CHAIRMAN'S MESSAGE

Welcome to the Clarion County Democratic Party website.  My name is Paul Woodburne.  It is my honor to have been elected to be the chair of the Clarion County Democratic Party.  I came to Clarion County from Riverside, California in 1998, to begin my career at Clarion University.  I have been a registered Democrat all my life but have not always been active in local politics.  This changed during my time in Pennsylvania, especially because of former County Chair Bill Miller.  Bill and a small cadre of very dedicated people kept the Democratic party alive in Clarion County for nearly twenty years before he was able to hand the reins to a new generation.  As part of this new generation, I was approached to become a precinct chair in Shippenville.  Gradually, I became more involved.  I worked on Braxton White's campaign for school board and for county commissioner, as well as going door to door for other candidates for judge and for the state legislature.  I began to meet the good people who make up our local party, who are working tirelessly, in daunting circumstances, to make a positive difference in the lives of the residents of Clarion County, and knew I wanted to do more. 

 

I know that any success I may have in this position, and any success the party may have in the county, is due to the work and dedication of Bill Miller and, after him, Joe Billotte, both of whom prepared a very solid structure for me to build upon.  I hope I do them proud.

 

Sometimes it may not seem like it, but Democrats exist across every corner of the Commonwealth of PA.  We feel alone, but we are not.

 

One of the best distillations of what it means to be a Democrat today was given by then-Senator Barack Obama in his keynote speech to the Democratic National Convention in 2004.

 

In this speech Senator Obama talked, in broad strokes, about how intelligence and drive are equally distributed in society, but how power and opportunity are not. He spoke about support for unionization, a healthcare system that takes care of people, a livable minimum wage, and the basic belief that a well-intentioned government can go a long way to making power and opportunity are more equally distributed, so that everyone has a more equal chance to achieve the American Dream.  He spoke about the democratic ideal of making sure that no group is discriminated against, that, even in the dark days of 9/11, we did not let xenophobia take over, and did not allow people look different, or have different religions, to be rounded up without due process. 

 

When Senator Obama spoke, the “Me Too” movement had not taken root in the national consciousness.  Nor had the ongoing discrimination against LGBTQ people entered the national dialog.  We thought the right to a woman's personal bodily autonomy was a settled thing.

 

To these issues, especially in light of the killing of young Black men and women at the hands of authorities, we can add the belief that government and the instruments of power are not to be used in a coercive manner, but to equally to truly protect and to serve all people, of all races and genders.

 

Sadly, in the years 2016 to 2020, we saw police powers used coercively against people of color.  We saw mal-intentioned governmental policies aimed at LGBTQ people, people of color, women, and those marginalized by society, in ways that had not been seen in many of our lifetimes.  As has been recognized by Senator Obama, and by Martin Luther King, Jr, and by many others, the loss of a right by one person makes us all less free. 

 

In June, 2022 ‘Roe’ was overturned.  The former president, in his current campaign, has taken great pains to boast about how he got this done.  A right to bodily autonomy, something that we thought was settled law and had been for over 50 years, has been taken away from half the population.  Imagine how much less free we all are when a right is taken away, not from one person, but half of the people.

 

It may seem that our little county Democratic Party in our small corner of Pennsylvania cannot do much in the grand scheme of things, to right the wrongs deliberately inflicted on the marginalized, those of different faiths, those of no faith, people of color, women, LGBTQ people, and other targets. 

 

The good news is that we can.  We must organize, we must stand together supporting each other, in our differences, or, really, because of our differences.  When one of us is unjustly discriminated against, we all lose some of our protections from an unjust government.  We care, in a deep and abiding way, about all people; one person or one group's success means we are all more successful.  One person who cannot buy the needed prescription for a sick loved one makes us all poorer.  When a woman or LGBTQ person loses their rights to self-determination and bodily autonomy, we are all a little less secure, in a really fundamental way, in our own selves.  One person who cannot trust that the police are on their side means we are all a little less trusting of police, when we need them most. 

 

Locally, this means that we work to elect Democratic city and borough council members, school board directors, County Commissioners, and the like.  We work with other like-minded groups to maintain integrity in elections, to eliminate gerrymandering.  We believe that the people should choose their elected officials, not the other way around.  We work with these groups to protect the environment because we understand that protecting the environment means protecting our air, our children, improving living standards, and that we can create jobs AND have clean air and water, and still be able to use the great outdoors for the recreation to which we have all become accustomed.   We work with these groups to create a rational system to pay for K-12 education because we know that doing so will give our children the best chance to get ahead and achieve the American Dream.  We know that this will go a long way to encouraging employers to locate locally and hire our people.  People with good jobs and decent incomes become good citizens, have a future they can look forward to, may be people we may disagree with politically, but with whom we know we have a lot of common ground, and can be friends with despite any political differences.

 

In order to maintain our democratic ideals, and see them realized, we need to reaffirm our values and commitments, to hold them against the reality we see around us, and recognize we have much work to do.

 

The Clarion County Democratic Party has a need for volunteers.  We can use your help, your vision, your drive, determination, and energy.  We have a lot going on, and we can do more, the more people we have to help us.  We know that democrats exist in every corner of Clarion County.  We are currently in the minority in this area.  We were not always so, and we need not remain so. 

 

The current Democratic Party platform includes the following: protecting Americans recovering from the pandemic, building a stronger and fairer economy, achieving affordable universal health care, reforming the criminal justice system, combating the climate crisis, promoting environmental justice, strengthening democracy, reforming the immigration system, and providing good education in every zip code. 

 

Locally, we cannot achieve all these goals, but we can work on as many as we have the energy and people who can and want to do so. 

 

Please come and assist us.  We can be reached at www.clarioncountydems.com, and at info@clarioncountydems.com.  We can be found on Facebook at Clarion County Democrats, and on Twitter at @clarionDemocrat.