Among my many identities, Daddy Democrat is a committee member for the Delaware County Democratic Party. Tonight was the belated nominating convention for the 2007 court and municipal elections.

For starters, State Representative Bryan Lentz (PA-161) was NOT in attendence. He and his wife Jennifer are celebrating the birth of their baby boy Joseph Thomas Lentz–today! So when some future opponent tries to make an issue of the fact that he wasn’t in Harrisburg to vote on important ethics reform legislation, remember that he was demonstrating his family values and attending to job #1. A heartfelt congratulations to the Lentz family.

It turns out there were no endorsements to come out of the nominating convention. Anyone who knows Delco Democratic politics knows that the party is highly fractured. We get behind the same candidates up-ticket, but there’s significant tension over the management of the party at the County-wide level under the leadership of County Chair Cliff Wilson. Last year, Wilson barely survived an internal challenge from Radnor Democratic Chair Bruce Bikin. The vote was 163-161.

For sure, Wilson had his hand-picked cast of regulars who routinely fail to raise money and seriously contest County Republicans. Nether Providence Democratic Committee Chair David Landau was one of the upstarts who filed hundreds of signatures on petititions to enter the race for County Council. (Landau was also most recently the senior campaign advisor to Joe Sestak’s successful congressional campaign.)

It’s unknown at what point Wilson saw the writing on the wall, but Landau had a lot of supporters in the room. Wilson made a speech in which he said that elections shouldn’t be decided by “the plutocrats” and said power should be returned to the people. Representatives from each of the two camps of the party made a motion to forego endorsements and have an open primary.The vote was unanimous. Okay, there was one vote in opposition, but it seemed to come from back near the bar area.

So now candidates will have to work to introduce themselves to the voters. In my mind, this is a good outcome. Yes, primaries are expensive, and divert races away from general elections. On the other hand, an active primary might actually alert area Democrats to the municipal and county elections in 2007.

Landau gave a very good speech. For what it’s worth, I was also impressed by presentations from Lansdowne Mayor Jayne Young, and former Chester Councilwoman Patricia Lewis-West. Newly minted Democrat Rocco Polidoro, who has been a figure in local politics for some years as an “Independent Repubican,” and gets points for the help he gave to Joe Sestak last year. But he didn’t give a good explanation as to why he couldn’t be a Democrat for the 20 years in which he was combating the Charlie Sexton machine in Springfield. He might have been forgiven this character flaw, except that he repeatedly antagonized the audience by calling us the “Democrat” party, just like he who shall not be named.