Burnt Orange Report

One thing that still obviously bothers me is the "toss the bums out" mentality. Reason being, I've seen it when Bob Slagle was party chair and Dems lost power slowly. I've seen it when Bill White was the party chair and lost power slowly. And now we see it from a variety of angles with Molly Beth leaving. The problem is that each attempt to reinvent the wheel has only seen us slip back a step and it's because too much emphasis is on rewarding the "true believers" with a role that does not demand such litmus tests as you still apply.

Regardless of the plethora of opinions on any given prior chair, Bob Slagle in particular was a great chairman. In a diverse state where the Democratic Party constituted people from Mickey Leland/Jim Hightower on one side to Marvin Leath/John Sharp on the other, Slagle held the factions together and played a part in the coordinated campaigns of 1982 and 1988 with the admitted aid of Lloyd Bentsen's magic touch.

That highlights that this role is not and should not be one that demands a high profile. It is a mechanic's position. The job is to recruit candidates, form a party platform that encompasses this unique state, and try to make the moderate/conservative side work alongside the leftwing side. Personally, I'd rather see a "mechanic" in the role of party chair and a select group serving as a defacto Speakers Bureau hitting the hustings to demonstrate the diversity of thought this party CAN handle. That means getting a John Sharp-type to keep our good name out in front of moderates and ballot-hopping Republicans; get a Ron Kirk to show the party is not the party of big government liberal minorities and that candidates that might frighten some give no cause for concern; heck, bring Mike Andrews (or get Paul Hobby out there) out of retirement to speak to business leaders about why our party is not against business owners.

There needs to be outreach, but the party chair is not the one to do it. That's never been the role of that job and there's enough to keep a chair busy as it is. I've tended to be supportive of Garnet Coleman, who may yet fit both bills. He's a great mechanic in that he knows how to work with many different types of candidates (his day job is being a political consultant) and he also knows how to promote himself a fair amount. Still, its worth noting that even Coleman doesn't want the job fulltime.

Lastly, I'll disagree with this comment specifically:

"Someone who sides with polluters or against a woman's right to choose or against labor or against the rights of gays and lesbians has no place at the top of our party."

Last I checked, we nominated for the office of Governor, a candidate who supported Bush because Ann Richards wanted to clamp down on environmental protection such that it would have interfered with a project he wanted to see happen. Last I checked, not one statewide candidate went so far as to support issues such as gay marriage or civil unions (although they might not have been front burners in 2002, they very well could be in 2006). And personally, I'd disagree with the issue of abortion as being a litmus test. There's been a great number of very impressive minds in our party who, for whatever reason, view abortion differently (as I do as well). When labor unions in Houston hire NON-UNION contractors to build a union hall because the Union contractors were too expensive, this sends a powerful message that many of the movements you mention are not substitutes for our party. When we suggest that there is a litmus test for anything such as party chair or a nominee for an office where the issue might be affected, it's sending a message that in fact, we ARE a special interest party. Disclaimers to the contrary mean nothing when you admit there is a "right side" to what many people view as ancillary issues. Get the big things right first ... that's more critical than any debate on whether a party chair is pro-life or not (something I feel compelled to point out that I don't give a rat's behind about in that role).

Case in point ... In 1990, Nikki Van Hightower had a great record on feminist issues including an aggressive pro-choice record. Unfortunately her position as an elected official was that of Harris County Treasurer. Why does abortion mean squat in that office? Why did Nikki make it an issue in her race for State Treasurer against Kay Bailey Hutchison? Worth noting she lost that race. The lesson should be apparent. Stick to the issues people care most about first and get on the right side of THOSE issues.

At this point, it's a fair question to ask whether or not a pro-life Democratic governor would be worse than a pro-life Republican governor. Are we not a party big enough for ideological diversity? I don't particularly care to see us get lapped up by the GOP on that front. We used to be a party with the big tent and I don't particularly want to see it minimized to a pup tent.

Being the out party has its strains ... the various factions all look at one another with blame foremost on their minds. Moderates accuse the liberals of going too far; liberals blame the moderates for agreeing with anything a Republican says too often. At the point the Texas Democratic Party is at right now, I don't know how ANY faction of the party cannot look at another without realizing it takes all of us to put together 50%+1. On the activist side, I know we tend to be a little more forgiving and realize the truth in that. But the average voter needs to see it that way too and they don't follow inside baseball. If all they see is that we've nominated someone because they're on the right side of every left wing cause known to mankind, that sends a very powerful signal: Vote Repbublican. I don't think either of us wants to have our own party send that message.

From Michelle Goldberg's recent piece in Slate entitled The Texas Stalemate: It's All About Race:

... If the Texas redistricting plan is adopted, Norquist was quoted saying, "it is exactly the Stenholms of the world who will disappear, the moderate Democrats. They will go so that no Texan need grow up thinking that being a Democrat is acceptable behavior."

For those attuned to the signals, Norquist's message was clear — redistricting would drive Southern whites out of the Democratic Party. In July, he went further, telling the New York Times that Sheila Jackson-Lee, a African-American congresswoman from Texas, "will be the spokesman for the Democratic Party."

"Basically you'll be labeled a nigger-lover if you're a Democrat," [Garnet] Coleman [a Democratic state representative from Houston] says of the Republican plan. "We've already been through those times. It's all part of the Southern strategy."

(Subscription req'd, or day-pass for watching commercial, or I have extensive quotes in a fisking of this article on my own blog at http://www.beldar.org/beldarblog/2003/09/its_all_about_m.html.)

No one sees any problems with this? You're perfectly comfortable supporting for party leadership someone who sees all politics exclusively through a prism of race and who without the slightest bit of actual evidence is perfectly delighted to use the most racist language himself to fan the flames?

Byron, I hope I didn't sound like I was ganging up on you and I certainly didn't mean to come off as abrasive in my commments if I did so.

Sorry I missed talking to you the other day but the man in the car with the wheelchair outside my dorm surprised me.

Beldar,

You've obviously got no clue about who or what Garnet Coleman is except perhaps through an even more limited prism in which you label people racists. That you find great harm in Coleman's statements yet none in Norquist's says enough. The GOP can have you and I thank you for making your viewpoints public so that no right-thinking Texan might grow up with the impression that being Republican is acceptable behavior.

Greg, I didn't pass judgment one way or another on Norquist's quote. But let's look at it.

My first reaction to the name "Shelia Jackson-Lee" is "ultra-liberal Congresswoman," so my first reaction to Norquist's quote is that he was using her place on the political spectrum to make an example -- not her color. As I've blogged on my own website, if one's goal in redistricting is to effect a shift toward more Republican Congressmen from Texas, then using race as a proxy for voters' actual politics would be stupid and inefficient (when you can instead use actual voting patterns that don't require use of any proxy). I, for one, am capable of hearing Sheila Jackson-Lee's name spoken without thinking "black." Michelle Goldberg, who ADDS a racial designation to what Norquist actually said so as to give the impression that Norquist was referring to race instead of politics, doesn't seem to be. Are you?

I label people as racists when they make judgments of other people based on race. I especially tend to believe they're making judgments of other people based on race when they use the most inflammatory racial epithets. I don't excuse someone for using them by virtue of their own skin color. Do you?

I'd very much like to see folks grow up thinking that race-baiting is unacceptable behavior, whether its done by conservative racists or liberal racists. Would you?

So I restate my original question: Are those who support Coleman for a prominent position in the state Democratic party troubled by his use of that racial epithet? Or is it okay to use that language -- as long as you're using it to accuse Republicans of racism?

I'm asking a serious question about an extremely serious matter, and trying to do so in a civil way. Your response will be more credible if you can avoid ad hominem attacks in making it.

If the Grover Norquists of the world were intent on just singling out ultra liberal Dems as the face of the party, then why is Travis County seeing maps that slice out Lloyd Doggett? Is it also a coincidence that they carve out more of the swing districts of Chris Bell's 25th to make it more amenable to become a minority district? Do you see where your logic is falling apart here?

Sorry, I'm just not buying this "We're singling out the liberals" commentary. The goal is to further polarize American politics and if you don't think race is one part of it, then you're being naive. The goal is to marginalize the Democratic party. I make no excuses for combating that, arguing against it, etc ....

When you try to marginalize a party by drawing up maps that essentially say: Repupblican = White; Democrat = Brown/Black - you should not be surprised to see reactions such as Colemans. Like it or not, its accurate (and yes, there are exceptions as both parties attempt to draw a face of diversity that exceeds reality sometimes). If you don't like how that shoe fits, then drop redistricting as a pet issue and try to knock off Edwards, Stenholm, Turner, Sandlin, Hall in districts that will give Bush 65-70% of the vote in 2004 - districts that are more GOP-friendly than Tom DeLay's. It shouldn't be too difficult with more and more voters voting straight ticket.