An Insider Speaks Out On Chip
Posted on December 11, 2008 at 10:09 amYesterday, candidate for TNDP Chair Chip Forrester sent a letter to Democratic Party state executive committee members recounting a meeting with the state House Democratic Caucus and outlining his vision for the party going forward.
One Democratic insider, who shall remain nameless, took issue with the missive and fired off this email to Post Politics:
1. Chip makes out like he had this private meeting with the House Caucus. In reality, the House Caucus invited both candidates to speak to them. Chip and Charles Robert both attended the meeting and gave presentations.
2. Chip is talking out of both sides of his mouth. He wants to buddy up to the Democratic leadership in the General Assembly and then take shots at them in letters to activists. When he criticizes the “failed policies of 2008,” he’s criticizing the policies established by the Senate Leadership (particularly Haynes and Kyle), the House leadership (particularly Odom, Rinks, and Naifeh), Democratic members of Congress, the Governor’s Office, and our campaigns. I doubt that Chip thought he was criticizing TNDP. He’s been around long enough to know how things work. He knows full well that state party chairs do not hold dictatorial authority over campaigns. In fact, state party chairs fall well down the food chain.
3. Which brings me to the next point: Chip has been TNDP treasurer for the last two cycles. His name has been in the disclaimer of every piece of mail and every radio or television spot. By the TNDP by laws, Chip, as treasurer, has personally signed off on every TNDP expenditure over $5,000. In other words, Chip was intimately involved with those “failed policies” he now criticizes. Why didn’t he raise objections during the campaign if he thought those policies were bad? Chip is the consummate insider who is now trying to look like an outsider.
4. Some activists might not want to accept this, but we ran a fantastic coordinated campaign. We simply couldn’t overcome the blowout at the top of the ticket in the areas in which we had races. For example:
- Those “boots on the ground” that Chip promises? We had 10 paid, full-time field staffers on the ground in our targeted areas running canvassing operations. That’s far more “boots on the ground” than any Democratic or Republican coordinated campaign in Tennessee has ever provided.
- Here’s the real indicator of the strength of our campaigns: we lost three Senate races (SD 4, 12, 26). McCain beat Obama by 74,000 votes in those districts. We lost those races by 9,800 votes. There was a 7.7% drop-off rate in these districts (people that voted in the presidential but not the State Senate), which leaves us with 68,000 McCain votes (74,000 minus about 6,000 drop offs). That means we got approximately 58,000 McCain voters to vote for Mike Williams, Becky Ruppe, and Randy Camp. Down ticket, voters were moving our way, which is an indicator that we were getting through to people. At the end of the day, it took our best effort — which we gave — to get this close.
I personally like Chip, but he’s being dishonest about what went down. I never once heard a word of concern from Chip during the campaign - just the opposite. He talked about how well he thought things were going considering the complete absence of a presence at the top of the ticket in Tennessee.
Comments
28 Responses to “An Insider Speaks Out On Chip”
Is that you, Phil?
+10 Goldni
This reads like
WAAH WAAH WAAH! It’s OBAMA’s fault! WAAH WAAH WAAH! It CAN’T be out fault for not having any county structures in place! WAAH WAAH WAAH! Don’t take our power away, Blue Dogs still rule!!!
Really sad. Forrester GETS IT, even though he needs to show more of a plan than he has. Bredesen truly has been the worst thing ever to happen to the Tennessee Democratic Party.
During campaign season, I personally got at least 3 pieces of direct mail with Forestor’s name on it. For a guy who’s criticizing “failed policies,” he sure signed his name on a lot of stuff. Btw: Doesn’t GodsI live in Mass or Mont or some such place? He/she must’ve also got some of Chip’s “fail mail” too.
“Don’t take our power.” Sounds like Forrester’s mantra. He’s been a Tennessee Democratic Party insider for decades. I heard he’s been on the executive committe for a quarter century. Doesn’t sound like change I can believe in.
I have a question for all these Democrats online complaining about what they think somebody else didn’t do: How many county party meetings have you attended in the past? How many doors did you knock on for Tennessee candidates? How many calls did you make for Tennessee candidates? Tennessee Democrats won’t get anywhere until these grassroots people get off their keisters and get active. That means quit sitting around and complaining about what you think “Nashville” ought to be doing.
What I thought interesting was the assessment of the “Republican crossover” - all those who voted for McCain and then voted for a Democrat for state senate - the logic is flawed, they probably weren’t Republicans voting for a Democrat state senate candidate, they were probabably Democrats not voting for Obama - that’s more likely.
Someone’s got high hopes.
- Matthew
Whoever wrote that letter to Post Politics is also talking out of both sides of their mouth.
1. Chairs of successful state parties most certainly do have authority over campaigns in several ways, including often having a say in who the campaign manager will be, where the print materials will be printed and all especially if the state party is paying for it.
2. Treasurers of successful state parties are accountants. They don’t make decisions on how to spend the money the party spends. About the only decision they make is when money can be spent and filing reports.
It sounds to me whoever wrote this is upset they didn’t think to communicate the outcome of the meeting as effectively as Chip did and got upset. Fine. Get upset. Cry and whine to Kleinheider. If you don’t know how to communicate, then you and whoever you support deserve your losses until you wake up to a new reality in Tennessee.
Matthew, I don’t see where it makes any difference. A large number of McCain voters voted for Democrat candidates for the state legislature. Without knowing who these people are, we really don’t know whether they are Democrats, Republicans, or Independents. I’d argue that they are probably Independents. But again, I don’t think it matters. They obviously got the message about Democrat candidates for the state legislature.
Gutless.
Weak.
Toothless.
If you’re serious about being a “party insider,” then have the cajones to step up and tell the world who you are. I’m not a party insider, and I certainly don’t have a dog in this “Chip v. Charles” hunt. But I do believe that our TNDP has been too much involved in “insider” deals and secret, unpublicized meetings. Public servants and party leaders need to take the process out in the open. Enough’s enough.
[...] Gutless. Weak. Toothless. If you’re serious about being a… [...]
“I personally like Chip” must be TN Dem Insider speak for, “As a lifelong Democrat ….” which anyone who spends any time at all on lefty political blogs knows is code for, “I’m a GOP troll…”
Really what folks like this “insider” have against Chip is that the progressives like him.
Ducet -
I’d tend to disagree. My grandmother doesn’t care the first thing about the platform, she just votes for the (D) - and she explained to me that older people like herself were taught just to vote for the (D). When talking with her, she knew very little about the actual policies.
I believe she voted for McCain.
If we’re talking about crossover, we absolutely have to understand who they’ve crossed over for. I think Democrats voted for McCain and THEN voted for their senate candidates. What the author proposed is that Republicans had decided the Democrat message at the state level was better, which is - in all liklihood (sp?) - not the case.
It’s a tremendous assumption to make when you assume Republicans crossed over at the state level - an assumption I wouldn’t be willing to put money on, especially when there’s statistical evidence to support the claim that racist, white, southern Democrats voted against Obama.
So, was it Republicans voting a Democrat state senate candidate? Probably not. Was it racist white southern crossover? More likely than not.
- Matthew
And Southern Beale, that’s unfounded. ACK wouldn’t have printed this “from a Democrat insider” had it not been from an actual Democrat insider - he does exercise a certain level of journalistic integrity.
Generally, people who say things like, “Now I like Chip…” or “I’ve been a Democrat/Republican all my life, but…” have something negative to say. It’s not partisan - one party of the other - people on both sides use it.
Let’s try not to be intellectually dishonest about this. You’re calling ACK a liar - and then inserting your own partisan rhetoric into an argument that clearly has no basis in reality.
- Matthew
“from a Democrat insider” had it not been from an actual Democrat insider…
‘nough said. It’s Democratic, asshole.
Matthew, my point stands. Unless we actually know who these voters are we’re just guessing as to whether they are Democrats, Republicans, or Indpendents. I think the writer has a good point that 60,000 McCain voters voting for Democrat candidates indicates something drove them in that direction.
Southern Beale - you may wanna swing by the psychologist about your anger management issues. I just take issue with using the word “Democratic” when referring to a party whose ideals are less-than-democratic.
But I mean, your mature response sufficiently addressed the concerns I have about the hate-spewing leftists online. How do you balance your posting on DailyKos with your oh-so-intellectual endeavors here?
And I read your blog… you’ve got a lot of internal issues that you should address. You’re harboring a lot of hate… count to ten or something.
- Matthew
OH gee, thanks for the concern, Matthew. I appreciate it. For the record, I haven’t posted anything on DailyKos in about 5 years, so I’m not really sure what you’re talking about. More conservative fantasizing, I guess.
I’m not the one harboring hate, buddy.
Just a reminder. Locally, voting is more of a personality, community-network-driven thing. The R and the D often do not matter. What are people at church, in the service clubs, in the business-booster alliances, down at the union hall saying?
So let me get this straight. With Bredesen and Ford at the top of the ticket, Democrats in 2006 picked up a State Senate seat and held four open State House seats. With Obama and Tuke at the top of the ticket, Democrats in 2008 lost two Senate seats and four House seats. But Forrester blames the losses on Bredesen. He must be out of this mind.
What does he make of the fact that Democrats lost seats in 2004 with Kerry at the top of the ticket? Is that Bredesen’s fault, too.
If you know that the top of the ticket has no chance in your state, then it’s your responsibility in the state party to campaign hard for those downticket candidates. Bredesen was in the best possible position to do so, yet chose to sit on his hands and take potshots at the Obama campaign.
Frankly, I don’t think any of you people have a clue. Campaigns and caucuses run elections, not freaking parties. I have friends that are Democratic political operatives in North Carolina. They told me that the campaigns in that state are completely separate from the state party because the state party is run by a bunch of worthless crazies.
And what do you people expect a governor to do, neglect the duties of his office and campaign 24/7? I saw Bredesen all the time in that fucking tv commercial for Tim Barnes. I got sick of it.
By the logic you people throw around, Howard Dean and the DNC won the presidency, not Barack Obama. And I guess the RNC and whoever their chairman is lost.
How ignorant is that?
So taking it from your (rather angrily made) argument that we can’t hold the state party accountable for anything, not even having a central message, because it’s the caucuses who are responsible for everything, then what the hell did they do wrong?
It’s admirable that you’re defending Bredesen, but I don’t think calling those with a different opinion “you people” is going to win you very many points.
Don’t give up SB, GoldnI, LWC, et al! It’s those moderate, squishy Dems that are costing you guys elections Tennessee!
I’m not defending anyone. I’ve read these posts and there are a lot of people of the left that are jumping to conclusions that aren’t based in reality. After 2000, the left hollered for its presidential candidates to go left. Kerry did and got trounced. If you take a good look, you’ll see that Obama ran as a centrist. He won.
Anyone claiming that Democrats in Tennessee need to go left to win elections doesn’t have a good grasp of what this state is all about.
Nate,
I don’t think there’s a massive push to make the TNDP more liberal. Most of everything I’ve written and read has more to do with building a more inclusive, better functioning, and ultimately, stronger party.
There are ideological elements to building a stronger, but most of the things I’ve talked about are structural. I think most of us understand that Tennessee isn’t Massachusetts, we can’t push harder left and win, but we also can’t just sit back and do things in the same way expecting the same result when the conditions of the game have shifted.
What most of us are talking about is party building, something the DNC did fairly well over the past 4 years. And yes, I think there’s a broad consensus that the RNC, NRCC, and NRSC lost over the past years.
10 paid staffers running canvassing ops in battleground areas sounds impressive indeed, and is something that I (Memphian) was totally oblivious to. But staffers still need lots of money and and even more good volunteers in order to implement their strategy. Were either of these resources available in abundance? If not, why not? Does the TNDP not have a role to play in repositioning the party and its message in a way that opens the process up to every progressive in the state who wants to participate in a campaign?
I realize I’m speaking from a corner of the state that has long since been disowned by the geniuses in Middle TN, but why are the standard-bearers of our party so eager and willing to appease the farthest-right elements of our own party, rather than engage new progressive voices and developing new Dem voters across the state?