I was recently elected to be the new County Chairperson of our local Democratic Party in a bright red area of PA. We’re the red stumbling block on the outskirts of the Lehigh Valley. I’m writing this to document how we are trying to rebuild our local chapter from bottom to top. I’m not going to be blaming, throwing stones or otherwise scolding those who came before me. This isn’t the fault of any one person, this was a failure on the part of many, many people; mostly through neglect and the ‘someone else will take care of it’ mentality.
I’m hoping to be able to look back at these diaries and see how far we’ve come. (fingers crossed) As well as get input from others to see how their local parties do things, what works and what doesn’t. To see how they bridge the cap between the party’s stalwarts who have been in place for decades but are no longer physically capable of door knocking, lit drops, etc and the newer members we hope to bring in who are explicitly wanting to get out there and make a difference using their feet and technology. And in case things go belly up, maybe the next person who finds themselves in my position can learn from these diaries what to do and just as importantly, what not to do.
My first order of business is to learn. Learn fast. I ended up in this position because the former head wanted to step down back in 2019 but the vice chair refused to fulfill their duty and step up. The former chair had been in his position for 10 years, a lot in his life had changed and he just didn’t have the time to do things anymore and, it seems, he was tired of everyone complaining about things, people having all sorts of ideas, but no one ever being willing to actually take on the responsibility of DOING anything. The first time I heard his response to what I thought was a good suggestion was “And are YOU willing to be the one who does this” I thought he was being extremely rude. After a few months I got it. I remember the look of shock on his face when I, a relatively new committee person responded with “Sure, if someone can tell me how.” I was immediately pointed in the direction of the parliamentarian and two of the most experienced members of the executive board. I learned A LOT. And they seemed happy to teach me, to mentor me, to have someone to share their combined institutional knowledge with.
I really want to see more of that. I want and need to recruit more people into our Democratic Party, preferably under the age of 60. And I dearly want them to be mentored by the people who have been in place for decades, some of them since Jimmy Carter was POTUS, one or two of them even longer than that.
But first things first. I have the sad duty of having to go through a list of committee people that hasn’t been updated in a very long time, figuring who is above ground (Covid was rough on us here) who has left the area, is in a nursing home, etc. and then I have to find people to replace them. I’m going to trawl through the records at the Board of Elections for the last 5 years and see who ran for office in generals and primaries but didn’t win, see if they’d be interested in having (and working) a precinct. From there I’ll start calling the Super Dems, the folks who vote every primary and election every single year. After that I’m at a loss. And fundraising…..sweet mother of mercy do we need to do some fundraising.