It didn’t take long for the rumors of the intra-Democratic-Party
“truce” that were rampant at ex-state House speaker Jimmy
Naifeh‘s Coon Supper in Covington last week to be confirmed.
It’s now official: By agreement with Governor Phil Bredesen,
state party chairman Chip Forrester will handle publicity and
grass-roots organization for the party, while fund-raising and
candidate recruitment will be the province of an executive director to
be named by — and responsible to — the governor and the
rest of the state party’s power establishment.
Almost everybody considers the truce to be a surrender imposed on
Forrester by that establishment, which, in theory, consists of Bredesen
plus four of the five Democratic congressmen from Tennessee (everybody
but Memphis’ Steve Cohen, who has been studiously neutral during
the last three moths of intra-party strife). In reality, it comes down
to 4th District congressman Lincoln Davis and, in particular,
his administrative aide Beecher Frasier.
Yes, the same Beecher Frasier who opined during last year’s
presidential campaign that he couldn’t be sure that then candidate
Barack Obama didn’t have terrorist ties. The same Beecher Frazier who
has spearheaded the battle against Forrester almost from the moment the
Chipper announced his candidacy for the party chairmanship last
November. That was in the wake of the electoral debacle in which the
Democrats managed to lose both houses of the Tennessee legislature.
Forrester was a longtime rank-and-file man with close ties to the
liberal blogosphere, including several bloggers in Memphis, and he was
able to decisively beat Charles Robert Bone, the hand-picked
candidate of the establishment at the January meeting of the state
party executive committee.
Things went downhill from there, with the governor, the
congressional Big Four, and residual party star Harold Ford Jr.
all keeping their distance from Forrester.
Not that the would-be reform chairman didn’t commit some mischances.
The most notorious (and probably the most harmful) of these was
Forrester’s hiring of Bill Freeman as the official party
fund-raiser in February.
Freeman had indeed raised a carload of cash for the Obama
presidential campaign last year, and that was a major credential in
Forrester’s eyes. It seemed at first to satisfy the new chairman’s
grass-root supporters, most of whom thought the state party
establishment had blown opportunities in 2008 to tap the momentum and
enthusiasm of the nationwide Obama movement.
Rightly or wrongly, Bredesen was believed to have asked Obama to
stay away from Tennessee during the general election. It was certainly
the case that few Democratic Party campaigns for legislative seats paid
anything more than lip service to the party’s presidential nominee
— if that.
This fact by itself angered Forrester’s supporters, most of whom had
been enthusiastic for Obama and thought too many of the party’s
candidates in Tennessee spent more time me-tooing the Republicans than
establishing ideological distance from them.
These same progressive cadres were scandalized, and their support
somewhat neutralized, however, when word got around that Freeman had
played around on the other side of the street as well — having
raised money for numerous Republican persons and causes, including the
erstwhile Bush-Cheney presidential campaigns.
Worse, from the standpoint of maintaining statewide Democratic
unity, was the fact that Freeman had raised substantial cash for both
of Bredesen’s two GOP election opponents, Van Hilleary in 2002
and Jim Bryson in 2006.
Already alienated from Forrester, the party’s core power group,
especially the governor, now became virtually estranged.
Unable to pry anything loose from the usual suspects among
Democratic donors and realizing that he had become a liability, Freeman
eventually resigned — a fact that caused Forrester as much
embarrassment on the back end as his hiring of Freeman had on the front
end.
Something had to give, and in the end it was Forrester. The new
arrangement makes him a de facto auxiliary to the Big Boys, who will
run the state party according to their wont.
Their governing philosophy was perhaps best expressed by a statement
from state representative John Litz, a Morristown Democrat who
achieved some clout of his own this year as one of the brokers of the
Democratic ploy that resulted in the election of maverick Republican
Kent Williams as speaker of the state House.
Said Litz, by way of approving the terms of the truce: “I don’t
think the Tennessee Democratic Party that I’m a part of is like a
California Democrat. We’re not baby-killing, gun-stealing
tree-huggers.”
• Legal uncertainty as to the status of holdover administrators
on county election commissions has complicated the plans of the
suddenly majority Republicans.
A case in point is right here in Shelby County, where the enlarged
GOP lineup was set to include Robert Meyers, already a
commission member; Bill Giannini, the immediate past chairman of
the Shelby County Republican Party; and community activist Brian
Stephens. Republican Rich Holden, the GOP’s longest-serving
member, was scheduled to depart the commission and become its
administrator, replacing long-serving Democratic appointee James
Johnson.
That last part was the catch: Litigation developed when the newly
Republicanized election commission of Sullivan County attempted to
depose the longtime administrator there, a Democrat. State attorney
general Robert Cooper subsequently advised caution pending
judicial resolution of such issues.
When word came down from Secretary of State Tre Hargett,
advising county commissions to put a hold on administrative
change-overs, the GOP figures huddled (in sequential combinations of
current and prospective commission members that technically avoided
violations of the state’s Sunshine law).
The outcome: Stephens would come aboard, as would Giannini, as
chairman. Holden would stay on. Meyers would have to depart but will
return when definitive word from Hargett or state attorney general
Robert Cooper comes down enabling an administrative shuffle. At
that point, Johnson would go, and Holden will take his place. Got all
that?
Meanwhile, returning Democrats Myra Stiles and Shep
Wilbun will join Giannini, Stephens, and Holden to make up the
five-member commission. All were seated at last Wednesday’s first
meeting of the newly reconstituted SCEC.
• On the campaign trail: Paul Mattila, the current
Shelby County trustee, professes himself to be in fine fettle following
recent chemotherapy treatment for cancer. Mattila, who held a
successful fund-raiser in Millington weekend before last, has spiffed
up his dress, adding some new suits to his inventory.
That fact, coupled with the hair loss that accompanied his
treatment, gave him a fashionable-appearing baldness to go with his
dapper new look — encouraging a friend or two to recommend that
he keep on shaving his head as his hair grows back. Mattila says he’ll
think about it.
On the same weekend that saw Mattila’s fund-raiser, the Shelby
County Young Republicans presided, for the second year in a row, over a
reprise of the Bob Patterson Barbecue at Kirby Farms, formerly
an annual event held by the late county trustee. As was the case on
Patterson’s watch, Republican candidates and activists turned out for
the event.
And also, on the same weekend, Norma Lester, a longtime
Democratic activist and professional consultant on medical and nursing
issues, was the subject of both a meet-and-greet affair and fund-raiser
in support of her candidacy for the District 2, Position 3 county
commission seat now held by commission chair Deidre Malone, a
candidate for county mayor next year.
Malone had her own fund-raiser scheduled for Thursday of this week
at the Racquet Club, with current county mayor A C Wharton as
one of her sponsors. District Attorney General Bill Gibbons also
had a fund-raiser scheduled for this week in support of his campaign
for governor.
Circuit Court clerk Jimmy Moore had a successful fund-raiser
at friend Billy Babb‘s house this past weekend, and a fair
number of pols, including candidates and wannabes, also turned up at
former judicial candidate Regina Newman‘s annual crayfish
broil.
Herenton vs. Cohen: Real Deal or No Deal?
As even nonpolitical junkies know by now, the political seismograph
went off big-time last week when Memphis mayor Willie Herenton followed
his budget presentation to the City Council by having an aide
distribute copies of a brief statement announcing his interest in a
2010 congressional race.
The two basic questions prompted by the surprise announcement were:
Will it happen? And can he win? The answers are: Who knows? And, of
course. In good times and bad, Herenton always has commanded a huge
turnout in the District 9 portion of the city’s electoral base —
though incumbent Steve Cohen, a sometime Herenton ally, has
demonstrated impressive support there as well.
The Flyer covered the bombshell at memphisflyer.com and will keep on doing
so, in print and online, as circumstances develop.
