Herb Green has seen eight decades of good times and bad times for his beloved Democratic Party in Gwinnett County.

He counts today as good times.

Though the county chapter of the party took to calling their annual award celebration the Herb Green Event four years ago, local Democrats honored the 86-year-old former union organizer Saturday for a lifetime of service. He's been a labor and party organizer, a delegate to national conventions, led voter registration drives and precinct elections supervisor.

But never an elected official.

A long life has let Green watch Gwinnett County change from farmland and fields to shopping malls and subdivisions. It's also let him watch things change here from die-hard Democrat to red-state Republican.

Perhaps, he said, that long life of politics may allow him to see it change back.

He grew up in Mechanicsville near Norcross and Doraville. He's older than the Doraville GM plant he worked at, older than the Buford Highway road he took to get there.

Herb Green traces his politics back to a good night at work almost 78 years ago.

His family was so poor, they hid when the landlord came to collect the 25-cent cleaning fee for their communal outdoor latrine. The Great Depression had flattened the country in 1930.

He was 9 years old.

The Depression turned Green into a Franklin Roosevelt Democrat, he said. "He was a God-send," Green said. "He saved the country."

Green's home is festooned with the trophies of a lifetime of political battle. A picture of him with Jimmy Carter sits behind one of him with an arm around Bill Clinton. He speaks slowly, but sharply, about the problems facing the country.

"We absolutely have to win this year," he said. "We can't afford not to."

While he focused on regional politics, getting people to vote Democrat wasn't especially challenging in Gwinnett County, he said. That was true until the late '60s and '70s.

Former Norcross mayor and County Commission chairwoman Lillian Webb had long felt like the lone Republican in the wilderness in Gwinnett before winning election in Norcross in 1969, she said.

"It was a wonder they didn't tar and feather us," she said. She and Green worked together from time to time, manning stations on election day. "He was one of the stalwarts, the backbone of the Democrat Party," she said.

But Norcross was becoming a beachhead for a wave of white flight from Atlanta and growth from the Northeast and Midwest, she said. The newcomers settling in the south end of the county were starting to vote Republican.

By 1986, Republicans had taken control of every county elected office, including the entire Gwinnett County Commission and Gwinnett County Board of Education.

Local leaders who had been lifelong Democrats were switching their party affiliation. It hurt, Green said.

Green never considered switching. The party had been his life.

But the county continues to change, following a familiar pattern. South Gwinnett has elected a few Democrats, including state Rep. Pedro Marin (D-Norcross) and state Sen. Curt Thompson (D-Norcross).

Like the newcomers of the '70s, Gwinnett's newest residents are changing the voting patterns for the county.

It isn't clear yet how this might affect the presidential campaign and local races this year.

Turnout in the February presidential primary this year was unprecedented across Georgia —- about 2 million voters cast ballots, nearly 10 times as many as did in 2000. And in Gwinnett, about 54 percent of voters cast ballots in the Democratic race. In past years, it's been closer to 20 percent.

"There are demographic shifts going on in Gwinnett County," said Buzz Brockway, a blogger and former Gwinnett GOP chief. "I don't see that translating into a massive shift to the Democrats in this election or maybe even the next couple of elections, but it's happening."

Green said he's looking forward to a more competitive environment. "Nothing stays the same," he said.