We Don’t Need Political Parties Anymore.

I had a friend named Murray — a few years older than me. He’s no longer with us but the story about how he got involved with politics deserves to be told.

When Murray was a kid in high school, he wanted to earn a few extra bucks. So, his father told him to go down to the local Democratic club in his neighborhood and ask for a job.

Which he did.

Murray was a Bronx kid, and the Democratic clubhouse was on Bainbridge Avenue, the only difference between that clubhouse and the St. Mary of Siena clubhouse down the block was that the Democratic clubhouse didn’t sell booze — if you know what I mean.

Murray’s ‘job’ was to hang out at the clubhouse after school and run errands for the ward captain and his pals. Pick up some coffee over here, take these letters to the Post Office over there, make sure to plaster the neighborhood with ‘Vote for So-and-So’ placards the week before the election, and so forth and so on.

Every Friday the guy who ran the clubhouse gave Murray ten bucks. That was serious money for a high school kid in those days.

This was how the Democratic Party was organized when the only way tp connect with voters was to go out and actually remind people face-to-face that they better show up and vote. It was called ‘working the neighborhood’ and…