Not A Machine, Right?

In an op-ed piece that appears in today's Post-Gazette, Allegheny County Democratic Committee (ACDC) chairman Jim Burn tries to argue that there is no longer a Democratic political machine here in Pittsburgh. He describes some of his efforts over the past 10 months to give his committee members "... the tools, training and technology to better engage voters on the issues and to become more involved with their communities". He tries to explain that the ACDC endorsement process exists only, "... to give the most active, faithful and engaged Democrats a vehicle to meet with candidates and vote for their favorites", and rejects the suggestion that these endorsements have any effect on the elections themselves. All of these things, he contends, mean that the days of old-style machine politics are behind us at last, despite the most obvious evidence to the contrary:

... many have attributed the fact that Mayor Ravenstahl has no primary opposition to the local Democratic Committee instead of Mr. Ravenstahl's proven popularity. Several radio talk-show hosts and news and public affairs programs have voiced concern that a small group of the city's population is deciding the outcomes of our elections. And, of course, there are cries that "the Democratic machine" is back, controlling events in local politics. Nothing could be further from the truth.

He didn't mention the bloggers of the burghosphere in there, but maybe the poor man doesn't quite understand what this whole "internet thing" is all about.

The piece itself is unconvincing. It extols a small number of rather esoteric changes made within this obscure group of political insiders, all of which are largely meaningless to the 99% of the public who don't participate (or even care to) in the ACDC. But his argument falls completely apart if you step away from the on-line version of the piece, and instead invest a couple of quarters in the on-dead-trees edition of today's Post-Gazette (which, I'm proud to say, is still delivered to my family's doorstep every single morning).

I realize that the Post-Gazette's website is exceptionally popular, and that it is accessed by a huge number of people everyday. But the print edition is still quite important, and one could rather suspect that it is the on-dead-trees version, read over the breakfast table, that finds its way in front of our city's most likely voters. The print edition is also much less correctable than the Post-Gazette's website. Mistakes made in print might be "corrected" in some obscure corner of the next day's newspaper, but most readers will never even notice them. That's why a subtle little "mistake" made by Mr. Burn, which now appears only in the print edition of today's paper, is so very illuminating.

In both circulated versions of Mr. Burn's op-ed piece, he argues that City Councilmember Bill Peduto's decision to withdraw from the mayoral primary was not caused by Mr. Peduto's failure to win the ACDC endorsement, but was instead made because he respected the many changes made within ACDC:

Bill Peduto won his first City Council election after defeating a party-endorsed candidate in the Democratic primary. This time, in running for mayor, he saw the potential added value in campaigning with the party's endorsement and dropped out after failing to win it. Perhaps he recognized the positive changes our committee is making.

For the moment, let's ignore the fact that it's completely impossible to understand what in the hell Mr. Burn is even talking about here. The important thing is that he then feels compelled to cite yet another example of the ACDC endorsement process doing great things for the people of Pittsburgh. In the on-line version that is currently available on the Post-Gazette website, Mr. Burn manages to get his facts straight (emphasis added):

Another reflection of respect for the committee's endorsement process was evident in the city controller's race. Controller Tony Pecora [sic], after losing the endorsement by one vote to Prothonotary Michael Lamb, went to court seeking to have the result overturned. He lost the case and Mr. Lamb was endorsed, but he clearly recognized the value to voters of being identified with the new Democratic Party.

But in the print edition of this morning's paper, this paragraph tells a decidedly different story:

Another reflection of respect for the committee's endorsement process was evident in the city controller's race. Controller Tony Pecora [sic], after losing the endorsement by one vote to Prothonatary [sic] Michael Lamb, went to court and ended up winning the party endorsement. Perhaps he also recognized the value to voters of being identified with the new Democratic Party.

There are only two possibilities here. On the one hand, Mr. Burn may be a buffoon and a complete failure as ACDC chairman, such that he honestly didn't know that Michael Lamb is his committee's endorsed candidate. The argument in favor of this possibility is buttressed by the fact that that Mr. Burn managed to mis-spell Acting Controller Tony Pokora's name in both versions of this op-ed piece, along with the word "prothonotary" in the print edition.

On the other hand, maybe there is a more sinister motive behind Mr. Burn's "mistake". The endorsement race for controller was a very close one. As chairman, Mr. Burn is forbidden from campaigning for anyone other than Michael Lamb, who ultimately triumphed in this contest. But perhaps Mr. Burn wasn't all that happy with the result. He may especially be unhappy with the fact that Mr. Lamb is one of the few candidates supported by local progressives who managed to secure an ACDC endorsement. Progressive candidates are never good news for the party's "machine" , but Mr. Burn is bound by the terms of his post to support one in this race.

One way around that restriction, of course, is to make a little "innocent mistake" in the print edition of the Post-Gazette, and suggest -- in a forum that more likely to be read by an older, more established, and voting demographic -- that Mr. Pokora, and not Mr. Lamb, is the endorsed candidate of the Democratic Committee. Then, once the print edition is safely out on the streets, the "error" can be corrected in the on-line edition of the paper, where younger and more progressive voters are likely to encounter it.

I admit, the sinister version of these events is a bit too tin-foil-hat for my tastes. But I also can't deny that it has a certain ring of plausibility to it, too. Dirty tricks like this aren't the sort of the thing that the leader of the "new Democratic Party" would ever participate in. But they are certainly in keeping with the history of "the Democratic machine" here in Pittsburgh. It rather sounds to me like Mr. Burn is attempting to argue against the existence of machine-style politics at the very same time that he is doing his level best to perpetuate them.

Either that, or he really is a buffoon. I can't quite decide which possibility is more disturbing.