Where has the time gone? 15 years ago today, I was elected DA for the first time. I was 37 most of that year, 1999. Much has happened since. Elizabeth and I had celebrated our 10th wedding anniversary (while I was campaigning), now we just celebrated our 25th. Our son was 7 years old in, perhaps, 2nd grade. Now, he holds duel degrees from Lafayette College and is in law school at Duquesne. Our daughter was 6, tinnie tiny with white-blond hair, and her little red jacket, fitting perfectly in the crook of my arm and becoming the darling of photogs everywhere. Now she is 21, holds an AA from Montgomery County Community College, having won two graduation prizes from Souderton HS in writing and is studying fashion merchandizing at Philadelphia University (widely known as tops in this field nationwide). We still have that nearly hairless cat (now well-over 16 years old) which insiders will remember was the subject of much mirth in a debate where it turned out I had prosecuted, as an assistant DA, a burglary at the home of my fall election opponent. Entries in the police report said that the victim (my opponent) asked for leniency, but a Montgomery County judge thought home burglars should go to jail, and this one did with me standing there. I never did actually kick that cat who has become so fat now he looks, literally, like a rugby ball with ears. While the DAs Office hummed smoothly around me, more campaigns, the disintegration of the once might county GOP along festering lines of civil war going back to the early 90s, that spread to the state, and the loss of every statewide, non judicial office, except the governor and lt. governor. The pivotal AG primary in April 2004, where voters chose now-Governor Corbett over me in what we all knew was the dress rehearsal for governor in 2010 (impressively won by then-AG Corbett). 2007, and the defection of an incumbent commissioner, massive political corruption, a grand jury, an arrest, the tossing of two incumbent commissioners from their re-election tickets. Row office losses, changing majority commissioners, and then the rebuilding of public trust after the scandals. A total of 5 election campaigns for me in that time, and another looming next year. Now, at 53, banged and battered a bit, but still standing, I wonder what the next 15 years will bring? Will the hyper-partisanship the public has come to loathe, but political parties insist on providing, continue? Or will the concept of governing together for the greater good return to center stage? Will we Republicans in Pennsylvania and Montgomery County try to win general elections? Or just primary elections? The latter proves a point. The former gets candidates into office. Are we trying to win, or settle old scores? I dont know. Thats what is so exciting about the future, right? We can learn from the past or not. And then, again, look back and see whether we learned looking through the prism of time. I wonder. Here is that cat now, along with how I looked 15 years ago and today. It isnt just the cat who got bigger...hopefully some wisdom has crept into me too.
Posted on: Sun, 02 Nov 2014 16:22:13 +0000
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