Now that Pat Powers has exhausted his week-plus orgy of slobbering ejaculations about the internal squabble over who gets to be South Dakota Democratic Party chair, permit me to offer a few thoughts on the McGovern Day muddle.
To summarize, certain Democrats wanted to call a snap election to replace Ann Tornberg with Paula Hawks as party chair. Certain Democrats failed to call that snap election and are now circulating a recall petition.
One Democrat present for the show tells me that the folks seeking to oust Tornberg had the votes but were foiled by mere procedural tricks by Tornberg and her supporters. That sounds like a weak excuse for failure to execute. “Having the votes” means having the votes to overcome an opposing minority in everything leading to the final vote, including any filibuster, motion to table, or any other foreseeable parliamentary maneuver.
Contrary to the baldly false assertion of former Democratic legislator Larry Lucas, there were plenty of Democrats in the room who felt a “shotgun election” would have been entirely appropriate. As I said to my local party leaders before McGovern Day, if someone has a plan to produce better election results for Democrats in 2018, and if the current party leadership is unwilling or unable to carry out that plan, then get out that shotgun. No personal niceties should stand in the way of good plan for doing what the party should be doing.
But the failure of the snap election push is evidence that the agitators had no such plan. One observer says one roll call vote that Saturday morning was less than 90. Two thirds—60 votes—should insulate any move from parliamentary tricks. If you can’t round up 60 Democrats to ram an agenda through a party meeting, you aren’t equipped to rally the 200,000 votes you need to win a statewide election. If you argue Ann Tornberg is ineffective and then you lose to Ann Tornberg, you lose your argument.
To whoever is circulating the petition to recall the party chair, I say, stop and redirect. A continued, extended effort to replace the party chair is at best substitutive, if not subtractive. Drop the recall and try an additive approach. Instead of directing all that energy inward, toward Democratic Central Committee members for one limited internal action, aim outward. Make recruiting calls. Go to protest marches to register voters, seek donations, and spread the Democratic message that we are on the people’s side. Take over your local county party, organize four fundraising picnics and potlucks, and get candidates in the chute for every legislative and local office on your 2018 ballot.
Forget the party chair. You don’t need a party chair to organize locally. Nobody in the Sioux Falls office is going to stop eager, earnest Democrats from raising money and running good people for office. If you really want to be state party chair, go win an election. Put some Democrats in office in 2018. Then come to the first Central Committee meeting in 2019, say, “This is how it’s done,” and the world (or at least the party) will be yours.
Like Todd Epp, I am disappointed with the outcome of McGovern Day. The party needs to make progress. Individuals promising progress showed no ability to make progress, at least not in that internal setting.
So let’s drop the internal effort. Look outward. Look to voters. Look to the 549,000 registered voters whose attention we need in 2018, not the maybe 500 wonky neighbors who care about or can even name the chairs of our state political parties.
Quoting Pat Buchanan, “Do not wait for orders from headquarters, mount up everybody and ride to the sound of the guns.”
Great—I’m a Buchanan Democrat! :-D
But, yeah, Buchanan’s right. Staging an assault on our own headquarters is less fruitful now than firing on enemy lines.
I gotta love when a fight devolves into one side objecting that the other side used “procedural tricks” to thwart their own “procedural tricks.”
Knowing the media loves to write process stories, at a golden moment of issue high ground (with the ACA repeal House vote), Democrats hand the media a process story to fixate on instead of getting a message story to stick.
As a fairly neutral observer who wasn’t involved in the attempted coup, but witnessed the state central committee meeting, I would say its failure had less to do with the political acumen (or lack thereof) of the young folks who were demanding action but rather more a commentary on the intransigence of a state central committee whose elderly, rather-uninvolved membership thought everyone was moving “just a little too fast” and was more concerned about being late for lunch than the future of the party.
Regarding your message to the petition circulators – I’d say check yourself as those are the very people that do volunteer on campaigns and run local party organizations. It’s the AARP peanut gallery that talks a mean game about engagement but doesn’t lift a finger beyond attending a lunch with friends for the progressive cause. Remember – the E-board did recommend to proceed with the changes.
Even if we’re giving up on the party being much use during the ’18 cycle. We’re still better off starting anew as soon as possible and creating a functional organization that can eventually create progress.
If you just went to the McGovern Day Dinner, you would have no idea about the squabbling within the party, and that’s a good thing. As a new Independent, I don’t feel like have to defend the Democratic Party anymore. It’s quite a relief!
It looks like us veterans will be supporting this new flag. It is red, white and blue so it has that going for it. http://www.ebay.com/itm/3×5-Russian-Flag-Russian-Federation-Banner-Country-Pennant-/391559984436 Thanks rounds/thune/NOem and even krebs. John McCain once said that we were all Georgians after the russian invasion of that country, so I guess now we are all russians after their successful coup with trump.
O, I agree: anyone looking to do good for the party will have much greater impact with outward-focused, voter-focused messages about TrumpCare and the Democratic commitment to protect everyone from it than with internal procedural maneuvers.
Impatient, I agree that the people volunteering and running local parties are invaluable. Their invaluable energy will be better spent on outreach, on building the real electoral victories that will make them the default leaders of the party. They can do that without the SDDP chair.
Anne W., I’m not saying you have to defend the Democratic Party leadership. I am saying you don’t have to waste any time attacking it. Outreach, fundraising, campaigning—you can do all that without worrying about who holds the gavel and state party meetings, much less trying to oust the gavel-holder. Additive, not subtractive.
New poll on the white russian http://nymag.com/daily/intelligencer/2017/05/voters-call-trump-idiot-and-liar-in-disastrous-new-poll.html
Good One, Jerry … “white Russian” 😁 Мои волосы естественны.
I agree 100% with Cory’s position on this – couldn’t have said it better myself.
Thanks, Adam! It just seems to me that if resources are scarce, we must use them as efficiently as possible. A fight over chair was not able to be resolved efficiently, so rather than engage in a longer drawn-out process to that end, we should focus on other ends.