As I've said in other posts, it seems that Forrester has let many progressive Democrats down in his 5-week tenure as Chair. But they hope for the best and are sticking with him anyway. The most recent blunder - again noted in another post - is Forrester's decision to refuse to support Governor Bredesen's legislative effort to repeal the FONCE tax loophole for the wealthy (to a large extent wealthy non-Tennesseans). How many chances will progressives give Forrester? I don't know, but what we're witnessing now appears to be the height of hypocrisy. If Forrester is really a champion of President Obama's policies, how can he continue to make such decisions that benefit mostly wealthy non-Tennessee residents? And how can progressives continue to let him?

On the local front, I have thought for some time that G. Johnson, who was the self-anointed Obama campaign leader in Knox, was posturing to run for chair. I don't know anything about her past politics and do not know her personally, but I do know that many in the Party have expressed displeasure over the prospect of her being elected. Are these views justified? I don't know. But some feel that Ms. Johnson is in well over her head. Some are upset at her apparent tactics, which indicate (to them) that she has neither appreciation nor toleration for Democrats who didn't support President Obama during the primaries. Some are bothered by the prospect that she might use her term to purge many veteran Democrats from the party. Others fear that a Johnson-led Party would be nothing more than another term under Sylvia Woods, who has reportedly taken Johnson under her wing since the Democratic Convention last summer. Finally, many Democrats, including a couple of officeholders, have both privately and not so privately expressed the opinion that Ms. Johnson and her supporters (e.g., Obama volunteers) might suffer from a "sense of entitlement," in that President Obama was elected. Many Clinton supports view this as a smack in the face, since Clinton won Knox County in February, and President Obama was so soundly defeated in Knox County.

On the other hand, Ms. Johnson has expressed that veteran Democrats -including me, I suppose - likewise do not appreciate, and will not tolerate new folks (like her) who have never been politically active until President Obama's campaign excited them. I suppose Ms. Johnson and her supporters fear that if they do not wrest control away from the veterans in this particular election, they are going to be thrown to the curb and their opinions left unheard.

I'll say this, to the extent any of this is true, it's going to damage the Democratic Party. Veteran Democrats have tolied for years in this county, sometimes successful in electing Democrats, often not so successful. But there was a time in this county when Democrats were a force to be reckoned with and had numerous county offices and some terrific county commissioners. The veteran Democrats are the ones who fought those battles. The bottom line is that we can't progress as a local Party and gain back some of that strength without expanding our base to include new folks - whoever they are and from whereever they came - who share Democrat values. We can't have a civil war in the Democratic Party and expect either side to win. They will both lose, and the GOP will gain even more strength than they already have in this county.

Is there a middle ground? I'm not certain, but there better be, or we face utter annihilation next August in the General Election. IMHO, Ms. Johnson would be well-served to reach out to all of these veteran Democrats and ask them to serve as mentors to her and to other newly-self-proclaimed Democrats. Fact is, President Obama didn't do very well in Knox. He was out-polled by our Criminal Court Clerk nominee. And in the February primary, he didn't win Knox, Hillary Clinton did. My point is, I think both sides can learn from the other, but the type of polarizing vitriol that I've been hearing from both sides - and it's getting worse - will only guarantee one thing: a GOP sweep in 2010.