A Story About a Committed Local Democrat, and an Operation That Insured Wins

Things were honestly a mess. There was lots of infighting, of which I was somewhat guilty too. We were at a local Democratic Executive Board meeting in Allentown, and Murat Guzel made a pronouncement- his priority, moving forward, was victory in both County Executive races, and the Allentown Mayoral race. The next day he summoned those of us involved to his office and put together a plan to coordinate our ticket, across county lines, at all levels of the ballot, to turn out our vote and win. He didn't just put resources behind it- he actually got out on the ground and knocked doors with the candidates and checked in on his work. He hired myself and Celeste Dee (of Advantage PEP) to do the management, and Josh Siegel (former Allentown Mayoral candidate) to be the field director. The order was to work with the whole ticket, to make sure any candidate that wanted to be a part of the effort was.

In Lehigh County, the main issue was coordinating across different level races, and getting out a county wide mailer to go with all of the district and local level ones. In Northampton County, it was literally just to cobble together a ground effort to turn out the voters we needed. Everything from running canvasses across several organizations, on down to making sure yard signs got out on the roads was a part of the task. Were there fights? Yes. Were there turf wars? Yes. Were there hard feelings? That goes without saying. The job got done though. The resources were there, pooled together from all levels of the ticket, and we mostly were able to silo off parts of the turnout operation to those best equipped to do it.

People can pontificate and grumble about who and what they didn't like, but let's look at the end results- a historic margin and turnout in Northampton County for Lamont McClure and the four council candidates entering with him, a shocking 5% win for Phil Armstrong in Lehigh County, and victories in townships like North Whitehall, Lower Saucon, South Whitehall, Palmer, Bethlehem Township, Upper Milford, and even Bangor. Winning is good, and while we certainly had a more favorable condition on the ground this year than last year, catching that wave and winning some of the tight races in these municipalities and counties takes organization.

Murat's model is one that should be copied and replicated in other places- it was inclusive and not restrictive to any of the partners involved. You could very equally apply credit to local Democratic Party clubs and candidates for what we did, to progressive groups and labor unions alike. Everybody played a part, and the labor was split up reasonably to make sure everyone could get it done. Republican strongholds were falling because Democrats were organized and did useful stuff. It was a well put together plan.

Everyone should thank him when you see him. We need to start thinking this way in the long term.