Good Ol' Boys
Clint Brewer has his take on Saturday's vote to invalidate the results of the Senate District 22 primary election, and as suspected, it isn't too positive for the TNDP:
The Good Ol’ Boys still run the Tennessee Democratic Party, and on Saturday they got together in the figurative smoky back room and did their best to end the career of their party’s highest-ranking woman.
Well, they didn't really "do their best," as that would've been to void the election and call Tim Barnes the winner (though that is the most likely result by kicking it down to a county convention).
Also, many people are using the term "good ol' boys" to define the party. Now, if you are using "boys" in the non-gender-specific way, then perhaps you are right. But if you are using it to suggest its just a bunch of ol' white guys deciding what happens, then I'm sorry, but the evidence doesn't support that.
There are an equal number of men and women on the board of the TNDP. There is a man and woman elected to the committee in each of the state senate districts in Tennessee. The chair is a man, the vice-chair is a woman. And while Sasser didn't vote either way last Saturday (I don't think he could as he was not an elected member of the committee), the Vice Chair, Elisa Parker, did vote to throw back the election to the county level, and with a 33-12 vote, more women than not voted to accept Barnes' side of the story. In Nashville, from what I recall, both Jerry Maynard (19) and Will Cheek (21) voted against the measure.
I don't say this to excuse what happened, I just think if people are going to invoke sexism, as the TNGOP Chair cynically is, then the facts of the matter should be understood. I'm still awaiting a roll call vote from the Party, and once I have that, I'll post it.
3 comments:
My take: In this case, it's the good-ol'-person network. I think there are still a lot of people pissed at Kurita's vote to unseat Wilder. I agree it was a drastic vote on her part but umm, long past time in practically everyone's opinion [maybe everyone outside the political establishment, but that's still practically everyone. It's shocking to me that the party is actually going to take her down for it, though. Just smacks of cronyism. I would much rather have Ramsey step in as governor than Wilder, should something unfortunate happen to Bredesen, heaven forbid. Let's name someone who disagrees. Umm. Still thinking.
I don't know about Clint, but I didn't intend to use the term in a gender or race-specific way when I used it to describe this situation. It's more a way to describe the entrenched establishment and the cronyism.
I really wonder if this would have played out as it has if Kurita were one of the guys. I'm rather familiar with the male Democratic mafia in my little county, with its female figureheads at the top.
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