If there was any doubt that many, if not most, of the members of the Democratic Committee of Lower Merion Narberth (DCLMN) were dissatisfied with their party’s leadership at the county level, there isn’t anymore. DCLMN members put on a quantitative display of their discontent in yesterday’s primary election.
While Jamila Winder, the endorsed choice of the Montgomery County Democratic Committee(MCDC), had little difficulty taking first place in the five-person county-wide race, in Lower Merion and Narberth Winder was left in the dust by Penn Valley’s Neil Makhija.
Makhija’s county-wide total placed him a distant second to Winder. But his showing was good enough to earn him a place on the general election ballot. And unless the political winds change dramatically between now and November, in January, Makhija will join Winder as one of the two majority members of the Montgomery County Board of Commissioners.
Makhija didn’t take 2nd place by a big margin.
Makhija’s 38,458 county-wide votes didn’t come close to Winder’s 54,744. On the other hand, Koch’s 31,105-vote, out-of-the-money vote total was close enough to provide a few moments of drama during Tuesday night’s count. The second-place contest would have been a nail-biter if not for Makhija running up a margin of 6,298 votes in Lower Merion and Narberth.
As it turned out, Koch only managed a fourth-place finish in Lower Merion, behind Noah Marlier. County-wide, Marlier finished 5th and last.
Makhija’s “Ground Game” in Lower Merion was impressive.
Makhija didn’t rely on his million-dollar media blitz, at least not in Lower Merion and Narberth, where he appeared to have the overwhelming support of Democratic Committee members. He won all three precincts in Narberth and 40 out of 43 precincts in Lower Merion.
DCLMN Members Found Workarounds for the MCDC “Gag Rule”
MCDC’s bylaws prohibit committee people from publicly supporting an opponent of an endorsed candidate. Interpreting that rule became somewhat complicated this year. For the first in recent memory, the committee endorsed a candidate for one commissioner’s position (Winder) but failed to endorse anybody for the second position. Winder added to the situation’s complexity by creating a slate with Kimberly Koch.
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Some committee people closely followed MCDC’s directive that they could support any of the four unendorsed candidates as long they made sure that voters knew that Winder was the endorsed candidate. Others were more creative in their approaches to keeping within the far edges of the bylaws, while at the same time signaling to voters their preferences for two candidates, other than Winder.
At more than one precinct, committee-people found surrogates to do the talking for them. At another precinct, the two committee people handed out flyers informing voters that one of them preferred Makhija and the other preferred Marlier. At the bottom of the flyer, in tiny print, it said that Winder was endorsed by “MCDC,” the assumption being that all the voters knew what MCDC meant.