Who Are The New Dems?

Blogger's Note: Most of you have probably noticed that the Northampton County Democratic Party has been ripped apart. On one side are the Joe Long Dems, whose autocratic style strikes many as undemocratic. On the other side are the New Dems, people like Jeff Stoffa, who detest back room cliques and believe the person might sometimes be more impartant than his party.

I'll have much more to say about the rift between the Joe Long Dems and the New Dems on Friday or Monday, but for now, I'll share an essay written by New Democrat Jeff Stoffa. What do you think?

Much is written about when the Baby Boomers will retire from government and business and let the next generation take over. Though I think the baby Boomers will have to be dragged by their feet into retirement - fingernails leaving permanent marks in the pavement - time waits for no one so that day will eventually come. When that day comes and my generation takes over the Norco Democratic Party, what will it be like? As a New Dem, I have some ideas:

They will be less provincial. I don’t know people of my generation who argue which side of the railroad tracks in Northampton has the better community. We have 500 cable channels, reality shows, more travel, growing up with Rt. 78 and the Internet Many of us commute to New Jersey and New York to find good paying jobs. We move away to big cities to learn about the outside world yet and then return to Norco.

My generation is more apt to think about the big picture and the larger community as a whole, not one borough getting it over on another for a bigger piece of the County pie. This is an advantage, but it has its drawbacks, too. The main drawback is that I worry that the GenXers will have less interest in local politics for the same reasons, abandoning local decision-making to people of limited intelligence, education, and talent.

This is one of the crises facing the Democratic Party in Norco today. That’s why I support the broadcast of County and City Council meetings on TV or the Internet to spark some interest with my generation. We need more accountability and transparency. Without that, everything else is a joke.

When I lived in Miami, everything from city councils to County Councils to State hearings were broadcast. I once watched the Coral Gables City Council on TV argue for two hours over whether or not an oak should be cut down on Sidonia Ave., complete with slideshow, pointers and all. County Council discusses much more important topics than that and the public is banned from watching their money in action from the comfort of their own homes.

The backroom cliques will die off and the Party will stop endorsing during primaries. The Norco Democrats’ secret meetings at bars in Nazareth to groom who they want to run sends chills up my spine. It reminds me of Cheney having his secret meetings with the oil companies or Rove just doing daily business during the Bush Administration. For those knowledgeable of history it reminds us of the way Democrats (and Republicans) did business back before television was invented and the candidates actually were picked at the Convention by cigar-smoking white males in backrooms. Times have changed, and I think the Norco Democratic Party is stuck in a time warp that actually predates even their own Baby Boom generation. Facebook, Blogs, Twitter, MTV Rock the Vote, campaign websites, even the Nixon/Kennedy debates have all come and gone and the Norco Dems are still in the backroom with their cigars and their beer, picking doomed candidates even before they themselves declare interest in running. I don’t know who in my generation will keep that tradition.

I still don't understand the precedence for or the logic in endorsing everyone but my father and Will Power this past month. Why not let the Primary work itself out with the Party encouraging more candidates, but endorsing none? Then the Party should help the winning candidate in the general election. Would Howard Dean endorse Hillary before she even decided to run, shutting Obama out? Where would the National Dems be if they ran their show the way Norco Dems do? Well, just open up the local and national section of a paper to find out.

The Unions will, unfortunately, have less influence. I’m no stranger or opponent to unions. My grandfather Stoffa was a coalminer and a lifelong Republican and Union man, United Mine Workers of America to be exact. He lived and died for John L. Lewis and thanks to him my grandfather’s workdays were cut down to 8 hours and he got “Black Lung” compensation from the government in the 1970s. His brother died and was mutilated in the mines due to unsafe work conditions. I know this because I found a picture of his body in an open casket surrounded by his Union brothers. But times have changed in Pennsylvania and so have unions. Silk mills are condos, the Steel is a casino, and the coal mines are museums. My generation works at jobs so middle-management and diverse and newly concocted that even Monster can’t keep up with them, despite having 13,000 job categories. Unions who blow up giant inflatable rats because they're getting a 7.5% annual raise instead of 10%, while enjoying government benefits that far outshine the lousy insurance we in the Corporate world get, will only further separate themselves from mainstream Democratic influence and make them more irrelevant than they already are.

We must recognize that, especially in local races, the person is more important than the party. I will vote for some Republicans in November. Democrats like Joe Brennan or Rich Grucela, who will endorse a Republican now and again, should have that independence.

Everything I disliked about the Bush Administration, I am shocked to find in the local Norco Democratic Party: bullying, thuggery, closed door meetings, special interests, limited education, talent, and experience, sense of entitlement. In contrast, Republicans like Peg Ferarro and John Cusick reminded me much more of Democrats on the national level: civil, educated, polite, and reasonable. Unless something changes dramatically, I will be voting for some Republicans this November for the first time in my life. If you told me that when I was living in Miami handing out flyers for Hillary, I would have told you that you were crazy. But I hadn't heard of Joe Long, Ann McHale, McClure or Dertinger back then.

My father, ironically, is a new Democrat despite his age. You’d never think it by the way he dresses or acts or moves, but he is. We rarely disagree politically. He liked Obama before hardly anyone else did and he said the War was a big mistake when Michael Moore was the only one else pushing that opinion. I liked Hillary. That was the only political argument he ever had with someone 30 years younger than himself. But he embraces all the new advances of his party, even those he hasn’t quite mastered. He still gets a little lost in Facebook but he insists on having a group for his campaign because he knows that’s where the future is going.

He learned a lot when Hillary and Obama came to town. When my girl Hillary came to town, her people courted my father night and day. The day I saw her at Liberty High, I went without Dad. I hooted and hollered for Hillary. Dad stayed home, making his tenth call to the Obama offices, reminding them he wanted to endorse the big “O.”

At the Hillary rally, my girl was flanked by Rendell, Cunningham, Callahan, the whole feudal Democratic posse, just like Dems have done for generations. Dad sat home waiting for Obama to call. Obama never did. Obama did come to town though that day. As I was pulling out of the parking lot in Downtown Bethlehem I saw people running toward the BrewWorks on Main St.. He came unannounced and had a beer, surprising some locals sipping their Yuenglings.

Obama won. My girl lost. But Hillary did things the old way. There was a reason why Obama snubbed my father. He wanted to win and he knew that working the Democratic feudal system with the governor-bishops and mayor-knights and County executives-castles and Union head-pawns all taking their rightful places by Hillary for Channel 69 wasn’t going to work with the new Democrats that were going to decide the new President. Obama did it on his own, using young people and technology and online donations that surpassed any amounts known to Dems in the past. He went straight to the people, ignoring Rendell, Callahan, Cunningham, and Stoffa too, deciding instead to have a beer at the Brew works with some alcoholics who were drinking at noon on a Sunday. More power to them.

Is my father bitter? No. He learns from history and I hope Hillary did, too, because I’d still like to see her be President someday. Running for re-election, my father has a blog, a Facebook page, video interviews. He goes straight to the people and doesn’t rely on feudal politicians who snub him. That’s just how it is. He’s a new Democrat and he’s actually paving the way for the generation that will take over after him. He already told me that before he retires, he plans to create and publish a primer for young people, especially women, to learn of all the ins and outs of what to do and how to go about running for office from where to go to get mailers made to sign etiquette. (Maybe Ann McHale and Joe Long will be want to write the chapter on sign etiquette after what they've learned in this election.) I look forward to him writing that primer and I plan to be the first one to read it. Who knows? Maybe when I get myself established in PA again after so many years in the la la land of Miami, I might run too.