This seems to be the thesis and part of the organizing motivation of Sussex County Democratic Chair, Mitch Crane. Mitch spoke to Don Flood at the Cape Gazette some days back, explaining why he thinks that focused effort now in establishing the Democratic Party and in getting more seats in local government is crucial to the long term health of the party:
“By the next census it is very likely that a majority of the people of Delaware will be below the canal,” he said. “And the census after that they [the majority] may very well be in Sussex.”
It’s not going to happen overnight. Crane is referring to the 2020 and 2030 censuses. But Democrats can’t be complacent.
“If the Democratic Party doesn’t build in Sussex,” Crane said, “they may start losing statewide elections.”
Sensible, of course, and I’d bet that the remaining *sensible* Republicans are even happy about this. Competitive Democrats in Sussex should help to marginalize the wingnuts that are giving all of the rest of them a bad name. Still, it is very hopeful that the Sussex Dems have a strong and focused leader, taking a long term view to party viability. He’s been recruiting for 2014 already (a thing we’ve discussed here previously) and working with the State Party to ensure that Sussex voters are not an afterthought. They’ve got some targets mapped out and certainly they are starting early enough to create some viability for their candidates. This is really hopeful, and since it is Mitch Crane we’re talking about, likely to be successful too.
The rest of the Party committees could benefit from some of this thinking — especially for long-term party building and candidate recruitment. It is very easy for a party so clearly in power to take that for granted. Giving people a reason to keep voting for you, keep writing checks and volunteering is an important exercise for the rest of the State too.