Friday, July 22, 2005
Keep it Fair
In the thirty-five years I've been voting, I was only a card-carrying member of the Democratic Party twice: once when my friend ran for county commissioner, and later when another friend requested my help in ousting a corrupt central labor council from its control of the county-level machine. As an outsider opposed to the national party's agenda, I only got involved when I thought I could make a significant difference in how our local government functioned.
But I also had a couple of pals who were seriously engaged in getting some pretty decent candidates elected over those decades, and I gotta hand it to 'em for their tenacity and devotion to good government. Without their efforts, things could've been a lot worse.
Now that things have pretty much fallen apart at many state and local apparati in addition to the DNC, I can see why they no longer involve themselves with party politics, but one group I remember fondly from my short exposure to the inside workings of the institution were the little old New Deal ladies who always brought the cookies and served at polling and registration tables. And now that things like Social Security and Medicare are on my radar screen in the not-too-distant future, I can sure appreciate the work these gals did over the years.
All this is just my way of saying that while the institution and bosses of the Democratic Party rightly come in for serious criticism, we need to be careful and respectful in how we critique what for many was one of the few organizations in which they could participate in meaningful civics on issues of real import.
If only for those FDR gals in the kitchen.
But I also had a couple of pals who were seriously engaged in getting some pretty decent candidates elected over those decades, and I gotta hand it to 'em for their tenacity and devotion to good government. Without their efforts, things could've been a lot worse.
Now that things have pretty much fallen apart at many state and local apparati in addition to the DNC, I can see why they no longer involve themselves with party politics, but one group I remember fondly from my short exposure to the inside workings of the institution were the little old New Deal ladies who always brought the cookies and served at polling and registration tables. And now that things like Social Security and Medicare are on my radar screen in the not-too-distant future, I can sure appreciate the work these gals did over the years.
All this is just my way of saying that while the institution and bosses of the Democratic Party rightly come in for serious criticism, we need to be careful and respectful in how we critique what for many was one of the few organizations in which they could participate in meaningful civics on issues of real import.
If only for those FDR gals in the kitchen.
