Let's look at these 2 statements: McClellan & Wisniewski

Full disclosure (4.00 / 1)

I'm a new member of the Garden State Equality board, which is a larger-than-life 80 people now. I'd take this position if I wasn't on the board, which if you want to traipse back through my writing history, you will see is true.  

It's not a particularly snappy signature, but here's what I think we need in the next NJ Democratic State Chair.  

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by: Rosi Efthim @ Tue Feb 23, 2010 at 22:03:43 PM UTC

You're Right, Rosi (0.00 / 0)

It is a progressive thing, now.  Many people's eyes have been opened by the Senate votes on marriage equality and people have been making statements regarding the hypocrisy of some of those senators; Turner is one I have heard lambasted (I live in her district).  Her reason for her vote is seen as inadequate and "Republican", "church-directed"; anything but a vote of her politics.

Many people I have talked to feel let down by her either specifically on this vote or see this vote as yet another in a series of poor votes by her.

Personally, I feel affronted as a constituent who emailed her office several  times over this vote and one other time for constituent help to have never received even a canned response from her office.

I also feel insulted that she has let her vote pass with a brief statement and nothing further.

I am glad to see that there will be a primary challenger.  We need new blood; progressive blood to represent us in this district.

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by: parnell44 @ Tue Feb 23, 2010 at 22:27:38 PM UTC

Wonder Woman (0.00 / 0)

delivering a bitch-slap-down.

Love it.

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by: Thurman Hart @ Tue Feb 23, 2010 at 23:09:21 PM UTC

Yes! (4.00 / 1)

Thank you, Rosi, for pointing out something that might keep some folks up at night: While they might have convinced themselves that same-sex couples are too few in number to matter, some elected Democrats will have to wake up to the fact that lesbians and gay men have friends, many many straight friends, who are as disgusted as we are. We're in this together.

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by: Alex @ Tue Feb 23, 2010 at 23:26:10 PM UTC

I've got a bigger problem with what McClellan said (0.00 / 0)

Calling Shirley Turner a star candidate, when in truth she is a washed-up, over-the-hill, hack who has more in common with George Wallace than Julian Bond is worse than Wisniewski defending the Democratic Party as a whole, the majority of which, supports marriage equality.

As much as I agree with GSE's decision to only contribute money to individual candidates, I understand the difficult situation that Wisniewski is in particularly since his ascendance to NJDSC Chairman came directly or indirectly as a result of whatever deal went down when Steve Sweeney/George Norcross and Sheila Oliver/Steve Adubato became Senate President and Assembly Speaker respectively, and while his statement was inartful to say the least, neither the LGBT community nor the progressive community are power brokers in the Democratic Party.

Until we do what we need to do to become power brokers in the party, complaining about what the NJDSC Chair says is pretty weak.  Chairman Wisniewski is the face and the voice of the Democratic Party, but he is not its brain, heart, or soul.  His primary responsibility is raising money and helping elect candidates, not assuaging the hurt feelings of individuals or groups within the party that feel left out.

I think that Chairman Wisniewski has made it clear that kissing up to us is not going to be a high priority of his.  That might be based on his own perspective on the situation or he might just be following orders either way, we have priorities of our own and only one of them should be writing angry blog posts about how the Mercer County Democratic Chair is better than the NJDSC Chair, especially when it is not entirely clear that he is.

If we want to have any power within the Democratic Party, we need to identify, recruit, and support primary election challengers to the 9 Democratic State Senators who voted against marriage equality and any Democratic State Assemblypersons who we know are opponents of marriage equality and who choose to run with the Democratic 9.

We can make all of the intellectual and/or heart-warming arguments about our issues of concern until we are blue in the face, develop arthritis, and/or acquire carpel-tunnel syndrome, but unless and until we are a threat to the power of the Democratic establishment, we are never going to be listened to, much less heard.

For Chairman Wisniewski to acknowledge that we may actually have the power to make change, we would actually have to do something to show that this might be true. Angry words are not enough.  Only angry action will suffice.

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by: Bertin Lefkovic @ Wed Feb 24, 2010 at 00:33:08 AM UTC

With all due respect, Bert (Rachel's dad) (0.00 / 0)

I strongly disagree with you.

1)   You are right that the words "star" and "Turner" are not automatically considered synonymous in Trenton - and it goes way beyond party or ideological divides.  One of the most common refrains we heard in the marriage battle was, "Please don't make me talk to Shirley, can't (various names here) do it?"  

But I don't take fault with Mercer Democratic chair Rich McClellan saying otherwise - it's boilerplate.  I agree with Rosi that Rich's statement was a genuine, very sensitive outreach to the LGBT community and I, for one, appreciate it a lot.  

2)  When you say the LGBT community isn't a power broker in the party, well first let me say true or not, how inartful.  And you're also wrong, at least in how the party brokers perceived and treated GSE and the LGBT community before the election, before the marriage equality battle, when they called us every single day about our GOTV plans, when they called us every single day asking for money.  It went beyond touching base in a pro forma way.

We were included in so many of the figurative smoke filled rooms, quite frankly, in ways we hadn't been five years ago.  At times we were the only progressives in those figurative rooms.  You, Bert, weren't in the rooms to see it - and honey, ya ain't missing much - so I understand if you wouldn't know.

The problem is not that the Democratic Party doesn't consider the LGBT community a power broker.  That is too simplistic.  The problem is that the party considers the LGBT community a power broker only before elections - when it comes to delivering money, volunteers and votes, which we sure as hell did, second only to Labor.

After the election, many in the Democratic party structure spit us out and turned their backs on us.   That idouble standard is the problem.  And that's why Garden State Equallity got fed up and decided to give only to candidates and not to party committees.

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by: Steven Goldstein, Garden State Equality chair @ Wed Feb 24, 2010 at 02:47:02 AM UTC

[ Parent ]

we have different definitions of power broker (4.00 / 1)

Inartful or not, the LGBT and progressive communities are not power brokers.  We are advocates for our issues of concern and we are assets for the power brokers in the Democratic Party that are used to varying degress to help them win elections.

My definition of a power broker is someone who has the resources at his/her disposal to force elected officials, party leaders, and other influential individuals and organizations to do what he/she wants them to do, not because they want to, but because they have no choice.  

Power brokers have the ability to create/end careers and have no qualms about doing either.  Power brokers created people like Jim McGreevey and they would have ended him if he had ever crossed them before he ended himself.

As fantastic as you are at what you do, Steven, you are not a power broker, and for good or ill (mostly good), my guess is that you probably don't want to be one.  Unlike people like George Norcross and Steve Adubato, you have a soul, and while they, like you, probably started out as advocates for their issues of concern, eventually, they realized that they could do more for themselves and their cronies and occasionally an issue of concern or two, if they compromised whatever principles that they might have had and focused their efforts on accumulating power.  My guess is that even for issues such as marriage equality and DADT, there are limits to the degree that you would compromise your principles.

That said, I don't necessarily believe that we need to compromise our principles to become power brokers, but in lieu of that, we would have to take some risks.  You more or less did that when you took a stand against the way that the LGBT community was treated by the Democrats in Trenton and announced that you would only be contributing money to pro-equality candidates.  However, that is just a baby step.

If the LGBT and progressive communities want to be power brokers, we have to stop trying so hard to get the Democratic Party establishment to like us and care about our issues and start making them fear us like the Republican Party fears the teabagging wingnuts.  Only when the Democratic establishment fears us will things like marriage equality and single payer universal healthcare become realities.

In my opinion, the only way that the Democratic establishment will ever fear us is when we have the ability run a credible primary election or party leadership challenge against any elected official or party leader who crosses us at any time in any part of the state.  It was my opinion in 2006/2007 and it remains my opinion that if we had threatened primary election challenges against any/all Democratic State Senators and Democratic State Assemblypersons who opposed marriage equality, marriage equality and not civil unions would be the law of the land today.

While such a threat may or may  not have been credible at the time, I don't believe that there were many, if any, electeds who felt strongly enough about their opposition to marriage equality to roll the dice on a primary challenge.

Obviously, the risk that we take by making such threats is that we could alienate some potential friends who are more afraid of our adversaries than us, but in most cases, those friends weren't very good friends in the first place.  However, if we are successful, we will make far more friends than we lose, and any friends that we lose can face the same fate as our adversaries, if necessary.

But by all means, continue doing what you have been doing.  You have had far more successes than failures.  And maybe it will be better in the long run for you to be loved rather than feared.  If nothing else, you will still have your principles and your soul.  There aren't too many power brokers in NJ, if any, who can say that.

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by: Bertin Lefkovic @ Wed Feb 24, 2010 at 04:27:07 AM UTC

[ Parent ]

zzzzzzzz (4.00 / 1)

I may or may not agree with this comment but i am not gonna read the whole 900 words to find out.

activist for hire.

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by: Jay Lassiter @ Wed Feb 24, 2010 at 10:56:01 AM UTC

[ Parent ]

it's only 669 words (0.00 / 0)

but Jay makes an important point, one that diarists and commenters ignore at their peril - brevity IS the soul of wit. MEGO kicks in mighty fast on the intertubes ...

Quote Samuel Clemens: "I didn't have time to write a short letter, so I wrote a long one instead."

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by: denniscmcgrath @ Wed Feb 24, 2010 at 15:00:45 PM UTC

[ Parent ]

I'm with Jay. (0.00 / 0)

Bert, I love you, you are a true blue passionate champion of equality, but honey, but your posts are so long (actually, not so much the posts, but the responses), I get SHPILKES.  

And yikes, I fell into that here, too.  Maybe we can give everyone a favor and not have a two-person back and forth with 900 word posts.

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by: Steven Goldstein, Garden State Equality chair @ Wed Feb 24, 2010 at 14:17:22 PM UTC

[ Parent ]

excuse me for giving a damn (0.00 / 0)

There is a reason that I don't go on Twitter.  I don't write in 140 character chunks.  We are all highly intelligent individuals here and I cannot believe that reading 669 words could be such a chore for anyone.  If you disagree with what I have to say, so be it, but ignoring what I have to say because it might actually take a minute or two to read is dismissive and insulting.

However, if you want me to express my point with less words, here goes.  Steven, you are not a power broker, because you kiss ass rather than kicking it.  George Norcross and Steve Adubato control the NJ Democratic Party right now because they kick ass rather than kissing it.

You have spent years going to great lengths to tell the stories of LGBT oppression under civil unions and what did it get you and the rest of the LGBT community?  BUPKES!  If you and the progressive community had gotten together and organized primary challenges against any/all opponents of marriage equality back in late 2006/early 2007, you would have marriage equality today.

All of the pomp and circumstance and pageantry that you have produced over the years mean nothing because there are Democrats in Trenton who don't give a damn about the LGBT and progressive communities and until they fear us, they never will no matter how heart-warming and thoughtful our arguments might be.

I'm sorry.  That is as concisely as I can express myself and as you can see, it generally results in me being far less tactful.  If you want my support, you'll have to deal with the verbosity.  If that is too much for you, I'll go and find some other cause to support, because to be honest, I am sick and tired of being disrespected just for expressing an opinion that differs from yours and others.

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by: Bertin Lefkovic @ Wed Feb 24, 2010 at 15:35:32 PM UTC

[ Parent ]