Monday, April 6, 2009
Politics / Woods Doug Horne's $10K Helps Keep Democratic Party Afloat
Posted by Jeff Woods on Mon, Apr 6, 2009 at 10:40 AM
[Forrester] has a standing Thursday breakfast with House Democratic Caucus Chairman Mike Turner of Nashville and Senate Democratic Caucus Chairman Roy Herron of Dresden. He's launched a new website and is making preparations for a party summit May 2 and 3 in Monteagle, as he promised when he was elected. He has studied the possibility of moving the state headquarters from the Freedom Center near the Capitol to a less expensive location but has no current plan to do so. He is operating with a skeleton crew -- office manager Vionne Williams and fund-raising coordinator Meredith Puleo -- and volunteers.The crucial test for Forrester comes with the Jackson Day dinner, the party's biggest fund-raiser, which is set for May 30 at the Factory in Franklin. If this fund-raiser flops, as expected, it may spell the end for the chairman--that is, if anyone cares enough to force his resignation. Forrester has never really had a chance to succeed. As you recall, the party's elected leadership decided late in the process to back Charles Robert Bone, but Forrester won anyway because he'd already nailed down enough support within the executive committee. So the governor and congressmen just stopped helping the party. Bredesen, for instance, canceled his quarterly breakfasts with high-dollar donors--one of the party's main fund-raising gimmicks. As one reporter here at the Legislative Plaza put it this morning, Forrester didn't really win anything when he won the chairmanship. "It's like when I used to play checkers with my brother when we were kids," this reporter said. "If I got close to winning, he'd just flip the board over so I couldn't win. That's the way it is with Chip." Update: Sean Braisted spells out three options for the party.
Comments (9)
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Why is this? Because Chip and Jennifer Buck Wallace publicly said they could run the party without the governor and the congressionals. In fact, they said the governor and the congressionals don't do anything for TNDP.
Still think that Chip?
And $61,000 raised in one month is nothing to brag about. That means TNDP has raised about $120,000 this year. That's pathetic.
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Too true about the checker board analogy. I'm not sure what made Chip think that he would be allowed to freely exist after taking a crap on the heads of senior elected Democrats. (Although prior to the Executive Committee vote, I heard he was telling everyone that all would be forgotten and that the Big/Blue Dogs would have no choice but to embrace him. How'd that work out for you, Chip?)
Meanwhile, word is that Horne wrote a $10k check only after Chip begged and pleaded, on all four of his little cloven hooves, for Horne to cut the TNDP rent at the downtown Freedom Center. Horne, being a wise businessman but a compassionate human being, apparently said he wouldn't cut the rent but that he would subsidize Chip for a month or two with a contribution.
It also would be interesting to know how much money Freeman contributed toward that $61k sum before Chip unceremoniously canned him.
Woods,
As I have repeatedly told Chip's minions Jennifer Buck Wallace, Holly McCall, Devin the Young Vandy Student, and that volunteer that won't bathe, I am not now nor have I ever been Bill Fletcher.
But Chip and his crew continue to run around trashing Fletcher and FRR on comment threads and in real-world conversations.
I wonder what Bill Fletcher thinks about that?
Chip owes the Governor and four of our Democratic Congressmen an apology for the overt disrespect shown to them by him and his volunteers. He also should retract the simply-false accusation that they are somehow to blame for legislative losses last year.
Chip and his supporters must also acknowledge the patently obvious — that Chip Forrester has been the most divisive chairman in the history of the TNDP. At the same time, he should publicly disavow his on-line supporters who have been calling for the "primarying" and defeat of our incumbent Democrats, especially Jim Cooper and Lincoln Davis.
The fact of the matter is that those surrounding Chip have absolutely no record of any success in electing Democrats. And the party can probably do just fine without them. Can anyone honestly say the same about the major donors, the elected officials, the political professionals, the experienced hands who have turned their backs on the TNDP? I don't think so.
If Chip Forrester honestly cared about the TNDP, he would resign on his own. This afternoon.
Why would Doug Horne do that? Is there some strategy to let them strangle slowly at the end of a rope? We all know that Horne despises Chip as much as anyone.
Aside from the entertainment value of that, why not break the TNDP's neck right away, then resuurect it with a new head?
Sounds like Horne is paying the rent on TNDP's space for a couple of months. Could he be counting on there being a new chairman by then that can actually raise enough money to pay rent?
Are ya'll on Bredesen's payroll, or what? Don't believe that the exec committee knew what they were doing when they elected Chip by a 2:1 margin? Think that the TNDP chairman should be appointed by MIA-in-'08 Bredesen, no-out-reach-or-even-a-functioning-website Sasser, and I'm-So-Conservative Davis?
You are out of touch with the rank-and-file Democrats out there. They (we) want a progressive party, not a party that is hardly distinguishable from the GOP. Oh, or is it all and only about money (as your posts would seem to suggest) and not about progressive principles?
There you go Tennessee Democrats. Your party has been taken over by the moonbeam, angry left - people like TN4th. They and Chairgimp Chipper have turned your party HQ into a down-home version of Haight-Asbury.
Good luck with those elections next year.
