Signing Up for the Long Haul

At the overflowing Town of Ithaca Hall last night, just as I was thinking, "Where the hell were all these new people when I was desperately trying to get anyone at all to canvass Ithaca for John Plumb's campaign?" a new 20-something member stood to give an impassioned prepared statement to the Democratic Committee. She admitted that her generation had taken us (meaning the aging grunts of the committee) for granted, but begged us to make a place for them, because they truly wanted to be Democrats.

Now, our committee is different from other county committees in NYS in that it is by-and-large further to the left than most. I couldn't toss a spitball and not hit a Bernie supporter in that room, many of them older than I am. He won by 4,000 votes in our county's primary. Even in our most conservative districts, he beat Clinton.

So we are not the middle-of-the-road, stodgy Dems that some millennials expect us to be based on our gray hair and mom jeans and inability to manipulate Google Docs. We're a bunch of old hippies and feminists who fell into Party politics through the back door and stuck around because it was a way to have intelligent conversations about issues and do some good at the local level.

That being said, the new faces are exciting to see. I hope they won't be bored to tears by grassroots local politicking, which tends to focus on bridges and water mains and potholes rather than immigration and foreign policy and trade. We do important stuff. Hell, we turned Dryden into a Democratic town and got Democrats onto the perennially Republican town boards of Newfield and Groton! It's a slog; it takes time. But it's worth it.

In other news, our speakers from the ACA presentation are taking their show on the road, first to Owego. I'd like to get them out all over the state; they were wonderful!