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A Dissenting View

By Kleinheider Posted on September 15, 2008 at 10:01 am

The oft-ornery, contrarian Jeff Woods takes a different view of the political demise of Senator Rosalind Kurita at the hands of the Tennessee Democratic Party Executive Committee:

It’s not that the senator voted against John Wilder for speaker. Wilder was part of the Democrats’ problem. With his alliance with Republicans, he held power for power’s sake. He never tried to advance Democratic Party policies. He opposed most of them, in fact. So Kurita could have voted to oust Wilder to elevate a real Democrat to the speakership. Senate Democrats should have banded together and done that many years ago.

But Kurita voted against Wilder and gave Senate control to the Republicans. To a Democrat, that has to be unforgivable. The only way for Democrats to push their policies through the legislature is to impose party discipline. In the Senate especially, that’s been a foreign concept. That’s why every year the House passes Democratic initiatives only to see them fail in the Senate. Kurita’s ouster sends the message that Democrats finally might be serious about getting something done in state government.

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Comments

7 Responses to “A Dissenting View”

  1. MCO writes
    September 15th, 2008 11:03 am

    Dissatisfaction with Kurita’s votes explains why the election was close. Overturning elections as a means of “imposing party discipline” is a rather novel approach. One might argue it is a distrurbing approach, as well.

  2. dan t writes
    September 15th, 2008 11:31 am

    See this is the problem with the Tennessee Democrat Party. Their run by insiders and 4 or 5 famous families. If you make those people mad then they’ll do what they have to too ruin you. This is one reason why they’ve been continously losing seats in the State House since ‘96 and are getting creamed in statewide elections for the most part.

  3. Eleanor A writes
    September 15th, 2008 1:15 pm

    Problem is, Dems lost control of the Senate back in 2004. Wilder was lucky to have kept the Speakership at that point - it’s amazing the GOP didn’t take it from him.

    So, instead of pointing the finger at Bredesen and Wilder - who should have kept the majority - the insiders thought they’d scapegoat Kurita.

    Sad, but not surprising.

  4. Bobby Blevins writes
    September 15th, 2008 1:26 pm

    dan t, the GOP in this state has been largely controlled by an oligarchy too. That’s how it works in many state and local party organizations throughout the country no matter how much some folks pretend otherwise. The Democrats have been losing seats for other reasons.

  5. Donna Locke writes
    September 15th, 2008 1:52 pm

    Kurita voted against an incompetent’s being in charge of the people’s business. Some of you just don’t want to admit that.

  6. Bobby Blevins writes
    September 15th, 2008 2:22 pm

    I’ll admit it. And as I noted in another response he’s a traitor to his party too.

  7. Wintermute writes
    September 15th, 2008 3:08 pm

    Dissenting view? His view would be more accurately described as the prevailing view, whereas a few hand-wringing holier-than-thou bloggers and closet Republicans are dissenters.

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