I want to tell a couple of brief stories to help others understand what a political party machine is like. Granted, these are memories of events from when I was younger and lived in western Pennsylvania, but the mechanism is still pretty much the same. I think I can show readers who keep asking "How could those f###ing idiots have voted for Hillary when it's so obvious that it's all over?" why over a million people yesterday voted for Hillary. It's about loyalty.
If you don't know what the term "ward politics" means and if the idea of giving voters "walking around money" seems offensive to you, read on. I grew up and lived in Erie, a classic blue-collar, lunchbucket city: my dad wore a blue work shirt and carried his lunch to work five days a week at the General Electric plant where he was an inspector on the assembly line that BTW still makes the best, most efficient locomotives in the world.
First Story: When I was in college I needed a job during the summer, one where I actually made enough to help me pay my tuition. I asked my step-father for help since he was a politician (Former city councilman and mayor-- also my uncle --long story there). He made a phone call and took me out to meet the superintendent of services at Presque Isle State Park, an almost ridiculously beautiful, comma-shaped sand dune that thrust out into the (then-polluted) waters of Lake Erie. People in Erie call it "The Peninsula." Anyway, of course I was hired because of my political connections; there was never any question of that.
On Friday at the end of the first week, we went to line up and get payed. Our pay was in cash and came in a small brown envelope. I noticed that there were two lines in front of the cashier's window so after I stood in line and got my pay (I made $1.25/hour) I asked someone standing near me what the other line was for. He said "That's where you pay 10% of your money back to the democratic party." Naturally I asked if paying 10% to the party was required and he said "No, it's completely voluntary---but if you don't pay don't bother coming to work tomorrow." That weekend I got a phone call telling me that I was expected to come down to party headquarters and address envelopes. I knew better than to ask if it was voluntary.
Second Story: Like most small cities in the region, Erie was the product of successive waves of immigration from Ireland, from Poland, and from Italy (after the original Germans and English had arrived generations earlier). These new arrivals settled in ethnic enclaves, which became neighborhoods, which became "wards" or small political units. Each enclave had its Catholic church where the sermon was likely to be in the native language (especially for Poles and Italians).And each ward had its political leaders who controlled patronage. Some appointed, some self selected. Anyway, the story is that my step-father wanted to run for higher office (city council) so he knew that would do better if he could speak Polish. We are Irish Catholics. So for seven years SEVEN he went to night school three nights a week and learned to speak fluent Polish. Even I can speak it a little, although its mostly curses that I remember.
Third Story: Funerals. My step-father was almost never home at night because he was so often at a funeral home paying his respects to a family he had probably never met.He was either at Quinn's, for Irish funerals, or at a place that did Italian funerals, or Polish, or Lithuanian, and so on. When he himself passed away I was standing next to my mother near the casket when the whole administration of the city came to pay respects. Everyone at city hall. Starting with the janitorial staff and going right through to Mayor Tullio they lined up and each spoke sincerely to my mother.
*** I told these stories so that you could see some of what was and is very good and very bad about machine politics. The party helped me to pay for college so that I did not have to work in the GE factory but could after a while become a college professor. It was unfair that I got the job because of my "connections" but (for many reasons) I have been a loyal Democrat all my life.
This kind of politics has a long horizon. It does favors for people who will not be expected to pay it back for maybe a generation. It does politics all day, every day, not just every few years. It is deeply unfair to people it leaves out, like some labor unions are. But in a scrap, believe me, you would want to have these people on your side.
Some of what machine politicians do is pro-forma and, in reality, impersonal. Like going to the funeral of strangers. But I have seen many funerals where the widow would have been left alone in an empty room if it were not for party members being there. Many times.
Maybe these stories will just make you madder. I don't know. I hope they will give you some insight into the loyalties that Pennsylvania Democrats feel and that you will know that the endorsement of their Democratic governor means more to them that just one person's opinion.