Thu
Aug 3 2006
11:51 pm
Low turnout in Davidson...
By: Eleanor A

Woof. 20% of the registered voters in Davidson came out, as opposed to over 40% in Shelby County. I don't think Shelby performed simply because Ford was on the ballot, either - he had no opponent, since Kurita dropped out.

Guess it might have been a good idea if the local Davidson Party had, say, recruited poll workers, or volunteers to give rides to the polls, or did any phone banking or other volunteer work for candidates. Instead, the political consultants running things over there worked for clients they got paid to support (in a primary against other Democrats), and Jim Bryson's numbers very nearly topped Bredesen's. In the county where he was Mayor, and from which his political strength allegedly originates.

Gonna be interesting how this is going to play out.

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Andy Axel's picture

...the political consultants

Submitted by Andy Axel on Fri, 2006/08/04 - 10:57am.

...the political consultants running things over there worked for clients they got paid to support (in a primary against other Democrats)

This is just wrong on so many levels.

Yet, it's symptomatic of how things have gone nationally with the Democratic Party. The "consultant class" has manufactured defeat after defeat for themselves, all the while blaming the grassroots for the shortcomings of the consultants' failed strategy.

I don't know where I heard this, but I recall being told that a "professional" "strategist" who self-identifies as a "Democrat" said that (paraphrasing), "The biggest reason that I'm a Democrat is because Republicans can't win in my county."

Oh, really? Wow, that's a winning philosophy. I can only imagine the results if you have jokers like that running the show. Given the piss-poor GOTV effort, you can peel off a single layer of the onion and represent that thought by re-stating the obvious belief underneath, which is: "I take the Democratic vote in my county for granted."

By the time that Democrats can't win in "my county," it'll then be time to jump ship to the Republican Party. Borrowing from the Field of Dreams metaphor: If you build it, they will come; once you've built it, you have to give them a reason to stay.

Thankfully, even if the turnout was light, the voters made sensible choices. I just hope that the candidates that those consultants supported lost.

If I was on the Bredesen bandwagon right now, I'd be incredibly spooked, though. 20% turnout and only 3,000 more votes than Jim Bryson in an open primary isn't what you would call a ringing endorsement from your alleged center of power. I'm sure Ford's people know how to add, too. Where's Davidson? Any statewide Democrat needs Davidson, and needs it big, in order to win.

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R. Neal's picture

I think another clue to

Submitted by R. Neal on Fri, 2006/08/04 - 11:03am.

I think another clue to HFJ's future can be found over here in East Tennessee. Despite Democrats being as organized and energized as I have ever seen them, and in many cases having better candidates (and at least equal in most), it's just not enough. Hell, GOPer Stacy Campfield got 70% in his primary, after his own party disowned him. That alone ought to tell you which way the wind blows in East Tennessee, and it ain't in HFJ's direction, and he can't win without ET.

Andy Axel's picture

Absolutely. Didn't they

Submitted by Andy Axel on Fri, 2006/08/04 - 11:21am.

Absolutely. Didn't they even say that their strategy was "not to lose by too much" in ET? (It'd be nice to see them figuring out how to win in ET, but I'm already on the record on that one.)

Maybe that has changed since that article was written, but even so, if Ford doesn't have massive turnout and sizeable margins in Davidson and Shelby, he's gonna have to "pursue other options," Knox County notwithstanding.

I'll leave the shake & bake of the numbers to someone else, but I'll be interested to see how those are distilled in the next week or so. The DP has pursued a dry powder strategy up until this point (or so they say), so I'm eager to see the ground game in action.

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