Cal Cunningham has a political rsum that’s hard to top. Elected to the NC Senate in 2000 at the age of 27, he recently returned from serving a tour of duty in Iraq. Cunningham received the Bronze Star while serving overseas as part of Operation Iraqi Freedom. A captain and paratrooper in the US Army Reserves, the 35-year-old Cunningham received the medal for “exceptionally meritorious service to the United States” as the senior trial counsel in the Office of the Staff Judge Advocate, Multi-National Corps-Iraq. He presided over the largest court-martial jurisdiction in the Army and helped in supervising, training and overseeing 27 attorneys and 70 paralegals, executing criminal law missions within the Multi- National Corps-Iraq theater of operations, according to a press release issued by the Winston-Salem law firm of Kilpatrick Stockton LLP. Cunningham received the Bronze Star for his pioneering efforts with the US Department of Justice to prosecute contractors serving working for the armed forces. His work resulted in a comprehensive system for ensuring contractors are held responsible for crimes committed while in Iraq. Cunningham represents just one of a number of young political hopefuls that could help carry on “the movement” originated by President Obama’s 2008 campaign, said Frank Eaton, president of the Forsyth County Young Democrats. And the first step in bringing real change on a local, state and national level is to encourage young people like Cunningham to run for elected office.
“If we are an evolving, growing community, the best way to sustain that growth is to seed city government at all levels with new people — from city hiring to our elected officials,” Eaton said. “We’re not going to fire everybody. We’re not going to get rid of everyone. What we are looking at is a culture of incumbency that just by the numbers is a closed system to people born after 1960.” Timing is everything in elective politics and now is not the right time for Cunningham to toss his hat in the political ring, he said. But the gravitational pull of public service remains strong for the Lexington native. An internship on Capitol Hill at the age of 20 with Michigan Sen. Carl Levin first sparked Cunningham’s fascination with the political process. He said he vividly remembers former vice president Al Gore casting the deciding vote to pass Bill Clinton’s first budget in 1993. “I was sort of drawn to the thought that when the chips are down, this democracy works and the right outcome in my opinion happened because the right person was there at the right time,” he said. Cunningham also recalled an event shortly after he joined the NC Senate that highlights Eaton’s assertion about the state’s aging leadership.
Cunningham said RC Soles, the permanent chairman of the NC Senate Democratic Caucus, introduced him to his fellow senators during a dinner at a swanky Raleigh steakhouse in January 2001. “He said, ‘Let me put this in perspective.
I was serving in the Senate for five years before this young man was born.’ I said, ‘RC, I won’t hold your age against you if you don’t hold mine against me.’ So that was my introduction to the members of the Senate,” Cunningham recalled.
When he served in the Senate, Cunningham was one of only five senators under the age of 45. A visual reminder of the state’s aging leadership and the need to develop the next generation of leaders hangs inside his law office. On March 12, Cunningham leaned across his desk, squinted hard and looked at the photo of the NC Senate Class of 2001. “Fifty members and 20 of them are still involved in government,” Cunningham said. “[US Sen.] Kay Hagan and [US Rep.] Brad Miller are in the photo. That’s a majority turnover in a fairly short period of time. Some of them are deceased, and a couple of them are in jail.” Cunningham said he learned a lot about the inner workings of state government during his time in Raleigh. One of the most valuable lessons he learned informed his ideas about the older generation of elected officials and why some are averse to mentoring younger public servants.
“Those who are serving in government now, for good or for ill, got there by fighting to gain an elected position, power. So they don’t give it up easily in any circumstance, whether it be an issue of passing the torch to the next generation or whether it be yielding to the other political party,” Cunningham said. “People in government naturally pull power to themselves.”
The passing of the torch from the current generation of leaders to the next holds the key to the future success of the Democratic Party, Eaton said. Incumbent Democratic leaders at the local, state and national level must look beyond their next term, and share their knowledge and wisdom with a younger generation of public servants thirsty for the wisdom they could impart.
“We need emeritus leadership without people dying in office,” Eaton said. “There is a political language that will be lost, and with it, all of those dreams and all of those ideals.”
Future political hopefuls
Chevara Orrin serves as director of conferences and institutes for Winston- Salem State University. She is overcome with emotion whenever she speaks about public service, and how her formative experiences shaped her love of public service. As a child, Orrin said her mother,Suzanne, would take her
and her siblings by the hand and march them to school board and city
council meetings in their hometown of Memphis, Tenn. “We were six,
seven and eight and we walked to and from school board and city council
meetings singing, ‘I think I can, I think I can,’ because we had no
transportation,” Orrin recalled. “[My mother] didn’t have to tell me it
was important. Clearly, there was something going on in those meetings.
Even though I didn’t know it at the time, it was really shaping and
guiding our perspective on the world.”
The 40-year-old Orrin,
who was named after revolutionary leader Che Guevara, said she would
gladly “sit at the knee” of a local elected official who has been
integral in building a better community. But Orrin said she has sensed
resistance to engage young people in the political process coming from
those who hold position of power in Winston-Salem and Forsyth County.
“Those
of us who are interested in helping to transform the community — we’re
not wanting to pull that torch away,” she said. Orrin serves on seven
area boards and committees and has received a number of accolades for
her work in the community.
She also serves as faculty advisor
to two student groups at the university — Black Men for Change and the
Gay/Straight Student Alliance. Despite her full plate, Orrin wishes to
do more. She believes she could make a bigger impact by serving on an
elected board like the Winston-Salem City Council. In the meantime,
Orrin is committed to encouraging outstanding young people she meets
through her work at the university to get involved in community
service.
Tara Orris may one day run for public office, but for
now she’s content to use the resources of the Democratic Party in
Forsyth to aid others in their quest for elected office. Orris, who
served as a local field organizer for the Obama campaign has remained
in the area to help mobilize the Obama volunteer base to support
Democratic candidates in the 2009 municipal elections.
“ I
refuse to think that the motivation and commitment seen in the 2008
presidential election has just disappeared,” Orris said. “My experience
working on the Obama campaign was that people came to volunteer and be
involved because, yes they liked Obama, but mostly because they wanted
change. I think that internal desire is still there.”
Winston-Salem
lawyer Eric Ellison understands the importance of reaching out to young
people. Ellison helped organize Winston-Salem State University students
to campaign for Obama during last year’s presidential election. Ellison
said the onus is really on the younger generation to be more proactive
and particpate in local politics.
“If you come in show your interest, your hard work, people will respect that,” Ellison said. “Is there some resistance?
“What I found, as a young person, they didn’t see age when I did my homework and really, really learned the issues and studied them hard. When I listened to the debates and spoke measured and reasonably, they responded to advocacy,” he said. “They responded to hard work, and I have found within the political process there are a lot of well-intentioned people, but what moves the ball down the field are those that are doing their homework, listening to others and advocating their point of view articulately.
Age is a barrier but it is overcome by those things.”
Frank Eaton, president of the Forsyth County Young Democrats, is hoping to recruit candidates for the 2009 municipal elections in Winston-Salem. Eaton believes the best way to sustain the gains of the Democratic party is to engage young people in the political process. (photo by Keith T. Barber)
