shared<\/a> with Sunday Times Staff Writer Jeff Horvath what she said to Kelly after the vote.<\/p>\n\u201cI went over to her at the conclusion of everything and I just said, \u2018We need you, Lexie. We need you and we need your team,\u2019\u201d she said. \u201cWe are so much stronger together.\u201d<\/p>\n
This is undeniably true, and a promising sentiment from a proven party leader insurgents should presume is sincere unless she proves otherwise.<\/p>\n
Kelly, who accepted her defeat with grace and pragmatism, said that uniting the party\u2019s factions behind Valonis shouldn\u2019t be difficult.<\/p>\n
\u201cI just don\u2019t think we\u2019re as divided as people think,\u201d Kelly said. \u201cIt\u2019s a small group of individuals that wanted to maintain a power base and 98% of us want the same thing, and those 98% of us are going to work to get it done. We\u2019re going to work to get Democrats elected up and down the ballot.\u201d<\/p>\n
This being Lackawanna County, not everyone was feeling the unity vibe. Minutes after the Valonis team\u2019s victory, some insurgents had already fallen into the tired trap of mistaking a momentary loss for an eternal defeat. A\u00a0 gentleman I encountered as I exited the Hilton Scranton and Conference Center dropped enough \u201cF-bombs\u201d to flatten the city.<\/p>\n
\u201cNothing\u2019s gonna change!\u201d he growled. \u201cAbsolutely (expletive) nothing!\u201d<\/p>\n
I understand the guy\u2019s disappointment but reject his defeatism. Much has already changed. Patrick is out and a new infusion of reform-minded Democrats he tried to purge are in. The two candidates to replace him were both women and one of them will lead the party with the goodwill and earnest counsel of the other. The Machine has never been more exposed as a rust-encrusted relic running out of grease and time.<\/p>\n
The insurgents gained considerable ground on Tuesday, but this is no time for a victory lap. The Machine is winded, but far from done setting up hurdles against reform. The entrenched insiders whose interests Patrick shamelessly served are more determined than ever to cling to power by any means necessary.<\/p>\n
The cures for chronic cronyism are more democracy, more transparency and more citizen participation.<\/p>\n
And microphones. You can never bring too many microphones.<\/p>\n
CHRIS KELLY, The Times-Tribune columnist, prefers democratic Democrats. Contact the writer: ckelly@scrantontimes.com; @cjkink on X; Chris Kelly, The Times-Tribune on Facebook; and @chriskellyink on Bluesky.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"\u201cI am not a member of any organized political party. I\u2019m a Democrat.\u201d \u2013 Will Rogers (1879-1935) Tuesday\u2019s…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":80619,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[15],"tags":[1590,6375,201,182,139,1559,1560,28,178,180,179],"class_list":["post-247509","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-scranton","tag-chris-kelly","tag-democratic-party","tag-lackawanna-county","tag-local-news","tag-news","tag-opinion","tag-opinion-columnists","tag-pennsylvania","tag-scranton","tag-scranton-headlines","tag-scranton-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/247509","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=247509"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/247509\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/80619"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=247509"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=247509"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=247509"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}