Thursday night I had the wonderful experience to attend my first meeting of the Montgomery County Democratic committee as a member of the Area 1 Democratic Committee. I, along with 340 other fellow Democrats, got to hear speeches from the State Reps and Senator as well as a speech from
Lois Murphy and former Rep. Joe Hoeffel. Each speaker laid out their vision of the Democratic Agenda for 2006 and I'm very excited.
First, A little more about the County:
Montgomery County is one of the counties boardering the city of Philadelphia. It is the birthplace of the first Speaker of the House,
Frederick Muhlenberg. As well as a major battle ground area for the Democratic party. The campaigns of
Lois Murphy (PA-6),
Joe Sestak (PA-7), and
Patrick J. Murphy (PA-8) all touch Montgomery County and the rest of the nation.
The committee was there to elect new party officals as well as a way to meet and greet many of the current Mont. Dems currently in office.
A keynote address was given by former US Rep Joe Hoeffel. He stressed the idea that both the Federal and State Republican party was a party of hypocrite. Their policies are failures and they always hide those failures behind the empty messages and decisive actions (see Gay Marrage). The Republican message of "Family Values" was nothing more than a policy of hatred and bigotry. This was a common theme amoung all the other speakers as well. One notable line from Joe was something to the effect "If they want to save marrage, then they should stop cheating on their wives." This got a HUGE response. He also stressed the need for all Democrats to stand up and defend ourselves.
Following him, there was an address from the County Chair. His message was straight forward and understandable. We are the party of personal freedom. We are the party that cares about people. We care about the elderly, we care about the young, we care about poor, we care about everyone. He also spoke about his travels with Bob Casey Jr. One interesting thing he said about Bob was that he has strong personal values, but does not believe in forcing those values on everyone. This was a message to those people that were nervous about Casey's Pro-Life stance and I took it to mean that Bob can be counted on to do the right thing.
Following the chairman, we were addressed by State Sen LeAnna Washington, State Reps Lawrence H. Curry, Michael Gerber, Josh Shapiro, and Daylin Leach. Of all the Reps, I felt Daylin Leach was the best speaker. He extremely motivated, fun, and yet very serious when dealing with a serious issue. All of them linked the current gay marrage bans to hatred and bigotry. Many linked the current fight to the fight for civil rights. All of them spoke on the State Republican party's goal of write bigotry into the state Constitution and how it needs to be stopped. In general, I was impressed with the message. I look forward to seeing it used more in the future.
About the current trends seen inside Montgomery County: The Chairman felt that the Democratic Party was making strong in roads within the county. He described it as a massive sea change not seen in the state since 1949 when Philadelphia switched from a Republican city to a Democratic city. He pointed to the increased competativeness of the many of the races. Furthermore, this turnover was starting to spread to other counties as well. He used the recent upset in Chester County as an example.
Once the meeting was over, I had the opportunity to speak with my fellow Area 1 Democrats. We introduced ourselves and discussed our plans for the next several months. They were extremely happy I was there and were happy with the new blood. I had the opportunity to speak with another woman who is new as well. We both live in the same small town and expressed hope at the prospects for it. To many people who live here and pass through, it is seen as an old manufacturing town that is slowly moving downhill. However, we both talked about the great potental we saw in it and how much we wished we could invest more into it.
In the end, I really came out of it very excited. We really have the chance to turn the State and the Country around and I am excited to be a part of that.