Montgomery County Young Democrats Elect New Board // Dueling Slates Drove Membership Surge

Maryland Juice attended the Wednesday night meeting to elect the new board of the Montgomery County Young Democrats. Below we print a press release from the winning candidates, along with their photo:

PHOTO (left to right): Kelly Holleran, Abe Saffer, Alexis Reed, Dave Kunes, Nik Sushka, John-Ubong Silas, Amit Mistry

Before printing the MoCo Young Dems' press release, let me first remark that their election was a fairly interesting affair. For starters, the incumbent president Barbara Henderson ran for re-election, but she faced competition from Dave Kunes and Peter Dennis, who both ran on slates with other candidates. The competing teams had campaign literature and social networking strategies, and at times some candidates even appeared to be sniping at each other in their speeches.

NEVERTHELESS, the competition drove turnout and appeared to have created a surge in new members for the organization. Hopefully some of the folks who showed up to support their candidates might stay involved in Democratic activism. In any case, congrats to the new team (whose slate members swept all of the offices) -- and kudos to the outgoing board and the other competitors for bringing new energy to the Party.

MONTGOMERY COUNTY YOUNG DEMOCRATS
ELECT NEW EXECUTIVE BOARD 

Eight-member team pledges to spend two year term
strengthening youth civic engagement. 

Bethesda, MD – The Montgomery County Young Democrats (MCYD) elected a new executive board on Tuesday as the organization intensifies its work to elect progressive Democrats across the state in 2012. The newly-elected officers – President Dave Kunes, Executive Vice President Alexis Reed, Director of Communications Abraham Saffer, Director of Programming John-Ubong Silas, Director of Membership Kelly Holleran, Director of Finance Amit Mistry, Secretary Nik Sushka and President Emeritus Barbara Henderson – represent the diversity of Montgomery County’s youth.

The new executive board ran on a five-point plan of making MCYD more transparent, intentional, effective, inclusive, and empowering. “One of our biggest challenges during our next two years will be to create a  model organization that truly reflects and represents the active, passionate, and hard-working community of young Democrats here in Montgomery County,” said newly elected President Dave Kunes. “Montgomery County needs to do its part to activate new voters to help address the steep dropoff in young registered Democrats the state has seen since June of 2010. The executive board and membership are dedicated to work tirelessly with all  the past, current, and future members of MCYD to ensure that we are heard.”

Montgomery County Young Democrats holds monthly membership meetings.


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P.S. Maryland Juice urges the Young Dems to push boundaries (ie: "act your age"), since many non-Young Dems lack the stomach. Perhaps a trial with online voting next time? :)