Tuesday, January 27, 2009
Politics / Woods Rosalind's Revenge: Democratic Party Is Basically Broke
Posted by Jeff Woods on Tue, Jan 27, 2009 at 11:14 AM
Unfortunately for Democrats, $80,000 is about all the party has left in its bank account. And with the Democratic establishment upset over Saturday's election of Chip Forrester as the party chairman, fund-raising isn't looking too promising at the moment. So Forrester is trying to come up with a payment plan to satisfy Bass, Berry.
We talked with Gray Sasser, now the party treasurer, about all this a few minutes ago. "We're working with counsel to find an amicable solution," Sasser said. After the jump, our conversation:
Q: We heard you've got a bill from Bass, Berry & Sims to pay. How are you going to do that?
Sasser: We are going to retire our legal bill, yes. We're still in negotiations with Bass, Berry & Sims over what the final bill is going to be.
Q: What is it right now?
Sasser: We're still working on that.
Q: I heard it's $80,000
Sasser: We're still working with Bass to see what kind of cost savings we can come up with.
Q: So you're trying to whittle it down?
Sasser: We're doing everything we can to whittle the bill down and take care of it.
Q: Well, if it's $80,000, then you won't have any money in the bank, right?
Sasser: You know I'm sure we can come up with payment plans with Bass like any other creditor.
Q: Do you guys have any employees at this point?
Sasser: Not really. It'll be up to the new chairman to staff it back up.
Q: So there is no party right now?
Sasser: Well I think there is a party. I think the party is a lot more than just what's in our office.
Q: So the only paid position right now is the chairman?
Sasser: Correct.
Q: And presumably he won't be getting any paychecks right away.
Sasser: You know, I'm about to sit down with Chip, and we're about to start raising the money that we're going to need.
Q: What are you going to do for money with the governor and the congressionals saying they aren't going to help you raise it?
Sasser: At the end of the day, all the Democrats are going to pull together in the next couple of weeks. Obviously, I supported a different person for chairman. But Chip was my friend before the election, and he's my friend today, and we're going to sit down with him and do everything we can to make sure that he is more successful than I was.
Q: OK, thanks.
Sasser: I look forward to reading your post.
Comments (2)
Showing 1-2 of 2
Gray Sasser & Chip Forrester should be ashamed of themselves. First they spent $80,000 with Bass Berry, and they had pro bono help from George Barrett's firm probably worth at least another $20,000 -- in their effort to steal a legitimate election, but then they spent another $200,000 to defeat Kurita's write-in campaign (see their TREF report). While you're looking at the TREF report, note that many of the Democratic candidates got very little financial help from TDP and probably could have won, had they given a little help. Thus, good old Gray Sasser & Treasurer Chip Forester (who made the motion to overturn Kurita's election)lost control of the State Legislature.
Yet, both are back at the TNDP offices trying to get the TDP out of the "shredder" where they put it. In Tennessee we always reward those who fail. What a state!!!!!
like
dislike
The column and subsequent posts paint a more negative picture than more negative than is accurate.
The Temnessee Democratic Party has a $750,000 budget and alot of it is from recuring revenue streams and a very loyal donor base . It is very common for state parties to spend their resources down in an all out effort to win elections. In fact if there was alot of money left they would be critcized for not going all out. I will admit that the $80,000 dollar bill sounds a little high but I have not seen the itemization. One of the previous bloggers mentioned that very little was spent on legislative candidates. Not true. Most all of the 1.6 Million dollar coordinated campaign was spent on state races. That figure does not include the federal account expenditures. There is a tremendous resolve among Democrats in Tennessee to reinvigorate and energize our efforts towards winning in 2010. The Candidates are ultimately responsible for winning their elections. The parties can make a differance on the margins. The State Party did a good job of providing financial support for many of our candidates. A $400 thousand contribution to the coordinated was an unprecedented investment. That was not good enough obviously. We are obviousl need to do some things differently. In the future if our Presidential candidate blows off. our state like Kerry and Obama, we should step up and fund an effort to dispell their negatives and raise their positives. A rising tide floats all boats. This is difficult because it's expensive. It may well be what gives our legislative candidates a boost in vote splitting rural areas where we have been getting edged out. If our new Chair replicates the good that was done , add some new ideas, and reaches out to some more people to share the burden , I think we will be successfull.
