Sticking Together

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Think about it for a moment. Democrats in deep red districts tend to stick together. Without money or voters, we rural Democrats accept stranger bedfellows than if we enjoyed a comfortable majority.

Accepting is one thing. Sticking together, though, is a higher standard, at least in the sense of building structures. We have only a couple of examples where LPO’s (counties and LD’s) are able to survive the turnover of key individuals. Institution building is demanding and most of us do not make the grade.

We have even fewer examples of where local parties build reciprocal support with their neighbors, where parties reach out to share and mentor neighbors undergoing the recurrent turnover of personnel.

Two examples come to mind. The north central Democrats led by Karen Keleman from Douglas County have developed extraordinary structures to coordinate with Chelan County and to elevate neighboring county parties and LD’s.

The other example is LD 19 led by Amber Rosewood. Amber is lending organizational leadership to the county parties in LD 19 to help build their own capacity.

Karen and Amber mark two different waystations on the road to durable party institutions. Naida Spencer of Spokane is at the starting gate. She is just beginning and has no guarantee of success. Tim Copeland of Walla Walla is right there with her.

Please watch our discussion with Naida, Tim, and others as they share their stories of success and failure in keeping our fragile parties moving forward.

Don Schwerin is the Chair of the Ag and Rural Caucus of the Washington State Democrats. He is a former State Committee Person for the Walla Walla County Democrats.