-Coleman would be the only African-American member of Congress from New Jersey. I don’t know whether that was a mistake or a sly comment either on the race-identification of US Sen. Cory Booker or on the question of whether the Senate is part of Congress. I’d be willing to entertain arguments about either contention.
But this is what Watson-Coleman definitely is: She is the only candidate for Congress who, on March 27, got up in front of a crowd of hundreds of demonstrators and declared her support for free public education–free as in provided by the government and free as in free of the clutches of billionaire hedge-fund managers who made Cory Booker what he is today and hope some day to replace public schools with market-driven charters.
Watson-Coleman didn’t have to be there. Her legislative district doesn’t come near Newark. She was running in a campaign in which no Newark resident could vote for her–she was there because she believed in public education.
My notes for that day would take my son the archaeologist a field season to find on Good news, for a change: Watson-Coleman wins | Bob Braun's Ledger: