Yesterday Philadelphia had its primary elections, which are the de facto elections because we are an intensely blue Congressional district. I read somewhere that it’s the bluest district in the country, and that could very well be true.

In the district, we had four candidates for the Congressional seat being vacated by Dwight Evans, who is an affable and gently babbling presence. Evans always voted in accordance with my principles, even after having a minor stroke last year. (Unlike one of my Democratic Senators, who also had a stroke after the election and promptly turned into someone just as eccentric as he was before, except really awful.)

The best three of the candidates in the Congressional race were (like Evans) Black and progressive, and the fourth candidate seemed to exist simply to show up for events, jump up and down, and say “I’m here too!”

Out of the three viable candidates running, the first was a doctor who has done some great things. I read her memoir, and she is a fighter and a remarkable character. But she had not held political office before, and on the whole I wanted someone who knows how frustrating and awful working with other politicians is, and who knows how to deal. (Evans backed her to replace him.)

The second was a guy whose father was a long-time Philadelphia mayor (and whose uncle was also, like the candidate, a state senator). He, like his uncle, has been a state senator for a while, and he was the choice of the city powers-that-be. He had some strong endorsements, including from our current mayor. Honestly, he was a solid choice despite the nepotism, and I would have been fine with him if he was elected.

The third was an affable state representative who was born in Chicago with roots in Baltimore, and who went to an Ivy League university. He has checked all the boxes for an ambitious politician, including working for a Senator and the Clinton Administration, and he has taught university and written the obligatory book. At a political protest I went to a while back, he had people working the crowd drumming up interest and providing name recognition, and at the most recent protest I went to, he himself was working the crowd, talking to young voters, taking selfies with people, and even being pleasant to me when I said hello. Clearly a savvy politician with credentials (and therefore probably a two-faced weasel like the rest of that ilk), but also a declared progressive who drew support from one of the most recognizable progressive politicians in the country, Alexandra Ocasio-Cortez. She came to speak for him. He had made all the right connections, therefore, and he knew how to work them.

I voted for the Yalie by mail, because why not, and sat back to enjoy the fireworks for the rest of the season.

Apparently, to some people online, the Yalie held incorrect views about Israel and Palestine and therefore was evil incarnate, and they all hated him. The nepo candidate had connections and savvy, and a good record. Others supported the doctor, because she was honest and absolutely glowed with virtue and good works. This did not convince me that my vote had been wrong, though.

I confess that my political identity is focused much more narrowly than on any of the conflicts in the Middle East. I mostly want politicians who will stand up to the current extremely corrupt majority and its greedy, ignorant, bullying Chief Executive, and I always try to think very narrowly about my values when elections come around. I didn’t expect the Yalie to win. He wasn’t local enough, he was too smooth, and he didn’t have the huge name recognition of the other two.

Weirdly, he did win.

Apparently the more mainstream electorate divided itself between the doctor and the dynastic heir, so the smooth guy with the most progressive identity and the obvious national aspirations came out on top.

The election may happen officially in November, but it’s already over in my district. A Republican didn’t even run in the primary.

Meanwhile, down the ballot, my state representative was also up for election. The state rep, though the main job is in the state capital, has an office a couple blocks from my house. The current guy is pretty negligible; I’ve attended some of his neighborhood meetings. Like my former congressman Evans, he’s a bit of a babbler, but unlike Evans, he didn’t seem to have any principles worth knowing except for providing services to his constituents. Except that when he came to the memorial for my neighbor who was a committee person and a block captain, he didn’t know her correct name when they asked him to say a few words. And except that when I went to one of his Zoom calls, he was clearly preaching to the people he saw as his demographic, meaning my Black neighbors further north. And when I say preaching, I mean preaching.

I’m all right with that as long as I’m not completely excluded, mind you; it is necessary to speak to your constituents in the way they recognize, but it’s also really important to hint to the people who aren’t just like the majority that you like them fine, too. And I really, really want political savvy.

Therefore, I voted for his challenger, a social worker I had never heard of before, mostly out of annoyance.

The challenger won.

I did not expect that. There should not have been coattails for the challenger to ride in this particular election.

So I sat back and thought. I know other people are pretty good at figuring these things out, including statisticians and the people who go on the news to explain, but it’s easy to be a Monday-morning quarterback.

And then I remembered something my kid said yesterday, when we met up after they voted (the grandchild told me he was the one who voted, and indeed he had the “I Voted” sticker on his shirt and had pushed the buttons).

“Oh, there was a Working Families person at the polls and they handed me a flyer, so I just voted for everyone on their ballot,” my kid said. Let me be clear: my kid is even more progressive than I am, but they have less time to ponder the relative merits of candidates in a crowded field.

Working Families is a progressive third party that has been making news lately, but unlike all the third parties I have seen over the years, they’re focusing on endorsements instead of dividing the vote and poisoning the pool like their predecessors, and they endorsed both of my unexpected winners in yesterday’s election. Maybe the Working Family Party was the coattails my new state rep was riding.

It would be lovely if, for a change, the American politicians who represent my values weren’t irredeemably stupid. If they understood how to reach voters, and how to work the system. Just for a little while, I would like the political machinations to work for me. It would be nice if they knew how to mobilize voters, how to divide the opposition, and how to finagle.

In other words, as Rebecca Solnit said, “A vote is not a valentine. It’s a chess move.” I am terrible at chess, but I did practice a sport in which you had to trick your opponents so that you could hit them, so I have at least a crude understanding of strategy.

Anyway I hope the people who got elected yesterday work out, and don’t suddenly have strokes and turn into yahoos. I hope they are weasels who will represent what I care about. It’s a crapshoot, I know. But it would be nice to dream.