The loss of my friend, School Committeewoman Janine Iengo Cook, in the recent town election was an epiphany for me. The last straw you might say.
As a proud liberal champion who fought to move education forward she lost to two conservatives — Rob Tiro and Kate Morgan. A galling loss to me because it was orchestrated by an unholy alliance of Republicans and DINO’s ( Democrats in Name Only ) — Wakefield’s historic Republican – Lite party in local elections since the rise of Richard Tisei and his recent fall after three failed attempts at higher office.
Some of the DINO’s on the Wakefield Democratic Town Committee not only did not support the sole Democrat in the race — they supported one or both of her conservative opponents. Now to be clear, the By-laws of the WDTC don’t restrict individual members from supporting Republicans in non-partisan local races. An obnoxious practice I tried to remedy years ago with a failed amendment — arguing we should not aid and abet our ideological opponents in building their farm team — mini-me, wack-a-mole, Richie Tisei wannabes. Rather, we should be about building our OWN progressive bench like Janine Cook. At that time I noted that some of our most successful progressive candidates like our former State Senator Katherine Clark and State Representative Mike Festa started their public service careers as school board members.
Well, my arguments fell on deaf ears and so, when life deals you lemons make lemonade. On the very evening of this electoral defeat I drafted my letter of resignation to the WDTC after 15 years of service — most recently as Secretary to the Executive Board. As the Gipper once said in another context : ‘ I didn’t leave the WDTC, the WDTC left me.’
But I didn’t quit the Democratic Party. On the contrary, I resolved to form P.O.W.E.R. ( Progressives Organizing Wakefield to Elect Reformers ) whose mission will be to actively vet, recruit, mentor, support and endorse progressive candidates, issues and causes regionally, statewide, nationally and internationally. But most importantly LOCALLY.
We encourage all progressive Wakefieldians — regardless of party affiliation — to join us by calling 781-245-4563 or email frichdem@aol.com or write us at: P.O.W.E.R., One Franklin St., Wakefield, MA 01880.
Upon receiving the 2015 Eleanor Roosevelt Award my friend, Congresswoman Katherine Clark, encouraged us all to keep fighting: “If we work together, continue to organize, stand up for what we believe in — we can continue to make progress together. When we face opposition, we will march on together, until we achieve equality and opportunity for all.”
Power to the people !
Fred Rich LaRiccia
Founder, P.O.W.E.R.
I ask because it rarely comes up in the town I grew up in, though the BOS chair is a known GOPer since she was twice their nominee for State Rep. I’m becoming more sympathetic to the idea of DTCs supporting like-minded candidates, though in my town that is also likely to be what many would call DINOs, but the DTC bylaws expressly prohibit the DTC from endorsing in non-partisan races. This prohibition is something I actually felt strongly about having because the committee tended to factionalize so easily making it difficult for people to work together.
at the local level. If I had to timeline it I would start in 1994 — the year Newt Gingrich became Speaker of the House and declared open war on all Democrats. That ended the era of collegiality, bipartisanship and statesmanship that had built up over the years reaching its apex with ‘Tip’ O’Neill and the Gipper.
Over time it spread like a cancer right down to the local level where it poisons the public square today destroying any opportunity for constructive dialogue to take place to solve problems working together.
Fred Rich LaRiccia
I think a big reason Republicans nationally have has such success capturing statehouses, governorships, and keeping the House is because they do a better job getting young people in the pipeline from activist to candidate to emerging leader to statewide nominee to statewide officeholder to federal officeholder. We lack a Young Americans for Freedom, we lack an ALEC working at the state level to affect progressive policy change, and we lack a local farm team able to train and build up the next generation of progressive leaders. POWER could be a great thing for Wakefield and the surrounding communities.
I have become increasingly more emphatic on supporting Dems locally. The biggest reason of course is good governance. We want people governing who share our ideology.
Beyond that there are what I call my three metaphors:
– Building the farm team. As has been said above we need to have people ready to run.
– Keeping the band together. We build our team for partisan elections, but if we stay out of local elections we often lose touch.
– NCOs. Everyone who holds elective office has a following and influence. Having Democrats as local elected officials helps us elect Democrats in partisan elections. I have seen first hand how local Democrats on our Board of Selectmen are influential when we are working together in partisan races.