Wednesday, November 03, 2010

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.

17 comments:

Andy Axel said...

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.

Steve,

You know as well as I do that Forrester has been a fixture on the scene for at least as long as 75% of the state executive committee.

He's been in an insider position for at least 2 decades. Let's not pretend that he materialized out of the ether.

That's not to say he didn't commit some howling errors. His were just the most recent. Amazing how BOB TUKE and GRAY SASSER seem to slip below the radar of responsibility every time this subject comes up. Wonder why that is?

Lest we forget, &c.

--Andy

Steve Steffens said...

Heh, true enough Andy. I prefer to think of him as Herbert Hoover, not Calvin Coolidge. He took the mess and made it worse, but it is not all of his own creation.

Andy Axel said...

Underline: not all of his own. This Republican success has many fathers, not all of whom wear elephantine lapel pins.

And it's been in the making since at least 1996 when Frist took Sasser to the woodshed.

Let's not pretend like we didn't see the huge gap in the rails as this trainwreck got in motion. This outcome has been ordained since Haslam announced for the seat.

McWherter was a fucking joke, man. His campaigning was so tepid, he barely even met the warm body requirement. And if you look at the numbers in Davidson? It's bad. Profoundly bad. He only pulled one of the two bright blue districts of the state by 1000 votes (a rounding error) and lost the early vote by a sizable margin.

Can't wait to see what Turner & Odom have planned once the new electoral map comes out. Can you?

Unknown said...

You'll finally get you wish of a Democratic Party that carries the name and moniker you want it to have. No compromises needed, no compromises allowed, no discussion of any kind with anyone but those of like mind; I'm not (here at least) saying those are bad consequences. I am suggesting that the reality you have espoused ever since I've known you has at last come to pass. In Tennessee, I'm not sure how you can expect to do much but maintain the seats you already have for the next ten to twenty years.

Steve Steffens said...

1984, in the short term, we can't do anything anyway. All we can do is sit back and watch Tennesseans as they see what they got for their votes.

Then, we will take what we have and build on it, rebuilding our brand in the process. The Blue Dog message is dead, because if people want that, that's what the GOP is for.

It's time to provide them, as Barry Goldwater would say, a CHOICE, not an echo!

Unknown said...

Yes and look what happened to both the Man from Arizona and the Man from South Dakota eight years later.

M said...

I have a little problem with blaming it on the old white folks. The old white folks close to me all vote Democratic. While older folks may have been a large part of the reason for "change", it appears there are other groups that contributed to the Republican wins.

Young people, who cast 18 percent of the ballots in 2008, dropped to just 11 percent.

Two years ago, minorities cast 26 percent of all ballots in the presidential election; this year that number fell to 22 percent.

seniors, who represented one-sixth of voters in 2008, soared to fully 22 percent - their largest share since at least 1992. And nearly three-fifths of them backed Republican House candidates. Among white seniors, that number rose to over three-fifths.

Democratic candidates attracted only about 35 percent of the vote among white men and women without a college education and college-educated white men.


http://news.yahoo.com/s/yblog_exclusive/20101103/pl_yblog_exclusive/perfect-storm-for-gop-obama-base-stays-home-white-voters-defect

Steve Steffens said...

Excellent point, M!

Babbling Boomer said...

I'm sure it had nothing to do with failure of the Democrats to keep their promises on transparency. (Health Care negotiations behind closed doors. "We have to pass it to know what's in it.") Not to mention honesty and accountability. (We both know if the same charges made against Barney Frank had been made against a Republican, the Republican would most likely have been hounded into resigning before the case ever got to the Ethics Committee.)

Unknown said...

Will the Cracker crawl out of his post 11-2 hole? Paul Simon, Joe Dimaggio and an axious nation turns its distratced eyes to you...

Babbling Boomer said...

If I know LWC as well as I think I do he will. He just hasn't made it to the 5th stage of mourning yet. At least he's not still stuck in the first like President Obma and Speaker of the House Pelosi (especially Speaker Pelosi) seem to be.

memtiger1984 said...
Will the Cracker crawl out of his post 11-2 hole? Paul Simon, Joe Dimaggio and an axious nation turns its distratced eyes to you

Steve Steffens said...

The former Speaker, soon-to-be Minority Leader? She was targeted because she was the most effect Speaker since O'Neill; she couldn't help it if the President's spine wasn't stiff enough.

Again, I am forced to remind everyone that only 4 of 79 members of the Progressive Caucus was defeated, while 29 of 54 Blue Dogs either were defeated or abandoned their seats.

The Democrats who remained Democrats WON, y'all.

Babbling Boomer said...

You mean like this shining example LWC?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8yT48wiRue4

Babbling Boomer said...

Steve Steffens said...

The former Speaker, soon-to-be Minority Leader? She was targeted because she was the most effect Speaker since O'Neill; she couldn't help it if the President's spine wasn't stiff enough.

A) Tip was willing to find compromises where possible as was Reagan.
B) My memory isn't so good, but did Tip ever lose 60+ seats?

Max Power said...

"did Tip ever lose 60+ seats?"

Nah, he had a senile moron in the Oval Office that made Democrats in Congress appear reasonable.

Tom Guleff said...

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

That's a great line.

Deacon David Oatney said...

Is it just Mad Max Country, or Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome?