In an interesting piece of timing, as I was musing on Researcher and NMC’s unhappy confirmation just now of what suggests a considerable dysfunction of the Mississippi Democratic Party (my appraisal, not theirs), I was also working my way through an overstuffed inbox. And there, in an email from lilaruby, I found not only an echo of three posts from August but proof that, even in the deep South, even as nearby as Memphis, it doesn’t have to be this way.
So what, I wonder, is the MS Democrats’ (other than duckweedpond, NMC, and the few others I know to have been working flat-out for the party and/or specific candidates) story? I doubt we can put this on Ronnie Musgrove (though candidate recruitment is obviously part of the problem). Seems to me, if the MS Dems couldn’t get voters activated this year, all we can expect is for the Delta, and the rest of the state, to go on pottering out.
What’s the problem, how did it start, and what is it going to take to turn it around?
First, about Musgrove: He’s got a history of not having anything operating on the ground. Just depended on someone else to do it, I’ve assumed, and because the state Dems. haven’t the money and have other issues, there’s just not a state-wide ground game.
Bennie Thompson can turn out the vote in the Delta. Why didn’t his operation do that? I don’t know.
There is this, though: Mississippi just plain didn’t matter this time, as usual. It was certain to go red, and the war didn’t reach us. Obama had a ground game of sorts here, but it was of necessity run on a shoestring. I have a huge amount of respect for the people doing it, who were doing what they could with little or no money.
Fixing all this is a long term project and it has to be built a brick at a time.
I’m finding it impossible to stay logged in.
Having sent the “good news” article, there is indeed “bad news” on the Democratic Party front in Memphis and Tennessee. The state legislature will be controlled by Republicans in first time in over 100 years. Shelby County Democratic Party and Tennessee Democratic Party are inept.
That being said, the Memphis Obama campaign, staffed primarily with grassroots volunteers, with one paid staffer, was incredible. The last few weeks, they focused (smartly) on North Carolina. The Saturday before the election over 9,000 calls went out from that office to North Carolina voters, helping to flip NC for Obama.
There is a desperate need to flip the local and state party from being controlled by the hacks interested in “politics as usual.” Congressman Cohen showed it could be done, largely through smart use of grassroots volunteers and savvy campaigning. He went on to be acclaimed freshman Congressman of the year.
The Mississippi party can never afford to do anything. We are never targeted by the DNC or the Presidential nominee so we don’t get all that money and the A-list organizers.
The state party never elected anyone. Our federal and state candidates have to run as independents who separate themselves from the national party. Every successful Democratic candidate has created his/her own coalition.
Well, so now you’re stuck with two minority-party hacks in the Senate. It’s like they say of Mexico: “Poor Mississippi[/Tennessee] — so close to the United States, so far from God.”
Sounds like it’s time for a double insurgency against the entrenched hacks, so y’all can get you some attention and energy stirred up.
It would be interesting to compare the Childers and Musgrove campaigns. Both got national support. I wonder how differently they spent their money.
I would think that a year ago, conventional wisdom would have been that Musgrove had a fair amount better chance than a 1st cong. dist Democrat. What do you think, Researcher?
With regard to Bennie Thompson, he has moved from just being a candidate for the black community, to being one favored by the farming community in the Delta as well — a pretty significant block of white voters. Thompson figured out pretty quick that the best way to stay in office was to not only get the black vote, but a nice percentage of the white vote as well (much like his predecessor, Mike Espy). He is on the Ag Committee and caters to the farming special interests in the Delta. He takes care of them. They take care of him. Absent some sort of serious scandal, he will be in the House until he retires or dies.
Musgrove has made no such alliance. Those same white farmers in the Delta who will support Thompson, despise Musgrove. Not sure exactly why, but that is my perception from being from the Delta and knowing a lot of the farmers in the Delta. Most all of them supported Barbour as Gov. against Musgrove. They never liked him, and never will. And I doubt that Musgrove really excites the black voting block in the Delta either. Thus, in an area where he should be really dominant as a Democrat and should expect a huge turnout, he doesn’t get it.
Wicker is very strong in NE MS (his home base) and picked up the traditionally conservative counties in MS that had a nice turnout.
The Democrats best chance to take this Senate seat — Mike Moore — was taken out of the race due to the Scruggs scandal.
Don’t y’all also think it has to do with the Haley Barbour being governor? Republicans here have his resources from his former days and the Democrats don’t have this level of clout in their leadership in Mississippi.
Don’t give Barbour or the GOP credit for any better organization. Look at Childers wins.
The Republicans waste more money than the Democrats on stupid ads and overpriced consultants. But it really is not hard to get Rankin Countians and DeSoto Countians to take off and drive their SUVs or pickups to vote against someone. It is much harder to get poor rural voters to the polls. All the GOTV models are designed for urban voters.
Researcher, I’m curious what you think of my latest post………
Campaigning in the Delta is terrible.
You can’t run a volunteer GOTV effort like you can in other places. After the federal government forced Mississippi to allow blacks to vote, white primary candidates needed their votes without openly courting them so they started the practice of handing out cash to local operators to round up votes. Now the Delta is full of political hustlers and poor disenchanted voters who don’t have any confidence that candidates will really do anything for them.
musgrove turned against so many who supported him as governor; they simply would not support him again. This includes many in the black community. Many white voters support jennie now since the redistricting they simply found themselves in his district and have no complaints. Jennie can get things done in Washington now. Lotus, we don’t consider the senate that big of a deal when we have Thompson, Taylor and now Childers. Thad’s a fixture and it was just slim pickins in the senate race this time.
I mean Bennie.
I’ve heard a few other democrats utter stuff similar to what confounded states about Musgrove @11.
I am curious: how important are other state’s party organizations to candidate recruitment and campaign support?
I think the problem with recruitment in this special election was weirdly affected by the scruggs/lott downfall. Which I guess goes without saying since that event is what brought it all on. But consider the succession election to the Lott seat if Lott had finished out this term or had simply retired prior to his re-election. Phil Bryant would have been the Hand picked and Lott endorsed successor (probably). Mike Moore would have been the Dem candidate. Moore is probably ruined as a viable candidate for any election and Lott’s endorsement would have been a kiss of death for Bryant. It wasn’t just the Dems who had a problem with candidate recruitment in that election. The other likely Republican who could have run for Trent’s seat was Chip Pickering. Well he’s created problems for himself that I do not believe will be overcome in time to cleAr him to run for Thad’s seat.
Shall we say the planets aligned for Wicker. Otherwise I don’t believe he would have been considered to replace Lott at all.
duckweedpond:
I’ve recently moved here after 30+ years in Maine Democratice Party politics. There (and in other states where I’ve had some experience) the role of the state party in recruitment and support of candidates has varied overed the years with party leadership, but the importance has remained constant: when the state party takes a strong, effective role the candidate is more likely to win. However, that role is not necessarily at the Senatorial level. The state party works best when it recruits good candidates for local races. “Natural selection” by the voters will generally do the rest in terms of selecting candidates who can win and “move up” to higher offices. The real role of the state party at that point is in coordinating GOTV.
It is clear that there are “two Maines”, much as appears to be the case in Mississippi. This has lead to a consistent ability of Maine Dems to elect local and Congressional democrats with a sporadic record on Gubernatorial and Senatorial races. Nevertheless, the party as a whole does better when there is an effective, strong state party.
Wowzers, kennebunklegal, Maine to Missisippi must mean all kinds of culture shock. Howya doon with it?
Welcome to folo!
State party support doesn’t mean much because of the chaos at the state level (I will repeat for I think the 12th or 15th time this cycle: “I don’t belong to an organized political party. I’m a Democrat.” Will Rogers. Sad note: I got asked twice: Who is Will Rogers) but here’s what does:
There are organized constituencies that individually may not matter much (except educators, perhaps) that add up to meaning a lot: Plaintiffs lawyers, for instance. Ronnie pissed off all of them, including the honest ones, by the way he “handled” tort reform. He forgot a couple of principles: Dance with the one that brung you, and being wary about complete changes of position that leave you looking dishonest. I don’t want to revisit that fight here, but it cost Ronnie. I think by the time he was done as governor, Musgrove had narrowed the constituencies who would back him too much.
And Ronnie had a tendency to not help natural allies when he was ascendant. There were people in down ticket races that could have helped him in some places that he did not help where he could, I think. This was remembered, and rightly so. This might not lead to people hurting you, but it might lead to people not straining themselves to help.
Then there’s the fact that Ronnie was (fairly or not) damaged goods over the beef plant the day he qualified. He knew that, and knew more about that than he let on, but ran anyway. I have reason to think he was implicated there as “another dumb politician” not as corrupt. I think it’s a tie between that and some of Wicker’s earmarks (is it better if the money wasted is federal? Are you folks telling me that Wicker’s “star wars” missile defense earmarks were smarter than the beef plant!?!?!). But he was tarred with that and knew it and ran.
Thanks to Moore’s and Hood’s relationships with Scruggs, I’m not sure who a state-wide Democrat with a chance could have been. I was not impressed with the race Ronnie Shows ran against Pickering.
Against a totally unformidable candidate who had only negatives and Mississippi’s status as sold red to go on, Musgrove ran a so-so campaign. I loved his ads, but he was damaged goods from the git go. Oh, well.
So I login (again) on the blog go to comment and am logged out. This will make me scream at some point.
Well, dang on the auto-logout, NMC. I’ll pass the unhappy word along. Hard to tell which is more screwed — our software or the MS Dems, but prolly the latter.
As to Musgrove, from here he looked maybe 10% more worthy than Wicker, but 10% of un- remains un-. I really objected to either being one of the 100 with that much say-so over our futures.
He’s way more worthy than Wicker. Far more than 10%. Once that’s the binary choice, it’s not the least bit hard.
What’s worthy about Wicker? He’s nice guy, genuinely so. Probably if you want a reliable friend (not political ally, friend), way ahead of Musgrove. I don’t know anything else positive to say.
He’s in the minority, and so will be hamstrung in “helping the state.” He caucuses with the wrong party as far as I am concerned. He’s voted wrong on a lot of issues that matter a lot to me (and you) and will continue to do so. He’s no leader. I don’t know a good thing about him as a senator or congressman.
Ronnie has shown excellent support for education. I think he’d have voted well on that, and on a lot of issues I care about.
Politics is about recognizing all of this stuff and making a decision about what matters to you long-medium-and-short run.
I’m staying logged in!
lotus@ 4: I don’t think Senator Cochran has proven himself to be a “minority-party hack.” He has a record of working across the aisle and is highly respected in Washington.
nomiss
Agreed that hack is not the word. A hack would not have said the honest thing he said earlier this year about McCain.
I’m obviously not a fan of folks who caucus with the Republicans. And Cochran is a conservative. But I always had the sense that he was intellectually honest (and otherwise honest), and I respected the way he didn’t like Trent Lott. He’s no hack.
On the other hand, I’d have trouble listing his legislative accomplishments, and he’s been there since the late 70s. By the time Eastland and Stennis had been there 30ish years, you could clearly state what they’d done as senate leaders, good and bad. Well, bad. Stennis had done some good. But otherwise bad. But you could say clearly what it was. And it’s not minority status here that makes Cochran’s accomplishments less than clear– the Senate became majority Rep. just when Cochran should have been in a position to be a major player. Does that reflect more on him or his party? Or on the piss poor record of the last 8 years. Perhaps all of the above.
Regarding the Childers-Davis congressional race: In discussing Childer’s congressional win, one cannot minimize the lingering effect of Davis’ initial attack ads against his early Republican opponent Glenn McCullough. The general opinion is that Trent Lott backed Davis in order to retaliate against Glenn McCullough regarding some issue in which the two (Trent and Glenn) disagreed during McCullough’s tenure as TVA Director. Those attack ads absolutely incensed people in their district, especially NE Mississippi, where McCullough is highly regarded. Thus Childers got many votes that were not especially “for” Childers, but were “against” Davis. These people were not going to simply forget Davis’ negativity against McCullough, someone they respected, so they would not vote for Davis anytime, anywhere. Add to that the little touch of Lott’s backing at a time during the Scruggs’ scandal in which Lott was so closely connected with Scruggs.
New York papers and magazines can write all they want about how the Democratic Party won the congressional race, but they don’t understand how much the Republican Party situation helped make that Democratic Party win possible. I’m not saying that Childers was not a viable candidate himself; I’m saying that all politics is local and just can’t always be understood by voyeurs in Washington or New York.
A second issue involved in the Childers-Davis race is that many northeast Miss. voters just don’t want someone so close to Memphis in Washington representing them. There’s the feeling–rightly or wrongly– that his affiliation is to Memphis and transplanted Tennesseans rather than the rural roots of northeast Mississippi.
Those are two important ingredients in this congressional win for the Democratic Party that must be considered in any discussion of this particular election.
Who could get excited about either Musgrove or Wicker? Neither one had any appeal except party affiliation so voters repeated their Presidential votes.
Adding to what Nomiss said, Childers will be on a short lease by his constituents. He ran as a “conservative” democrat, and they will expect him to actually vote like one in Congress. For example, if he votes in favor of any union open ballot measure, he might as well plan to return home in two years. That one vote would get him beat in 2010. His voting record will be watched very carefully. I predict that he will come under immense pressure from the Dems in Congress to cast votes in favor of issues that he knows will get him beat at home (as will many of the recently elected “conservative” democrats who gave the dems their recent surge to power). He will have to have the independence and backbone of Gene Taylor, or more, to keep his seat. It won’t be easy playing that balancing act. He may risk getting as much funding from the Dems as he would like —but, if he does what the voters in this area want, it won’t matter — he will have all the funds he needs without the national party support.
lotus:
Thanks for the welcome. I’m doing just fine with the culture changes, but I spend most of my time on the Ole Miss campus. Transition is a bit harder for family. In either case though there’s a lot to like here.
Well, we’ll have to hook you up with NMC, Ben Cole, and the other local foloers. They know where to find the
goodbest eats and tunes.As to Cochran’s hack-quotient, what led me to apply that word was:
(a) Before his McCain warning — the least service he could do the nation, don’t you agree? — I can’t recall hearing or reading his name once in national coverage, all these years he’s been in DC.
(b) Despite telling the truth months earlier, this fall he swallowed his words and endorsed McCain anyhow. So much for honesty and integrity, thinks I.
Interesting quote in an NYT story:
Well shoot, anybody who can swing SC oughta be able to swing MS too.