POLITICS IS TOO IMPORTANT TO BE LEFT TO POLITICIANS

I  served from 1994 through June 2010 as chairman of the Delaware County Democratic Party. Upon my retirement from that office I chose to refrain from using my blog entries to analyze or criticize Democratic Party activities in Delaware County or Pennsylvania as I preferred to give my successor four years without me nipping at his heals. He has now been re-elected and four years have gone by.  I no longer intend to remain mute when I see my party moving in the wrong direction.

The political party structure in the United States is an anachronistic irrelevancy.  The party structure as modeled differently by both parties is based on precinct, municipal, county,  and state committees with boundaries often drawn in the 19th century based on rivers and streams and the ability of a horse drawn carriage to reach the central meeting place in sufficient time to allow a meeting.  It was created by most states before the inception of the direct primary in which the people chose the party candidates.   It has now become a group of permanently involved party activists who meet to choose officers and delegates to larger meetings who meet to choose officers.  This act of self preservation occurs two or four years, as the party and the jurisdiction require, and as shown in the recent PA state committee reorganization the primary concern of this structure is not who will lead the people but who will run the party. Our former Governor Ed Rendell has pronounced the verdict on the state party structure: “They have no significance, no political power, no punch.”

[The Pennsylvania State Democratic Committee turned down the proposed party chairman suggested by the state’s Gubernatorial candidate, Tom Wolf, because rather than unite the party by selecting one of the competing primary candidates as state chair along with a prominent African American legislator (as Vice Chair) the party bosses preferred to keep their friend, the current chair, in office.  In 2002, after a bitter primary, the State Comm. accepted as Chair and Vice Chair, for six months, the choices of the two candidates Rendell and Casey - Rendell went on to win and after the six months the State Committee could go back to business as usual and elect a loyal trooper to the Chair position. It only took four years of Republican control of Harrisburg for the Democratic State Committee to drop decades of party tradition and put their personal interests above the interests of the people of the Commonwealth.]

This anachronistic structure modified by the direct primary at the turn of the 20th century is out of step in every way in the 21st century.  A system designed shortly after Alexander Graham Bell invented the telephone has no structural relevancy to a society that communicates using smart phones, the Internet, instagram and varying and always developing modes of social media.  Today’s generations are more open to political discussion in chat rooms than following the dictates of bosses meeting in back rooms.

The party structure proves its irrelevance in almost every primary.  In the Republican contests tea party grass roots movements continue to topple long time incumbents backed by the party structure.  In the Democratic Party the same is often true of populist and independent candidates. Here in PA Tom Wolf defeated the party structure in the state primary with well over 50% of the vote in a four way contest with two long time opponents who had the support of over 95% of the party structure.

Whether this country continues as a two party democracy, or a multi party democracy, it must find a way to prevent the oligarchs from creating a plutocracy.  And, the only way to do that is to create a 21st century party modality.  That party infrastructure must be based not on geography (when our population is so mobile that few live in the same precinct or even municipality more than a half dozen years) nor on single issues.  It must be based on a general sharing of political values - liberal, conservative, centrist, socialist, Green, Libertarian et. al.  It must be grass roots in its membership - open to all and funded by all.  And it must rally behind candidates that reflect its values --  not seek to anoint those candidates who cater to them nor destroy their opponents but to encourage candidates who want to serve the public and educate those opponents to the positive aspects of the party’s values.

I would say we need a new political structure but nothing in history is new. Before the Civil War our political parties were much less structures and often consisted of rallies and county conventions of like minded folk. Our politicians practiced a politics of civility when in office and governing and hardball on the campaign trail.  And of course we all know there was a time when politics stopped at the water’s edge.  Since 1994 and the Gingrich revolution and the advent of Fox News we have become a nation of the politics of personal destruction.  All actions are reactions.  All politics instead of being local is now just mean and nasty.

My generation may be too old to bring back the American democratic system and revise the party system that made the governing system work.  And my generation’s children may be too cynical after Watergate and Iraq to care enough about politics to do what needs to be done.  But my grandchildren’s generation - growing up now seeing an America that accepts its diversity and leads for peace in the World may reclaim the Democracy which our founding fathers gave us and make it work again. 

22 June 2014