Up in Plattsburgh at the North Country DFA meeting we were having a discussion of who were the old guard Democrats you have to work through to get things done in the party in Clinton County. Like any organization that has people of large differences of experience, it can be a challenge to work with these Democrats who are often quite ideologically different then us.

One obvious difference is when people got into politics. You can sum the major Democratic Party old guard people into three groups:

• Truman Democrats from the 1950s and 1960s (Believers in FDR's Economic Justice—World War II vets)
• Kennedy Democrats from the 1960s (Believers that we are in a New Frontier—Life long civil servants)
• Eugene McCarthy / McGovern Democrats from the late 1960s & 1970s (Anti-war progressives burnt out and coming back just now)

Most of the Democrats that are still members of our party (ie. not the dixiecrats who mostly became Republicans), are relatively progressive, despite their appearances. Many of these Democrats have been members of the party for a long time, achieved elected office, and done many things, but may have been limited by the pressures of politics.

It is fustrating to have to go to these seemingly irrelevant old Democrats to get things done. Yet, as they have been around here longer, and have achieved great things, they know how to get things done. At the same time, we must also push them to reinvigerate their progressive and pragamatic politics, and to try to work towards greater social change as they did as young campaigners.

We need to go back to the McCarthy and McGovern Democrats and get them back into the process and making progressive change happen. Many were alienated years ago by their losing candidates, or a political process that didn't seem to benifit them like those who supported more mainstream candidates like Johnson or later Carter.

We need to celebrate our diversity in our party, and realize even our elders sometimes are right or just have a different perspective on the issues of the day. We need all these people, from Truman Democrats through the new Democrats to lend us a hand towards taking our country back into the right direction. We may need always agree, but these people's long support to our party has been very benifical.