Tonight we’re gonna party like it’s 1999

It looks like the mainstream media is just beginning to recognize that this election may be a signal of change to come in Pittsburgh — but so far nobody has me completely convinced….

The Trib notes that the Dem Committee fared ill this cycle,

http://www.pittsburghlive.com/x/pittsburghtrib/news/cityregion/s_508120.html

but chalks it up to people who are tired of business as usual and the Democratic Party. I don’t see this election, necessarily, as solely an anti-party vote. In fact, low voter turnout should benefit the party — supervoters tend to be older, long-term Pittsburgh residents who are accustomed to business as usual, and are used to it working for them.

The Post-Gazette gets closer, with observers pontificating on what might have caused all the change….

http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/07137/786784-181.stm

Mr. Ferlo said voter apathy allowed spirited challengers to win the day. In addition, Ms. Carlisle faces criminal corruption charges. “I think this is all progressive and good,” he said.

This makes no sense to me, since, as previously mentioned, low voter turnout should favor the old guard party structure….

“If there’s a significant amount of negative publicity, that can trump the endorsement,” said city Democratic Committee Chair Barbara Ernsberger. Mr. Koch, she noted, was swamped with stories about campaign irregularities in the race’s final week.

Also, doesn’t quite do it — as though there wasn’t significant negative publicity coming from the incumbents attacking the challengers? Also, let’s be honest, getting out information about the incumbents shenanigans takes work. The mainstream media doesn’t neccessarily have it’s pulse on what’s happening within public works, without a nudge from concerned/reformer citizens.

Mr. Peduto argued that the results represent “the transformation of Democratic politics” by a new infrastructure of progressive groups, campaign workers and candidates.

This, to me, is the most convincing argument, coupled with the idea that the Party structure, as is, is failing many voters. I don’t believe that the Democratic Party machine is spluttering on its own, but rather that it ends up looking like a Sony cassette player next to an iPod. It’s been around a long time, it’s reliable at what it does — which is to turn out a certain segment of the population that seems comfortable with the way things are because that’s the way it’s always been.

In some neighborhoods, it does this really really well. Voter numbers were low across the city, (as low as 18 percent) but with the hot race in Lawrenceville, some voting precincts had more like 40 to 50 percent voter turnout — and about 2/3rds of these voters were Bodack supporters. (Another strike against the “apathy” idea.)

But the party is not reaching out to new people who haven’t lived in Pittsburgh forever, and with its clearly undemocratic pre-primary endorsement procedure, it’s missing the fact that people who vote really like to know who and what they’re voting for — something a slate card handed out by someone in a Lenny Bodack t-shirt surely misses. The Democratic Committee seems nice, faithful; you keep it to play your old Men at Work tapes, but it’s not going to get the job done.

Pit that against a powerful progressive movement in Pittsburgh that has learned, outside of the party structure, to do good organizing work and is doing it well. It seems to me that the organizations and people that have been working to make change on a National and State level, combined with grassroots relationships created through local campaigns, have created a de facto progressive coalition of people who are providing the critical mass necessary to make real change.

Many concerned citizens met during earlier Peduto and Dowd campaigns. Kathryn Hens- Greco got others engaged. But those relationships don’t necessarily provide the long-term structure needed to get and keep voters and organizers engaged.

But now add the coalition of progressive orgs formed through America Votes for the 2004 and 2006 elections and Progress Pittsburgh — groups who are doing outreach to many more constituents on a regular basis, and you have the beginning of something big. Sierra Club, League of Young Voters, Stonewall Dems, Planned Parenthood and others worked together for good Dems in 06; it was easy to transfer that knowledge to local races.

Once you have a strong group of progressives who trust each other’s endorsements (and who are mostly endorsing the same peeps), groups of individual citizens who’ve met and hung out on other campaigns, as well as the knowledge base that comes from voter and volunteer identification in prior progressive races, the “outsider” candidates effectively have their own party. Dowd, Kraus, and Arnet didn’t seem to me to be just another ticket. They were the slate of progressives. With a team of progressives behind them. It’s not that the party is failing, it’s that it can’t compete with the energy and efficiency of people who’ve worked together to make statewide and national change — and learned how to do it outside the party. (Note, Dowd’s amazing campaign staff were both America Votes organizers!)

And of course, let’s not forget some rocking candidates who put themselves out there and worked incredibly hard to represent progressive Pittsburgh. Might the abundance of “leadership training” programs in Pittsburgh actually be working to produce, gulp, new leaders?!