I’ve known a few Josh-es Friedman in my day, readers, but never have I known one likes…well, Josh Friedman. From just an hour Josh I spent at Uncle Julio’s by the mall, well, there are so many things of note I could tell you I learned: for example, although Josh is a longtime Maryland resident, he traces his roots back to Alabama; when we met at 3:15 p.m., Josh had already walked 14,000 steps (“Hey, we have the same FitBit, Robert,” he said, and we both held our wrists up as if to introduce our fitness trackers to each other)–and he was going on to play lacrosse that evening at 9:00 p.m.. Finally,, when I locked my keys and phone in my car, Josh stood out in the blistering heat with me until Colleen brought me my spare key.
But before the whole lockout-fiasco, we talked about what in the world Howard County Democratic Central Committee (HCDCC) is and what Josh’s doing on it.
Back when the 2018 race for DCC was in full swing, one of the many friends Josh and I share in common, and one that Josh now serves on HCDCC with, Dr. Scott Berkowitz, pointed me to this rather finely drawn, eloquently stated description of the duties, responsibilities, and mission of this arm of local government. It’s from the Carroll County Democratic Central Committee’s website, but it applies to any county’s.
I once mentioned DCC to a good friend of mine, Rebecca Waranch Rothman. She’s a passionate Democratic activist in Alabama–so much so that she co-founded Emerge Alabama, for example–and though she was born and raised in Maryland, when I mentioned DCC to her, her face took on a quizzical look, the kind where it seemed like she kind of knew what I was talking about but needed more information to have a clearer picture. The reason for this is that every state’s party gets to structure itself however it wants, as she put it to me. I asked Josh over chips, salsa, and a lot of restaurant-y noise why he wanted to be on HCDCC.
Civil Dis/Obendience
“I thought there was some bad behavior on the part of previous Central Committee members, and I thought I had a lot to contribute,” Josh said, pausing as he leaned backward slightly at our high-top table and lifted a beer bottle to his mouth. He thought it was bad form that they’d show up to local Democratic club meetings only when elected officials were also in attendence, sit in the front rows, and monopolize question time, overshadowing the “rank-and-file, dues-paying members.” Although Josh is proud of his work on HCDCC so far, there’s still room for improvement, in his eyes. He lamented the money that played a too-prominent role in powering the races of some HCDCC members this past cycle.
“I hope we can get back to a place where this is a more civil process,” Josh said, nodding.
Josh’s friend and local attorney Becca Niburg told me she thought Josh and his fellow CC-ites were a great bunch.
“Josh will always act on behalf of the party with indpendence and integrity in his work on Central Committee,” she added in a phone conversation I had with her later the same day I met with Josh
Josh said that he wanted to see that the people volunteering for the party and the local Democratic clubs–invaluable pieces of the local-politics puzzle–were treated well. HCDCC is an all-volunteer body, too, he reminded me. Josh also knew firsthand what it was like to run a local Democratic club. He’s been president, vice president, and member-at-large of the Columbia Democratic Club. He also told me he’s very passionate about his role on the Long Reach Village Board Association. That last one’s a non-partisan group, but it shares in common with the political clubs that one of its goals is to take an active role in making HoCo a great place to live.
“Whatever you want to do for our party to see that Democrats get elected–I want to help you in any way I can,” Josh said, with a look that combined concern and caring. Our waiter came to ask us if we needed anything, and as he walked away I thought for a moment about how on the way to meet Josh–who I sometimes call the Jon Stewart of Howard County–so far we’d have a more serious chat than we normally do.
But then Josh made sure to inject a little levity into the mix with this musing: “I always hear ‘Eye of the Tiger’ in my head, like when I’m knocking on doors.” So much of humor is in the delivery, so maybe you had to hear his exact tone and see his body language. I’m not a skilled enough raconteur to do it justice, perhaps. But let me assure you, Josh’s wit as is dry is it comes. One time he told me something I took to be a totally straightforward account of an experience he’d had. It wasn’t until three months later that he informed me that, no, he was merely pulling my leg.
Live and Let Live
Anyway, back to HCDCC.
“I always tell people that we have one official duty: to appoint a successor if an elected official can’t complete their term,” he said. He pushed a tray of homemade tortilla chips toward me. I took a bite and worried that the emphatic crunching sound would get in the way of a vital reply he was giving me. I’d asked him where he fell on what I’ve come to call the Fisher-Knowles Spectrum. Your place on it is a way to identify what you think the job of HCDCC is. Local activist powerhouse Miss Carole Fisher says it’s to see that, after a primary, the Democrats on the ticket get elected. Meanwhile, ex-County Council member and husband of local politico Liz Bobo, says it’s to be the liaison between the community and the party.
“I tend to agree more with Miss Carole,” Josh said. He stopped his HCDCC analysis momentarily to tell me I had to try some of the “phenomenal” salsa Uncle Julio’s makes on the premises that lay in front of us. I smiled and acquiesced. Man! It was good, at once tangy and fresh. The reason, in any event, that Josh is more on the Fisher side of the running HCDCC argument (though it may only be running inside my head) is that he wants to respect the autonomy of the county’s elected officials.
“They were elected, and they have a right to carry out their duties as they see fit. It helps, as a Central Committee member for me to know their game plan, but sometimes I don’t,” he said, shrugging. Sure, he was speaking relatively loudly because of the constant din inside Uncle Julio’s, but he’s not a raised-voice kind of person. It reminded me of something I’ve always liked about Josh. He’s very confident in who he is and why he does what he does. He has good posture and wears an easy but steady expression. His assured but pleasant poise tacitly signals to others that while he has strong opinions and intends to stick by them, he grants others that same right he exercises to be true to himself and his raison d’etre.
It’s very Western-U.S., this stance of Josh’s, so maybe it’s no surprise that after he joined the Air Force and got stationed in Colorado, Josh fell in love with The Centennial State, He goes back to visit often, still. Josh said his family–his partner, Lisa, and the two chihuahua mixes he rears with her, Felipe and Ava–often stay back to hold down the fort here. When he’s back there he goes on long hikes up the mountains, taking in the 300 days of sunshine that central and northern Colorado boast.
I told him that as a denizen of the humid mid-Atlantic, with its rich, verdant fauna, my first thought when I deplaned in Denver once was: “What happened to all the trees?!” I saw a grand total of five as I made my way to the hotel I’d be staying at, and they were just a few feet off the ground. Josh got a distant look, smiling and nodding, and I could tell he was picturing the place. His grandparents may be from Sweet Home Alabama, but Josh’s more of a Rocky Mountain High type.
Another reason Josh may have been drawn to the West is the area’s cowboy spirit of autonomy and self-direction. Ann Balcerzak, the Vice President of the Howard County Board of Elections and another good friend of mine made me think of this when I asked her what qualities made Josh an asset to HCDCC.
“He is open-minded and not exclusionary if you and he are not 100% in agreement. That’s a good quality, especially when Dems have so many differing views,” she told me when I bumped into her at a CDC meeting last month.
After completing his undergraduate education at St. Joseph’s College in Philadelphia, that’s when Josh went out West for the Air Force. He got Master’s in Public Administration in the arid area too, at the University of Colorado, Boulder. He returned to Maryland and got his Juris Doctor from the University of Baltimore.
Josh noted that HCDCC is an indispensable part of the local governing process because it’s where a lot of the work gets done. It’s the “boots-on-the-ground” sphere of it where the rubber meets the road.
“If you want to affect the dialogue, you have to be able to serve at the local level–people have to be comfortable that you’re going to make their lives better,” he said. “We’re expected to lead by example.” And so, HCDCC meets at least once a month, works on projects together at its headquarters, and sometimes its members work on smaller ones from their respective homes. HCDCC also makes sure to have as a presence at local political events–meetings, fundraisers, forums, and the like–and even plans its own. It hosts annual Unity Events to serve as a reminder to local Dems that we’re all in this together, for example, hands out awards to local activists, and presides over a Labor Day picnic.
Rumble In the Political Jungle
I asked Josh what’s been the most satisfying part of his work on HCDCC so far, since he officially took up that role in June of last year.
“I think it has to be the phenomenal results of the election,” he said. “The results in Howard County were unprecedented, because we were outdone on money and on name recognition in a lot of ways.” Josh cautioned me against assuming the 2018 Blue Wave was just an anti-Trump vote, though. “We won on ideas.”
In an eerie instance of foreshadowing what was to come when I’d lock myself out of my car in a few moments, I asked Josh, as we gathered our belongings to go and Josh embarrassed me by insisting on picking up the tab, what his motto in life was.
He thought for a split second and then said, “Hey! That’s My Car.” That was an example of my favorite subset of Josh Friedman Humor, the absurdist kind.
It reminded me of a time when Josh’s penchant for keeping things light came in handy. The members of CDC, including RoCo, were gathered at the Roger Carter Community Center for a meeting at which we’d decide who among the people running in the local elections last year would receive the coveted endorsement of our club. The room was jam-packed with eager candidates waiting on bated breath for us to weigh in on paper ballots–very retro!–and then for an excruciating few hours as volunteers tallied our votes. You could practically taste the desperation. Josh took center stage just before we set about checking off which candidates for local office each of us deemed worthy of claiming that the oldest Democratic club in the area recommended the county’s residents vote for him or her. He said into the mic: “Let’s get ready to rumbllllllllllllle!”
Bodybuilder/Bodybuilder/Burning Bright
So wrote Romantic poet William Blake…ok, so he wrote it about a tiger, not a bodybuilder. But it could apply here too, I swear. After all, Josh is a competitive bodybuilder which is in part about the symmetry of musculature. And the next line in Blake’s poem is, “What immortal hand or eye/Could frame thy fearful symmetry?”
Back at Uncle Julio’s, as we ambled out, Josh said that those who know him well knew this: he values honesty most. We also know that he’s won awards for his bodybuilding. One of those, which he won last year, tied into his career in the Air Force. He won first place in the National Physique Committee’s (NPC) Baltimore Classic. The other awards he’s won for his dedication to the art of heave-ho include NPC Classic Men’s Bodybuilding Over 40, Men’s Classic Physique Over 40, and Men’s Classic Physique Armed Forces Division. There’s no one I’d rather have my back in a bar fight. Then again, Josh isn’t a violent person at all. His Facebook has a picture of him with local electeds who’d signed a bill instituting tougher penalties for people convicted of cruelty to animals.
Still, my favorite thing about Josh is that I can always count on him for a laugh.
“You have to have a sense of humor when you’re doing this, you spend so much time on it,” Josh said as we walked out into the orange late-afternoon light. A lot of us, he noted, like both he and I, grew up in eras where it was considered impolite to talk about politics. Luckily, this past hour Josh and I had spent together hadn’t fallen in one of those eras!
Thanks for reading! Check back with us here at rocoinhoco.com every week as Robert, Colleen (and pup, Moses) get to know the many facets—one each week–of this prismatic place called Howard County. We want to take you along with us, so follow us on Twitter at @rocoinhoco, join our Facebook group, and follow us on Instagram at @rocoinhoco.