Several Democratic Candidates Might Make History This Year.

And If You Didn’t Know, That’s Actually Part of the Reason It Might Work For Once

Mary Peltola could make history if she wins… but she doesn’t want that to be what defines her.

Every time I’ve done a Mary Peltola phone bank this cycle whoever’s in charge gives us a briefing sessions of things about the candidate they want us to talk about in our calls and things they don’t want us to mention. At this point I’ve done somewhere between 15 and 20 so I tuned the briefing out and some of it was stuff I already knew.

For example I knew even before I was told that if Peltola were to win she would be the first native Alaskan and the first indigenous woman to serve in the Senate. At the start of every briefing we’re reminded of that fact but we’re also told not to mention it when we’re calling voters and its not in our scripts.

I didn’t think much of it at the time. I assumed that Alaskans already knew this about Peltola and didn’t need a volunteer to remind them. I also figured that Peltola’s been in politics a long time and that she knew what worked when your running for office in Alaska better then me. There have been many outreach programs for other major ethnic groups as volunteer opportunities and since the campaign also tells us not to say anything negative about Republicans like Sarah Palin or Lisa Murkowski, I figured this was part of what was necessary in a state with such as a…