Democrats, once again are unwilling to play to their base.  In spite of raucous support at the convention, Prop 19 will not get an endorsement from the party which elected instead to remain neutral on the initiative.

The Courage Campaign’s public policy director,  Robert Cruickshank, argued to the assembly, “If we endorse Proposition 19 and take a courageous position to support reform, just as we took courageous positions on same-sex marriage and other contentious issues, we will win the moral argument, we will win Proposition 19 and we will win races in November.”  He urged the convention to listen to the party’s chairman, John Burton, who had earlier said that young voters would be motivated to vote for legalization of marijuana and would also back Dem party candidates this fall.

Nonetheless, the party was worried that endorsing cannabis legalization (in the very limited form proposed on the Fall’s ballot) would harm state wide candidates.  Obviously worried about the same issue, earlier Jerry Brown and Diane Feinstein came out against the initiative.

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Photo of a bud with spider mites