By Bruce Dobie and Liz Murray Garrigan

Inside Politics

Things are confused in the Tennessee Democratic Party—so confused, in fact, that former state legislator Tommy Burnett is considering a run for the party’s gubernatorial nomination next year.

“I am disgusted that the Democratic Party cannot find anyone to run,” says Burnett, who remains a respected and beloved character in the state party, despite the fact that he has spent time in prison after convictions for failure to file timely tax returns and for a felony charge arising out of the state’s bingo scandal in the late 1980s.

Burnett’s frustration is shared by many Democrats, who say that party leaders are intimidated by the campaign stash accumulated by incumbent Republican Gov. Don Sundquist. “I am disgusted that [Democratic leaders] are saying that $4.5 million can buy this state,” Burnett says. “I think a candidacy can be launched, because there are ideas that are inherent in the Democratic Party that are unlike the ideas of Don Sundquist.”

But Democratic operatives say their party has yet to articulate those ideas. Instead, critics say, elected Democrats are too concerned with what’s going on in their narrow political circles and not focused enough on unifying the party and finding a candidate for next year’s governor’s race.

Thus far, Burnett is “not saying” that he is running for governor, but he admits that he would “consider anything” if it meant voters had a viable Democratic choice on the gubernatorial ballot next year. “I like Don Sundquist, but what has he really done to move the state forward?” Burnett asks. He concedes that the governor’s welfare reform plan, which passed a couple of years ago, is showing signs of success, but he adds that it is “just one tip of the iceberg of the many problems we have in this state.”

According to Burnett, Democrats should seize upon issues such as tax reform and improved vocational education in rural areas, where high school drop-out rates are unusually high. Meanwhile, however, Burnett and others say the Democrats are treading water because they have not found a single issue or a leader around which to mobilize their party. “I just don’t see any spiritual revolution in the Democratic Party,” Burnett says.

Mike Kopp, a partner at the Ingram Group who has managed statewide Democratic campaigns, says the outlook is bleak for Democrats in next year’s race because the party’s leaders are too interested in protecting their own futures. “There’s no overriding cause, nor is there any person pushing a cause that’s making everyone feel comfortable about stepping outside their circle and doing anything differently,” says Kopp. He characterizes the landscape of Democratic politics in Tennessee as a series of individual camps with no headquarters. While Vice President Al Gore would benefit from having a Democratic governor in Tennessee, recruiting a gubernatorial candidate for next year’s race doesn’t appear to be on Gore’s agenda, Kopp says.

At the same time, Tennessee’s congressional delegation and the state legislative leadership are concerned about their own survival in next year’s other races. “Everybody’s been more guarded about their interests, their needs, and their resources than I’ve seen in the past,” Kopp says. “And I think it’s probably more because there hasn’t been a major statewide Democratic force that pulls it all together. [Former Gov. Ned] McWherter was the last one who did that.”

Feelings of rejection

Some Tennessee Democrats argue that McWherter, still the most powerful figure in the party, has been nobly honest in his discussion of next year’s gubernatorial race. But other Democrats contend that McWherter hasn’t been partisan enough.

The name of Steve Cohen, the liberal state senator from Memphis, continues to surface as a possible candidate, but he is roundly ignored by the mainstream Democratic establishment. As recently as this week, McWherter was saying that the party shouldn’t feel compelled to run a candidate against Sundquist just to say it had a name on the ballot.

“If we have a man or woman who wants to run for governor as a Democrat and is worthy of Democratic support, I’ll help them any way I can,” McWherter told the Associated Press. “On the other hand, just to run somebody to antagonize and run a negative-type campaign, I fail to see how that serves the people of Tennessee well.”

If no viable candidate steps forward, McWherter says, the party should put its resources into the congressional and legislative races.

While state Democratic Party Chairman Houston Gordon, a Covington attorney, is quietly criticized by some who think he hasn’t done enough to stir up a worthwhile candidate, other insiders say the fault probably is not his. “Houston Gordon has done everything he can do,” Burnett says. As far as Burnett is concerned, Gordon has explored all the available options. “He has eaten the turkey and the ham,” Burnett says.

Even former state Democratic Party Chairman Will Cheek, who’s been at odds with Gordon in the past, defends Gordon, who has been turned down when he has approached most of the state’s best-known Democrats. According to Cheek, the state party chairman is expected to take a behind-the-scenes role and should not be expected to strong-arm candidates into running for office. “You go to Indiana or Kentucky or any place and you ask them who their state party chairman is, and they don’t know,” Cheek says. “State party chairs are a fairly innocuous group nationally and in both parties.”

One of the problems is that Tennessee Democrats have lost their “star system.” Powerful figures such as McWherter seem to have other fish to fry and are no longer taking their traditional roles as the state’s Democratic leaders. “[McWherter] could summon people together, and he still can—though I gather he’s not wanting to do much of that,” Kopp says. “What we’re missing is a sort of Howard Baker on the Democratic side, someone who can convene a group of people from all the different camps and say, ‘We’ve got to pull together, and here’s the agenda. Put aside your other agendas. Here’s what we need to get done.’ ”

Bob Corney, acting executive director of the Tennessee Democratic Party, says 1994’s GOP sweep—in which Democrats lost the governor’s office and both U.S. Senate seats—wiped out much of the party’s momentum and “created a vacuum of sorts.”

What’s more, Corney says, the costs of mounting a statewide campaign have kept even the most affluent potential candidates from announcing. “There are a lot of people who would be excellent in public office who are intimidated by the prospect of raising so much money,” he says.

Corney says the money barrier is real, but that it shouldn’t keep candidates from running for statewide office. “The expectation is that a governor’s race has got to cost $10 million, that it’s just got to,” he says.

But Corney also says the lack of a Demo-cratic gubernatorial candidate doesn’t mean the party isn’t unified in its drive to find one. Every leader in the party agrees it needs a consensus candidate, even if that person hasn’t been found yet, he says. “It’s unfortunate that the litmus test of the cohesiveness of the party” depends on having a candidate right now, Corney says.

Off message

One obvious source of leadership is the state Legislature, where the Democratic Party controls both houses. But Lt. Gov. John Wilder, the Senate speaker, owes his long-standing job as the upper chamber’s leader to a bipartisan coalition of legislators and to his strong relationship with Sundquist.

Wilder is the second most powerful man in state politics, yet his view of his role is decidedly unglamorous. “I’m not in the inner circle of the Democratic Party,” Wilder told the Scene.

In classic Wilder fashion, he describes his job by saying, “I’m speaker of the Senate, and I like to be speaker of the Senate, and as long as I’m speaker of the Senate and the Senate is the Senate, I want to be speaker. And when the Senate is not the Senate, I don’t want to be speaker. That’s the way I am.”

Then there’s House Speaker Jimmy Naifeh, whose current agenda is to lead his Democratic colleagues during the legislative session and concentrate on getting them re-elected when the Legislature isn’t in session.

Critics say that during the most recent session, the Legislature, under Wilder and Naifeh’s leadership, didn’t do a good enough job of identifying issues behind which the party could rally.

“I don’t want to point fingers or anything, but the Democratic legislators are in the best position [to identify issues],” Cheek says, without leveling specific criticisms at Wilder and Naifeh. “They have not done that. There should have been several large issues that should have developed in the General Assembly last year that just didn’t.”

Cheek says Democrats should have been unified on issues such as the proposal to privatize the state’s prisons. “Democrats are all over the board on the thing,” Cheek says. “We’re unable to develop a consensus on major issues, and therefore we don’t have any message.

“It’s really going to be hard to win if you don’t have any message.”

“It’s really going to be hard to win if you don’t have any message.”