According to Peg Gibbons, the result of the voice vote last night was “overwhelming” in support of another four-year term for Marcel Groen as Chair of Montgomery County Democrats. They even gave him a standing ovation.
Sort of like a roomful of frat boys bending over for the initiation paddle smack – “Thank you sir, may I have another!” You don’t dare give voice to how humiliating and degrading it might be, you just accept it and pretend you want more. If you want to exist in Montgomery County Democratic circles, you better not cross Boss Groen.
Go ask Joe Hoeffel. Or Joe Sestak, who Marcel and the rest of the Democratic hierarchy turned their back on, allowing Pat Toomey to squeeze out a victory he didn’t earn.
Marcel has always been the kind of leader who left the organizing and the hard work to others while he and his law firm milked the connections and the spotlight that came with his party position. There are plenty of Montgomery County Democrats who will admit privately that if there had really been a motivating and organizing force at the top of the party, the county could have turned blue long before it finally happened – due almost solely to demographics rather than any efforts by Democrats – two years ago.
But Boss Groen has been happy to take credit for the county’s political shift, and virtually the entire county organization has been overly eager to kiss his ring and bow down before him, as witnessed last night.
So, for another four years, those in the trenches will continue to do what must be done, while the Czar collects his contacts and his contracts while praising the noble peasantry. In the Montco Democratic gulag, top-down politics is a way of life. And until somebody reminds party members where the real power lies, any thought of revolution is a far-off fantasy.
