Party Time
Although they were scheduled at about the same time, I managed to attend both the Democratic and Republican County re-organization meetings where both Ed Treacy and Tom John were re-elected as chairman of their respective parties. As the only media to show up at both events, here are some of my observations of the day.
- Both re-orgs were about evenly attended, Democrats had 201 voting precinct committeemen show while Republicans had 204. Long-time observers on the GOP side said they had never seen so many pc’s show up in the off year election and there was no contest.
- Although I knew Democrats kept their infighting behind closed doors, I was surprised there was not even a milligram of public opposition to Tom John. No one from the Republican Liberty Caucus nor the Campaign for Liberty (the Ron Paulers) staged as much of a token protest across the street. Even John critic, Gary Welsh, who is a pc, did not vote against him nor abstain from voting.
- The big issue on the Democratic side was unity. Although they have the numbers, Marion County Democrats are facing some serious divisions. The divisions are so bad that the most popular Democrat in the County, 7th District Congressman Andre Carson spent about half of his speech preaching party unity and told Democrats they did not have much time to get their act together and start getting behind candidates.
- The big challenge for the GOP will be to reach out to new voters, embrace new technology and recruit good candidates. Their advantage is in unity and organization, even though they fall short on numbers.
- Speaking of numbers, Democrats and Republicans leadership have agreed on purging about 110,000 inactive voters from the rolls, saving the taxpayers about $75,000 in printing costs.
- Just about every candidate who is a potential Mayoral candidate was at the Democratic re-org, Melina Kennedy, Frank Anderson, Joe Hogsett, Kip Tew and Woody Meyers. In addition, both candidates for Sheriff, Tim Motsinger and Bart McAtee, were present at the GOP event. Democrats do not have a sheriff candidate as Kerry Forestall is waiting on a federal appointment.
- I thought the atmosphere was positive at both events, the GOP’s felt more like a political event where the Democrats’ felt more like a Saturday morning breakfast because it was set up in a less formal manner.
Overall, I think 2010 is going to be an interesting year. The numbers favor the Democrats, but unity and cohesion are on the side of the GOP for now. In addition, we won’t have property tax revolutions, Barack Obama or a referendum on George W. Bush’s sixth year in office to point to, so for the first time, in a long time, it just might be a good old fashion contest without a lot of external factors.
Make it good guys. I’ll be watching and writing.
