Area Democratic women aim for Obama or Clinton

By Jessica VanderKolk, jvanderkolk@altoonamirror.com
When 88-year-old Frances Walter joined the Altoona Federation of Democratic Women more than 50 years ago, the organization didn’t focus much on politics.

“We’d have nice little parties,” she said. “It was a nice organization, but I don’t think we did enough political things, which is what I was in it for.”

Today’s Blair County Federation of Democratic Women participates in local, state and federal election campaigns, awards scholarships to young women and encourages women to participate in politics and run for public office.

The group will host such discussions at Ramada Altoona Conference Center starting Thursday as women from across the state gather for the federation’s annual convention.

The convention will include networking events and workshops covering the media and women who have campaigned and entered public office.

Guests include Gov. Ed Rendell, Lt. Gov. Catherine Baker Knoll and, if local organizers have their way, representatives from the campaigns of presumptive Democratic presidential nominee Barack Obama and primary opponent Hillary Rodham Clinton, if not the senators themselves.

“I am very much in touch with the top people right now,” local federation head Jo Ann Nardelli said. “I specified that I do not want a surrogate.”

Altoona has not hosted the annual event since 1944, and the local federation is excited to have it back in this majority-Republican county.

“We have a chance at having more political figures come here and notice us,” Nardelli said, hoping it will encourage more local Democrats to become involved in the local committee and federation.

Michele Bortner, the immediate past president of the Pennsylvania federation and fifth vice president of the national organization, said the group is glad to be in Altoona and praised the local chapter’s work to make it happen.

“Quite frankly, it’s an awful lot of work for the club to plan,” she said. Each year a club bids on holding the convention in its town. “They put a bid in and the board votes on it.”

The federation, at all levels, works to further Democratic party principles and support women in achieving elected or appointed positions.

The state and local groups find these goals particularly important here, where Pennsylvania ranks 43rd of the 50 states in the level of women’s political participation and representation, according to the Pennsylvania Center for Women, Politics and Public Policy at Chatham University in Pittsburgh.

“We have some fun, but we pretty much talk politics for those four days,” Bortner said. “We try to ensure women running for office are there meeting other women.”

Bortner and Nardelli agree the timing brings excitement to this year’s convention, soon after the end of the 18-month Democratic primary season.

“I just think it’s going to be very educational, very inspirational,” Nardelli said. She hopes to see the same party unity as last weekend’s state committee meeting. “When I went to Harrisburg, a lot of the Hillary people I worked with have already changed over to Obama.”

Walter, who never attended a convention while involved with the local federation, continues to follow politics and watched news programs late into the night after the final primaries. Her only worry about party unity is women who supported Clinton.

“They were so devoted to her and didn’t see her faults,” she said. “They both have faults.”

Walter remembers joining the local Democratic committee in 1955, after attending a rally in Johnstown during later-elected U.S. Sen. Joseph Clark’s campaign.

She soon joined the Altoona federation, which later accepted women from Bellwood and Lakemont, where the numbers of interested women were too small to form new groups. The expansion resulted in the name change from “Altoona” to “Blair County.”

Walter believes the chapter folded in the 1970s. Nardelli restarted the group in 2006. Walter wishes she still could participate.

“My dad was a very active Republican,” she said. “When I registered [Democratic], I thought his heart was going to break. He told me, if that’s what I was going to register, to be a good one, and I try to be.”

Mirror Staff Writer Jessica VanderKolk is at 946-7465.