The Tennessee Democratic Party: 1828-2010

(NOTE: If you've been directed here from Bill Hobbs' site, welcome. Bill Hobbs is a liar, a hypocrite, a hateful human being, and an all-around tool. The TNGOP is every bit as much a good ol' boys club as the TNDP, dissenters are not welcome. And Robin Smith still needs to shut up, get back in the kitchen, and get me a beer while she's up. Thank you--ed.)

Mark your calendars for the funeral, folks. In November 2010, the party started by Andrew Jackson in Tennessee in 1828 will die a very painful, excruciating death.

I don't mean to be a pessimist. But a series of unfortunate events from the past year have convinced me that the TNDP is on a collision course with its own demise. It won't be readily apparent this year because the Presidential race and the lack of a competitive Senate race will cover it up. But in 2010, the TNDP is going to face losses of historical proportions across the state. Bill Frist may as well go ahead and book the moving van to the governor's mansion in January 2011.

We had a great moment of unity in 2006 when (almost) everyone within the party enthusiastically backed Harold Ford. But we've been on a downward spiral since this election started.

Let's rewind to the delegate selection process back in February. Yeah, I know I should just get over it, but I'm bringing it back up again. The process was COMPLETELY hijacked by special interests, leaving the people who had ACTUALLY hit the ground to campaign for the presidential candidates out in the cold. This was the case for both campaigns, not just on the Obama side.

Fast-forward to the Senate race. I remain convinced that had we gotten around one Senate candidate earlier on, we'd at least be able to put up a decent fight against Lamar! Alexander. But the TNDP couldn't convince Mike McWherter to stay in it, leaving us with two candidates with little name recognition and even less money to duke it out. It's like there was no interest in even challenging Lamar!.

Then last week, I got an email from fellow blogger Newscoma that led to this excellent post. Young people who are trying to organize for Obama in rural West Tennessee were completely rebuffed by local party officials. I advised her to tell them to organize on their own via MyBO, much in the same way the Nashville Loves Barack Obama group got started. But still, people who haven't been involved before who are desperately trying to get involved should NEVER be turned away by the party. The party is constantly saying that they want young people to get involved, but apparently not TOO involved. Wouldn't want them meddling in the club or anything.

And now we have the complete and utter farce that was the Senate District 22 race. Now, I really don't like Rosalind Kurita. If I lived in Clarksville, I certainly would have voted for Tim Barnes instead. But she won by 19 votes. And absent proof of any voting irregularities, that election should have been upheld, regardless of whether or not Kurita is a "good Democrat." And no, Republicans crossing over to vote for her does not count as a voting irregularity. Personally, I'm not a fan of the open primary system, I think they should be closed. But it's like Hillary Clinton and the caucuses--if you think the system is flawed, the time to complain about that is before the fact, not after.

So rather than do what was right (albeit uncomfortable), the TNDP essentially overturned the primary results by punting the decision to the county parties of that district, who will almost certainly declare Barnes the winner. This is not how you take back the Senate; if you lose one primary you work as hard as you can for other Democratic candidates. The national Democratic Party failed to take out Joe Lieberman in 2006, but we'll have a big enough win this year so that we can kick him out of the caucus. That's the right way to do it. But what the TNDP did was the most undemocratic thing a Democratic Party can do.

(However, I'd like to concur with my fellow progressive bloggers when I say--good fucking riddance, Alma Sanford. If it were anyone else, I'd point out the fallacy in renouncing the Democrats based on perceived sexism, only to vote for an anti-choice candidate who called his wife a "cunt." But after what happened last summer during the mayoral election, when Alma Sanford shut down the Davidson County Young Democrats' GOTV phone-banking session because more young people voting might have meant her candidate would do worse in the election, I've come to the conclusion that we're better off without her corrosive influence)

So what have we learned from all of this? That the Tennessee Democratic Party is corrupt, infiltrated by special interests, is still very much a good ol' boys' club, and is far more interested in maintaining the status quo than in taking risks and actually making gains. All of this might have been ok back in the days of the Dixiecrats. But Obama's ascendancy has highlighted all of these problems. It's no longer a sustainable way to run a party.

I've met Gray Sasser several times. He's a very nice person and he genuinely wants Democrats to win throughout the state. But he's not doing anything to make that happen. He and the rest of the party have put forth a strategy of keeping the powder dry until 2010, when the big prize of the governor's mansion is at stake. But that strategy is going to blow up in all of their faces.

Because why vote for Democrats if a primary can be so easily overturned if the party doesn't like the outcome? Why campaign for Democrats if the party doesn't value your contribution? Why try to get involved period if they're fighting tooth and nail to hold on to their own power at the expense of everyone else?

Now, I'm certainly not saying I'd rather have Robin Smith and Bill Hobbs running my party. They're hateful liars and we certainly don't need folks like them in our leadership. But there's no question that they've excited their base throughout this election cycle and that they've had success in organizing at the grassroots level.

That's why we're going to lose in 2010. The TNGOP has made huge gains this year, and it may very well be too late to catch up to them. We certainly won't if we're falling apart internally or if the candidates we put forth for governor are just members of the same good ol' boys' club. And yes, Harold Ford is part of that club too.

Bear in mind, this is no skin off my back. I'm a registered voter in Missouri now. Missouri has a great Democratic candidate for Governor in Attorney General Jay Nixon, and I'll be very happy to vote for him. But I still consider myself a Tennessean, and I don't want my state to turn crimson red.

It may not be too late. We need a major, top-to-bottom overhaul of the entire party. Unfortunately, it may very well take a blowout in 2010 to force that overhaul.

UPDATE: The reaction from the Tennessee liberal blogosphere is coming in, and it's unanimous--the TNDP royally fucked up. And as LeftWingCracker points out, the strategy of waiting until 2010 could blow up on the TNDP sooner than thought. If we DON'T retake the Senate in November, then Ron Ramsey and the Republicans can simply refuse to seat Tim Barnes and trigger a new election, which Kurita will almost certainly win. And she won't be back as a Democrat after this.