Chelsea Manning running for senate in Maryland...

Chelsea Manning, from her announcement video. ABC/AP.

Chelsea Manning, formally Bradly Manning, the former Army intelligence soldier that leaked information to Wikileaks, is running for Senate in Maryland. ABC News.  Manning was convicted of a felony for the leak and was granted clemency by Barack Obama after coming out as transgender. Manning will run in the primary against incumbent senator Ben Cardin. Neither Manning or Cardin has officially filed the paperwork to run yet. Maryland is considered a safe state for Democrats and Cardin is one of the most liberal members of the Senate. 

yup, we're running for senate 😎🌈💕 #WeGotThis https://t.co/ynFv6w32np

— Chelsea E. Manning (@xychelsea) January 14, 2018

My Comment:
Well, just when I thought nobody could find a Senate candidate worse than Joe Arpaio, the Democrats may have topped it. Chelsea Manning is quite possibly the worst choice and if she's the candidate it's very possible that a rock solid blue senate seat could flip to the Republicans. 

Manning represents everything wrong with the Democratic Party, at least in the eyes of the right and many of the more rational people on the left. She was convicted of sending secrets to Wikileaks, and though Wikileaks has been reformed in the eyes of many on the right, her leaks didn't really do much to improve the country. People will support leakers but only if they leak stuff that actually improves things. The diplomatic cables and war logs she released only embarrassed the United States.

Quite a few people consider her a traitor and were disgusted that she is free right now. And those people are across the political spectrum. There are many Republicans, Democrats and Independents that agree that what she did was wrong and that she never should have been granted clemency.

There is also the obvious problem of electing a convicted felon who has already proven that she can't be trusted with secrets. If she were to be elected, how could anyone trust her to keep secrets? How do we know that the first thing she does once elected is just leak everything she gets here hands on? Plus, even though our standards of  what is acceptable, do we really want a convicted felon as a Senator? At least Joe Arpaio was pardoned, Manning's conviction is still on the record.

The obvious elephant in the room is the fact that Manning used to be a man. Depending on your views of the matter, she's still a he. Indeed, I'm mostly referring to Manning as a female due to the fact that it's politically dangerous to do otherwise.

I am guessing the fact that Manning is transgender is going to be a mark against her. Even though the Democratic Party is supposedly the party of LGBT rights, there are large numbers of people in the party that aren't exactly happy with that fact, especially among the minority racial members of the party. Though most people are reasonably tolerant of the LGB groups, they aren't really sold on the T portion. Democrats have ran transgender people before, and won, but not in a race as important as this. Alone it might not be an issue, but with Manning's other flaws it should be enough to lose in the primaries.

It also goes to show that the Democratic Party is being pushed way further to the left. It's not like Ben Cardin is a blue dog Democrat or anything. He's a loyal and reliable senator who always toes the party line. But since he's a old white male (well Jewish, but same difference) he has to be purged from the party to make way for a MTF transgender. That's going to do little to help the impression that the Democrats are a party that has no place for white males.

I doubt it will get to that point though. It's very hard to unseat an incumbent and I doubt Manning will get much in the way of mainstream support. Cardin's fairly popular and I doubt the Democrats will want to risk a safe senate seat over a transgender felon.

If they do though, I think that Manning will almost certainly lose. Maryland is a safe blue state, but not that safe. Cardin won with 55% of the vote in 2012, and I am guessing there will be defections if Manning is the candidate. Manning's felony conviction alone will probably cost at least 5% of the vote and I am guessing the fact that she is transgender will lose here another 5 or 10%. Just like the Republicans with Roy Moore and Joe Arpiao, the Democrats too are finding new and creative ways to lose.