Brooklyn politics is a complicated mess. As one of the most populous and racially diverse communities in the nation, Brooklyn is bound to be politically complicated. I am not sure it has to be a mess, though.

The Brooklyn Democrats are split amoung various factions. The dominant faction is the corrupt Democratic Party Machine whose head, Clarence Norman, has been lopped off by his recent corruption convictions. His successor in corruption is Vito Lopez, the man who adopted a Hispanic last name to run in a Hispanic district even though he has no Hispanic ancestry and speaks no Spanish. Vito Lopez may be next in line for indictments if the Brooklyn D.A. does his job since Vito Lopez has participated in the same kinds of corruption as Clarence Norman.

My wife and I have watched the then Clarence Norman machine at work at the last Democratic County Committee meeting in Kings County (in 2004). We were naive enough to be excited to be attending our first County Committee meeting and were proud to serve the community by participating. What we participated in, though, was one of the biggest farces I have ever witnessed. First off, less than 10% of the County Committee members actually bothered to attend. The only way we had a quorum was because of the huge stack of proxy votes Clarence Norman’s people had on hand. When a motion was made to count the proxies to confirm a quorum, the motion was voted down, so in reality it was unclear whether a quorum actually existed. But the machine was in control and didn’t want poor attendance to get in their way.

What followed was a scripted farce. When I say scripted I mean it literally. Individuals were called on based on a script and those individuals read off their copy of the script to make motions, which were then voted on by a voice vote. No motion made that was not on the script was allowed. The script was followed to carry out the necessary business, to confirm the already decided upon executive committee, and then to adjourn the meeting so that the executive committee, which consisted exclusively of Clarence Norman’s followers, could meet and decide on party business in seclusion, away from all of us extraneous, non-machine Democrats.

It was only then that I realized that I was a Brooklyn reform Democrat and what the corrupt machine was really about. The machine had no interest in the vast majority of County Committee members. Its sole purpose seemed to me to be to hold power within the party.

A political machine can be a good thing, even though they tend almost unavoidably towards corruption. A good political machine delivers votes and serves the community. And one thing that impressed me very much about the Clarence Norman (now Vito “Lopez

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