Revenge of the Old White People!!!!

First, US House-wise, the majority of the Democratic losses were Blue Dogs, which means appeasement doesn't work.  The rest lost because they were horribly outspent in this post-Citizens United world.  We'll have gridlock for the next two years.  Enough about that.

Let us now speak of the Tennessee Democratic Party, which essentially was blown off the map last night. Democrats lost FOURTEEN seats in the State House, 2 vacated seats and 12 incumbents. Of these 12 incumbents, 11 were in rural areas.  Only District 60, in Davidson County, was in an urban area.

Outgoing rep Henry Fincher was quoted as saying the President "poisoned the well".  For what? Having the audacity to be elected President While Black?  Yet, I suspect that he may have summed up what happened in the rural area; this was payback to Democrats for nominating and electing, a, well, you know.

How am I so sure from my liberal enclave here in the Bluff City?  Well, EVERY Democratic rep was tied to Obama and Pelosi, which was ridiculous. It's the moral equivalent of screaming the N-Word, and in the South, it cost everyone.

Look no further than Senator Doug Jackson of Dickson, a Democrat who got the NRA endorsement and sponsored the guns-in-bars legislation. HE STILL LOST.  Democrats who wouldn't know what a liberal was if you gave them a picture of Hubert Humphrey were tagged as SOCIALIST CONSPIRATORS OF OBAMA AND PELOSI and beaten.

There is no point in bashing Chip Forrester, he won't be around much longer as TNDP Chair, I suspect, though he had little to with this.  The truth is, we started dying after the attempt to get an income tax failed.  Rather than trying to advance an agenda, they got scared, they hunkered down, and last night was the final straw.

The final totals?  in the State House, R 64, D 34, and Independent Kent Williams, who will soon grasp the meaning of the song One Is The Loneliest Number. In the Senate, 20 Republicans, 13 Democrats.  Oh, and Bill Haslam was elected Governor to the surprise of no one.  That happens when you have an unlimited supply of money.  Mike McWherter gave it a good shot, but on a night when all of the old West Tennessee Democratic team than ran the state was beaten (EXCEPT FOR NAIFEH, HE WILL NEVER DIE, BWAHAHA), it was sadly fitting that the progeny of the greatest Governor of my lifetime was beaten badly.

We aren't just in the wilderness, people, we're in Mad Max country.

The GOP is in total control of government and in control of redistricting, although in reality they got pretty much everything they could ever want here last night.  John Ryder is a man who will know that without being told, as Vito Corleone would say.  We don't know the census numbers yet, so we don't know what will happen, but one can figure that A) just by population, West Tennessee will lose seats, B) Middle Tennessee will gain seats, and C) East Tennessee will gain, but at a slower rate with lesser numbers.

Shelby County, I project, will lose 2 House seats and 1 Senate seat, and that won't be pretty.

So, the question will be asked by someone, where do we go from here?  Good question, and we need to start thinking about it and working on it now.  The one thing we DO know, above all else, is that what we have used for the past 20 years will no longer work, now or in the future.