Despite devastating Democratic losses in last week's midterm election, Tennessee Democratic Party Chairman Chip Forrester says he has a "strong interest" in staying at the party's helm.
But a former chairman of the party as well as another Democrat who may be interested in the job said it is time for Forrester to go.
In an interview, Forrester "when I ran two years ago I made it clear that I felt the work we needed to do to create a sustaining fundraising base and a sustaining party and not rely on living from chair to chair would most likely require four years. I am like everyone else just sort of taking a little time since Tuesday to kind of contemplate the future.
"But," he said, "I have a strong interest in looking at it [chairmanship] and will make a decision quite soon."
Former state Democratic Party Chairman Will T. Cheek said Forrester should not run again.
"It's not a question of whether he did right or wrong or did a good job or didn't do a good job," said Cheek, noting Forrester managed to get himself elected by the state Democratic Executive Committee two years ago despite the opposition of many top elected officials, including Gov. Phil Bredesen.
"It was his cycle," Cheek said of Forrester. "He needs to accept responsibility for it and move aside."
Forrester said earlier there were a number of factors that generated the "terrible headwinds" that caused state Democrats to fall to their weakest position since Civil War Reconstruction days. In Tuesday's election, Republicans' took the governorship, won back control of the state House and captured three Democratic congressional seats.
Forrester noted that the president's party typically loses seats in midterm elections.
"You add that to the almost obscene amounts of outside money anonymously raised by secret groups ... and the reality that the American people are frustrated with the slow recovery," Forrester said.
Cheek, however, put the issue in the context of the sinking of the Titanic.
"The captain of the Titanic, I don't know if he did anything wrong personally either, but the ship went down and he went with it," Cheek said. "He didn't get a life boat. He didn't ask for a new command."
Nashville attorney David Briley, a former Nashville Metro councilman, last week sent out a letter to executive committee members that indicates he may be interested in the post.
In the letter Briley said the results of the election "are not the fault of any one person or group of people. Every Democrat, including the Executive Committee, bears responsibility for allowing the party to wither on the vine."
He said it would be "fruitless to second guess Chip and his team."
"Nevertheless," Briley wrote, "the new environment requires new leadership. We need to elected a new chairperson who can focus us first on rebuilding our idea base."