When I introduced Chair Anderson Clayton at a Democratic Party fundraiser this week, I told the crowd about her first meeting with Governor Jim Hunt.

I told them how Hunt and Clayton connected despite the 60 years between them.

It took me back to when I was about Clayton’s age, and working to elect Hunt governor the first time.

Judge Phil Carlton, who was with us at lunch, said it took him back even farther, to when he was even younger, right out of N.C. State and working to elect Terry Sanford governor and John F. Kennedy President in 1960.

The crowd at the fundraiser ran the full gamut, from us Geezers to Gen Z and everything in between.

Seeing them, and thinking about our lunch with Hunt, I realized that we’re all part of a great river that runs through North Carolina politics.

It’s the progressive river, the Democratic river.

It’s the river that has always lifted North Carolina up and carried it forward.

Sometimes, the river slows or runs low, gets diverted or dammed up.

But, always, a new young leader has come along – a Sanford, Hunt or Clayton; impatient and dissatisfied with the status quo, determined to shake things up and get the party moving again.

They bring in new energy, new ideas and – most of all – new people.

And the river rises up again.

That’s what Clayton is doing now, I told the crowd.

Then, she proved me right. Without notes and with passion, she delivered a rousing talk that fired up all of us.

Clayton can’t turn the Democratic Party’s fortunes around by herself, or in just two years.

But she’s got the river running fast and rising again.