Newscoma

So today is the day.

The Tennessee Democratic Party’s State Executive Committee will meet tomorrow to select a new Chair for the 2009-2010 term. The election will take place at their meeting at 1:30 pm in the House Chamber.

As you probably know if you have read this blog, I have been extremely critical of the TNDP during the past six months. I lean left and I don’t deny it, but I also am not going to sit back and say what they have done is perfect. It hasn’t been. Far from it.

I am not going to scream yes to everything they say. I believe any political party can get more done by having an open debate that creates conversation and forward motion.

There are a few things that aren’t clear to me. And I’ll be honest, I don’t have 48 hours a day to read every blog post about why Charles Robert Bone should be chair or why Chip Forrester is the guy. So I set some time over the past week to familiarize myself with both of them to see what I could find and other than the regular folks who have been following this, I found very little other than those of us who regularly write about Tennessee politics.

What I found to be most curious is that I went to the Tennessean’s front page for politics and the election wasn’t on there. I did find a letter to the editor and that was about it. Early last month, I read that Forrester had been traveling around shoring up support in Memphis, most notably to me at least, because I live in west Tennessee.

However, this post from GoldnI made me wonder as well about that Bone might be more than alright as well if elected.

Now, with that said, my main question is this:

Why do the money guys like Bone? He seems to have a great deal of support from the status quo. And, Forrester did come out early and often for our current president, something that other Tennesseans did not necessarily do during the presidential campaign.

I don’t know the answers to these questions, quite frankly, but I do know that being geographically challenged as I am, that these two things come to mind.

The one thing I do know is this: If the TNDP doesn’t start utilizing social media and keep the party’s message out there, then both men will be just like Gray Sasser. Yeah, Sasser raised some dough but he didn’t bring the TNDP up a step, miscalculated Hobbs and Co. and seriously dropped the ball for certain (rural **cough, cough**) communities who, although numbers might be small, want to know what’s going on. The GOP can reference what’s coming straight out of the horse’s mouth because Hobbs always has an opinion/presser on current events. You have to search sometimes for the TNDP platform, although bloggers have stayed on top of it.

I hope that the TNDP realizes that they are going to have to do the same thing, no matter who wins the chair position. Update your blog/website, TNDP, to let those of us outside of Nashville know what’s going on. It hasn’t been update since Wade Munday left in November.

I know you guys won’t listen to me anyway, but if you have free tools, use them to inform your base.

Before I get all political here, I want to remind you that my grandfather (and most of Hoots’ residents that have a little bit of age on them) were in the generation of Gov. Ned McWherter. He still lives here most of the time and hasn’t been feeling so hot for awhile. So when I’m talking about politics, I remember the gravy years of having a powerful politician advocating for northwest Tennessee in the house and finally in the governor’s mansion, advising former President Bill Clinton and Al Gore.

Gore’s mother is from the county of Hoots. Just a bit of history for you here, nothing more, nothing less.

Then times changed as they always do. The glorious years of an aligned coalition of west Tennessee politicians lost its oomph.

But then we had Joe Hill. I’ve spoken about Hill before who was the Go-To-Guy in Rep. John Tanner’s office here locally. If anyone called him, he called us back. You needed something, if there was a way to get it, you could consider it done. From the little guy who lost his insurance and was suffering from cancer to political questions regarding how Tennessee would be impacted by certain votes in Washington.

He answered the questions candidly and didn’t run away from it. I have actually been critical with him at times and he was patient to explain the reasons why things were done they way they were.

That, my friends, is what we need in Nashville right now.

He kept up with political trends, the best way to communicate at the time and he just went with it starting his career with Ed. Jones. This wasn’t a flash in the pan kind of thing. It was consistent for decades.

I’ve been reading the blogosphere from yesterday from the anonymous commenter at Silence isn’t Golden, KAG’s response, Aunt B’s anger and then Mark breaking it down at Dork Nation which everyone needs to read.

I can only speak for my little corner of the world. I don’t know what’s going on in East Tennessee other than what I read from bloggers. My interaction with Shelby County comes from a fine group of people who communicate with huge props to Left Wing Cracker and Vibinc.

These are connections. Most of the people I’ve linked to above I have either met or corresponded with by email. Not all of them, but most of them.

KAG and Silence get it right and they are MSM in the state of Tennessee. Use the positive things you have or you are in for a mess of poo. They are telling you this and I commend them.

Joe Hill did that too in a different time of political communication. He found strong voices and he utilized them. Of course he was protecting his politician but that’s not the point. The point is that he held frequent and ongoing conversations. You can learn from the past and combine that knowledge into the future of this party.

The Scene writes:

Instead of whining about Obama, Tennessee Democrats should begin learning from him. The president-elect may be one of the Senate’s most liberal members. But he won a campaign with the ingredients of old school populism – health care, jobs, the rhetoric of economic fairness. They’re the kind of issues that can defy party lines, that resonate when Mom and Dad are figuring out how to pay the bills at the kitchen table. This is the stuff that can – gasp! – even get a black guy elected.

But if Tennessee Democrats continue sell themselves as Republican Lite – Motto: We’re Slightly Less Weird about Guns, God, and Abortion! – they’re likely sentencing themselves to an extended period of whining. Cheap facsimiles don’t exactly inspire people at the polls.

If you add the numbers of the views that those bloggers above get, then you are looking at a pretty nice block of people. And then as the message goes viral, it expands but it has to be done with intelligence and in a friendly manner that engages as well as is informative about the issues of Tennessee Democrats. In a large part, those bloggers listed above are already a block as most of us know each other anyway. You are losing out because I don’t think you get that whether you are around or not, we are having a conversation anyway.

Haven’t you figured that out yet?

We can learn from the Obama campaign, TNDP, if you think about it. So quit playing the blame game. It’s so Rovian.

Constructive criticism is important because people are not whipping your butt just to be whipping your butt. They are talking about something they feel passionate about.

I brought up the McWherter reference at the top because the gravy years of West Tennessee are long gone because those days of politics are over. It’s a new day. Conversation has changed in large part to the Internet and to blogging. TNDP, these are your eyes and ears on the ground.

I refer to Joe Hill because you need to calling him this very second as he is an elder statesmen of political management who was successful at it and could give you some sage advice about how everyone in this state has value and to treat them as such. Instead of whining at people who want to help, who want to be part of the political process despite the fact that they have jobs and families but are willing to give their time and voice to taking back the Assembly, don’t belittle them, embrace them. And take that blog of yours and give it a voice and a personality not just a bunch of press releases.

Of course, I suggest Sean Braisted to do that for you as your blog jockey because, in my opinion, he’s the right guy for the job because he engages in conversation about the issues of the democrats. And also, he is listening to the entire state, not just Nashville. He’s thick-skinned and passionate.

And he engages. Why more people aren’t using blog jockeys utterly amazes me.

So, I’ve done your homework for you, Sasser and friends.

The ball is in your court. If you just let it lie there, we will be talking about this again.

Aunt B., GoldnI and Sean have all talked about the Tennessee Democratic Party and its head poobah, Gray Sasser with his lack of effectiveness in the recent election. As vile as Bill Hobbs can be at times, he did his job and that is he has secured an already conservative state legislature more power to make potential changes that I’m probably not going to be a happy camper about.

I wrote an open letter on Sept. 11 here giving Sasser sage advice. Alas, he never calls, he never writes. Let me say this, I received dozens of emails after that post from strong, faithful democrats who were feeling just as disenfranchised by Sasser as some of the folks here in Hoots.

So let me say this once again because I’m ready to get back to my zombie story for NaNoWriMo. Tennessee, obviously, was not an Obama state when it came to voting nor was it blue.

Hobbs takes the hits for the TNGOP. As some of us watch from the sidelines with our head in our hands, he does it by keeping it out there. He keeps a message in the public eye at all times, no matter how wrong it may be. If you are calling Barack Obama by his middle name, Hobbs is partly responsible for that. I do not agree with him in the least, but on the other hand, the General Assembly is red right now and he helped get it that way. Hobbs’ ego is legendary. The difference between Hobbs and Sasser, however, is that Hobbs was on task this election and Sasser was not.

And we told him. Members of the blogosphere told him. In the non-virtual world, phone calls from people I know were sent to his office asking for help in the election and were ignored because we weren’t glamorous or hip enough (my observation at least). Sasser effectively blew us off. Repeatedly.

Was Sasser drinking cinnamon lattes looking toward his beloved Washington, where he obviously wants to be, thinking “Dang, if I can just get through this election then I can hang out with Obama and Rahm Emanuel in DC?”

As I have been critical of Sasser before, allow me a moment to be critical again. Gray, if you get outplayed by Hobbs and company, that’s pathetic. The nation voted in Barack Obama.

You did nothing to help that and it showed in the final tally for the state.

Aunt B. isn’t letting the Governor out of this either. Of course we will be saying Gov. Ron Ramsey in about two years but Bredesen’s ego will send him on another task to take on the world as a republican dressed in democrat’s Armani suit. I digress.

I want to head back to Sasser. 40,000 people at the Soybean Festival and no TNDP presence. I go back to a conversation that I had with a couple of politicians who pontificated that the TNDP just didn’t see value regarding our location in the state.

Seventy percent of this county voted. 66 percent voted here in this county for McCain, however the local branch of the College Democrats took to the streets Tuesday night. You could have helped them but they did it on their own. Remember, one reason why Obama won is his campaign reached out to those voters who in the past were unreachable.

And you were advised to do that as well but apparently you were running the TNDP like it was still 1988.

I’m ranting so I’ll stop but I’m thinking right now, Mr. Sasser, that your party gave you a shot. Give the job to someone with passion for the party and not an opportunist like yourself.

I’ve always been told it’s better to be a kingmaker than a king. I’m thinking Sasser wants to be a king and that just doesn’t jive in his line of work. On another note, I’m betting Sasser doesn’t want to meet Jimmy Naifeh in a dark alley anytime soon because I have a feeling an asswhupping is going to take place.

On the Rosalind Kurita events that have occurred this week, some things are coming to light that, as Angela at DeMarCaTionville  wrote, are confusing.

But then again it’s politics where the lines are always wobbly.

Left Wing Cracker breaks it down. Our initial reactions were much the same but he’s had a change of heart now that he’s spoken to some of the people in that room on Saturday.

My sources, some of whom sat in that room Saturday, have told me a different story. I have learned that the primary, which was decided by 19 votes, was corrupted by GOP voters who deliberately crossed over to influence the race. At least 138 of them were found by Barnes’ legal team to have voted in 8 of the last 8 GOP primaries, and a few hundred more were found to have voted in at least 4 of the last 8 GOP primaries.

Now wait, you say, we don’t have party registration, people can legally vote in whichever primary they choose, just not both at once. This is true; however, each party has the legal right to determine who may run under their banner, and if it is determined that the voting process was corrupted to the point of being “incurably uncertain”, they may void such a primary election.

And Kleinheider blogged the whole thing which you can read here.

From David Luciano from Clarksville Online analyzes what actually happened at Clarksville Online:

• That the election was certified means that the numbers on election day show that Kurita had 19 more votes than Barnes.  No one disputes this and this was not part of the election contest.
• George Barrett and the other attorneys for Tim Barnes put on evidence, including sworn affidavits and three witnesses, attesting to the fact that a precinct captain had instructed voters who stated that they wanted to vote for Tim Barnes to vote in the Republican primary.  This precinct captain was shown to have ties to Rosalind Kurita.
• It was proven that a significant higher number of voters who historically vote in Republican primaries switched over to vote in the Democratic primary in this election.  The suggestion is that Rosalind Kurita used her ties to Ron Ramsey, who had pledged openly to “help her in any way [he] could” to turn out Republican voters to vote for her in an attempt to maintain Republican leadership of the Senate.
• Rosalind Kurita violated the law by going into a polling place, along with her deputy campaign manager.  Although she stated she went into the building to “use the restroom,” Tim Barnes’s attorney produced four affidavits and a witness stating that she clearly violated the hundred-foot boundary.  It is unclear for what purpose Kurita entered the building, as this polling place is surrounded by public restrooms. One of the affiants was from a school-board candidate who was at the polling place from before the polls opened at 7:00 a.m. until after they closed at 7:00 p.m., and who got in her car and left the premises to go across the street to use the restroom several times throughout the day so that she would not violate the law.  Kurita’s attorney did not produce a single witness or affidavit defending her actions or corroborating her story.

And Jackson Baker explains the ramifications and what it all means here.

But Angela and I had the same reaction.

Uh, if true, isn’t that clearly election fraud? Does election law address this issue? In the crossover voting, it is the candidate or party’s responsibility to have poll watchers to observe the process and challenge voters at the poll. What’s the process for challenging precinct workers?

Unless I’m missing something, I’m thinking the decision to void the election would probably hold up under a legal challenge. Meanwhile, Ramsey, who had discouraged David Davis from contesting the results of his primary loss, argued that Democrats were wrong to overturn Kurita’s victory.

It is confusing. I keep trying to wrap my brain around it all.

It is a whirlwind of party politics but there is more here than meets the eye.

In the last week, I’ve been utterly amazed by The Tennessee Democratic Party and how when a young woman called them about volunteering her time to help in a grassroots effort for president in her home county being completely and rudely dismissed. Then we hear about what’s went down in Clarksville yesterday.

I have to tell you, it’s mind-numbing. I’ll let others break it down for you as I would just rehash what they wrote, but if it walks like a duck and quacks like a duck, it’s usually a duck.

But the thing that amazes me the most is that it has become about smoky room politics, as cited by a commenter over at Kleinheider’s, and it reeks so much I’m stunned. I received dozens of letters regarding my open letter to the TNDP last week.

Dear Mr. Sasser, they weren’t backing you.

Not one letter in your defense. And these were from some people who know you. After reading through them, I realized you are doing this all over the state. And these folks have apparently tried to engage you as well with the same results as a young woman from west Tennessee.

Smoke-filled room politics. Arrogant democratic leadership in this state is what it looks like.

Listen, I’m not all about Kurita either but you punted this one and, what amazes me, is you haven’t answered your critics. And if you have, you aren’t being transparent about it.

A libertarian from Maryland responded in my comments so, umm, do you think you could at least explain all of the ball-dropping you are doing to Ken Whitehouse or Tom Humphreys?

Hale wrote this:

All of which, I suppose, is just a long-winded way of saying that if young people aren’t “getting their needs met”, it may be because the TNDP HQ and its field personnel are stuck in the past, and their message is turning off the young.

And the worst part of it is that the senior folks in the TNDP just don’t get it– the old ways worked for them, and now they can’t understand why they aren’t working today, or understand why those old ways are so repellent to young people.

It’s sad, really.

But even with that said, what about a conversation with the volunteers who have given time, money and passion to something that you are pulling the rug out from under their feet. These same volunteers who have questioned the TNDP’s leadership would probably love to talk to you. These are your supporters, but not really. They are backing their state that they love and the party that should be leading them.

Prove me wrong. I’m begging of you. Prove me wrong that arrogance and elitism aren’t at work here.

Left Wing Cracker assures us that this isn’t a state vs. Nashville thing. It’s not. I’m not in Nashville, Memphis, Knoxville or even Clarksville. This is a “huh” moment who aren’t getting paid to lead the party. They are doing it because they are passionate about it.

And I would recommend you listen to them.

This a unified group of people from all around this state asking for accountability.

And, you know, we are worth that.

So, as in an email sent to me last week which cited that they they thought you, Sasser, had your eyes on Washington, I’m thinking that cannot happen soon enough so all of us can try to rebuild so the office can do what it needs to be doing instead of the illusion of old men smoking soggy cigars.

‘Cause that’s what it looks like sitting over here.

I was over at the new blog called The Donkey’s Mouth from the Tennessee Democratic Party, which looks all saucy and I’m pleased to see them doing this. Groovy.

While I was there, I found Greg From The Left. I’m going to like GFTL a whole lot.

Nice to see this happening.

Photo from here.