Some state Democrats want party chief out

Tennessee Democratic Party Chairman Chip Forrester said he has a "strong interest" in remaining at the party's helm despite state Democrats' staggering losses to Republicans in the midterm elections.

But a former state party chairman likened Forrester to the captain of the Titanic and said he needs to go.

"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," said Will T. Cheek. "He didn't get a lifeboat. He didn't ask for a new command."

Meanwhile, former Nashville Metro Councilman David Briley, a state Democratic Party Executive Committee member, has written fellow executive committee members a letter saying Forrester should not continue as chairman.

In an interview last week, Forrester said there were a number of factors that generated the "terrible headwinds" that caused state Democrats to plummet to their lowest level since Civil War Reconstruction days.

In last week'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 and Democrats lost in contests nationwide in part because of the struggling economy.

"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 [economic] recovery," Forrester said.

Forrester said when running two years ago, he "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."

Tennessee Democrats' fingers have been slipping from the reins of power for 16 years. In 1992 and 1996, Democrats Bill Clinton and Al Gore of Tennessee won Tennessee only by pluralities and not outright majorities. Both U.S. Senate seats, including Gore's former seat, as well as the governorship went to Republicans in 1994.

Democrat Phil Bredesen, who lost his gubernatorial bid in 1994, won the seat in 2002 but only narrowly and by last-minute injections of his own personal wealth. He easily won re-election but Democrats continued to hemorrhage legislative seats, losing their Senate majority in 2004.

At a time when Democrats nationally were on the rebound, Democrat Harold Ford Jr. lost the 2006 U.S. Senate race to Republican Bob Corker, of Chattanooga.

In 2008, as Tennesseans overwhelmingly rejected Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama, Republicans took the state House by a 50-49 margin, only to see the speakership elude them when all 49 Democrats voted for Rep. Kent Williams, R-Elizabethton, for speaker. Williams voted for himself and became speaker.

"What has been clear since 1994 is the Republican 'lean' in the state has sort of cemented itself," said Vanderbilt University political science professor Bruce Oppenheimer. "Part of this has been visible as Democrats have increasingly had trouble finding first-rate candidates to run for statewide office, not to mention the declining success in a state where even conservative democrats like Lincoln Davis can't seem to win."

U.S. Rep. Davis, a conservative Democrat, lost his re-election bid to Republican Scott DesJarlais of Marion County.

"It's a question of how you rebuild that base," Oppenheimer said.

In his letter to fellow executive committee members, Democrat 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 elect a new chairperson who can focus us first on rebuilding our idea base."

In an interview, Briley, when pressed, wouldn't rule out a challenge if Forrester seeks re-election in January.

"I think we've got to go out and identify the issues that are uniquely Democratic and start to promote them and start to educate [people] about them and do a better job of communicating them to the public," Briley said.

He said he would prefer someone else, preferably a woman who is willing to push the kinds of changes he envisions, to step up to the task of rejuvenating state Democrats. But Briley said if he did run, he would hire a full-time executive director to run the party and spend his time as chairman primarily fundraising and serving as the party's public face.

Cheek said the question is not whether Forrester "did right or wrong or did a good job or didn't do a good job."

He said Forrester managed to get himself elected by the state Democratic Executive Committee two years ago despite the opposition of many top elected officials, including Bredesen and Davis.

"It was his cycle," Cheek said of Forrester. "He needs to accept responsibility for it and move aside."

Contact staff writer Andy Sher at asher@timesfree press.com or 615-255-0550.

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