That's the number of candidates there are in Philadelphia running for 3,362 Democratic committeeperson seats in the May 16th primary. I'm one of them. The Inky has this story talking about the candidates and why they're running. A good read about ordinary people getting involved.
They are running in the May primary for a variety of reasons: idealism, a desire for power, personal rivalry, or as part of the calculus of mayoral politics. So it goes every four years in the neighborhood elections that steer the course of one of the nation's last big-city Democratic machines.
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Committee members pick the party's ward leaders, who have a powerful influence on city elections. Battles for committee members' votes have generated brawls, hall-packing, accusations of kidnapping, the sudden relocation of election meetings to secret locations, and at least one state bribery investigation.
I was interviewed by Friedman for the article, but I guess my comments didn't make the cut. Oh well. Here's to idealism, getting involved and not getting kidnapped!
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