Clark County democrats gather to ‘hold up the torch’

Val Ogden, a stalwart in the Democratic party, died last week, but her presence was still felt Saturday at the Clark County Democratic Convention.

“Val Ogden used to say, ‘Go, Democrats,’ ” said Brian Baird, a former U.S. Congressman representing Southwest Washington. “Can’t you almost channel Val saying, ‘Go, Democrats,’ with her hair and her smile? What she really meant wasn’t ‘Go, Democrats’ in (the sense of) ‘our team versus their team,’ but because we stand for something.”

The causes Democrats stand for, from women’s rights to health care coverage for everyone, Baird said, were vigorously championed by the party’s golden couple, Val and Dan Ogden. Nearly everyone who spoke at the convention on Saturday mentioned Val Ogden and her husband, Dan, who sat in the front row at Fort Vancouver High School where the convention was held.

“We all suffered a gut punch this week,” said Bob Dingethal, who is running for U.S. Congress for the seat currently held by Rep. Jaime Herrera Beutler, adding that another pillar in the Democratic community, local labor leader Philip A. Parker, also died recently.

Dingethal noted that Democrats weren’t the only party hosting a gathering Saturday.

“This evening, my opponent (Beutler) and her compatriots will be gathering to plot the demise of our party,” Dingethal said. “The Lincoln Dinner, as they call it, would be an anathema to President Abraham Lincoln. Lincoln described American democracy as ‘of the people, for the people and by the people,’ and would be appalled to see his party is making it ‘of the rich, for the rich and by the rich.’ … In this day and age, honest Abe wouldn’t be able to get the nomination for dog catcher in the Republican party.”

Several current lawmakers, including Sen. Annette Cleveland, D-Vancouver, and Vancouver Reps. Sharon Wylie and Jim Moeller, spoke, along with a handful of other state and county candidates.

Craig Pridemore, who is hoping to fill former Clark County Commissioner Steve Stuart’s seat, warned of the “new tide of leaders.”

Leaders, he said, “that believe community is an evil thing … that working respectfully with others is the road to ruin.”

“We’ve had our losses. … We’ve had a time to lament them and time to learn, and it’s time to get off the ground and hold up the torch once again. … We do not intend to surrender the future vitality of this community to those who believe that the only people in this county who have integrity are the people who agree with them,” Pridemore said.

When it was Rep. Moeller’s turn to speak, he spoke of the Ogden vision, which was “and remains a very simple one: progress and peace, jobs and justice, equality and tolerance.”

“Unbelievable as it may be,” Moeller said, “the Republican party is trying to turn back the clock” on every step forward the county has made in the last decade.

He listed a few: the right to choose, marriage equality, income equality, clean environment, jobs for good pay, the right for health care for everyone.

“If Val was here, she would be asking us this question … ‘Well, what are you going to do about it?’ ” Moeller said.