When I approached Michelle (Right) to ask her about her feelings as a new member of SCDP she quickly grabbed her friend Cathy (Left) almost as if she needed her for protection. I soon found out why. "Being new members everybody has been pulling at us! They've made phone calls, sent letters and emailed us. It's as if they are trying to make us take sides." Michelle said. Cathy noted the disorder in the organization. "I see a lot of confusion. People don't seem to know what they are doing. There's a lot of infighting. We're all democrats we should be working together," she said.
Ron Williams
When I sat down to talk with Ron you could tell he was a no-nonsense kind of guy. When I asked him how we could improve the Party he had no problem coming up with an answer."My family lives near Tipton. That's republican country," he said. "The Party has never done a good job of reaching out to the county democrats. We democrats are out there alone. Everything is about Memphis. This is the Shelby County Democratic Party, isn't it?"
Ron finished by pointed out several key issues the Party would have to address right away. "We need to raise funds, redo the by-laws, upgrade our website and bring order to the fringe groups. If we can do that the Party will be ok."
Johnny London
If there was an award for passion, Mr. London would win hands down. "We've got to stop all this craziness. That's why I went with Van. I'm tired of all this fighting," he said. "We need someone who's going to get up there and focus more on the community needs." "How are you going to help people if you don't know what they need?" He finished with, "We need young people. We need to try new things and work to bring more young people in."
Ann Sandberg
I met Ann's son Zac at the SCDP Convention and was immediately impressed with him. He was a pleasant person who had a sincere concern about the Party. After spending a little time with Ann I now know why Zac is such a special young man. Ann said, "I want Van to be our Obama for Tennessee. He is progressive and I know he'll be a great chairman." She went on to point out the importance of ending the factions and friction in the Party. "We have some people there who just want to cause trouble. There are so many issues we need to be addressing. We need activist doing it for the right reason, not the wrong reason."
10 comments:
Reggie said...
"Ron finished by pointed out several key issues the Party would have to address right away. "We need to raise funds, redo the by-laws, upgrade our website and bring order to the fringe groups. If we can do that the Party will be ok."
**************************************************
If RON thinks Turner has a mandate to tamper with the BYLaws... I assure you all hell will be let loose! I suggest "live and let live" (politically) would be good advice! We are approaching an election year... care and caution are also needed.
There are those who regard Turner's major benefactor, Desi Franklin, as a "republican." Ron even admits he and he wife the Treasurer hails from republican territory themselves... so why does Ron think his, his wife's and Desi's brand of leadership tampering with the ByLaws with be welcomed or tolerated?
You want to tear the frail peace up... start messing with the ByLaws!
New member also. There seems to be a lot of anger. Why is everybody so made at each other?
It seems we should be working together or maybe I'm too new to understand some long term animosity.
The first commentor made a mistake when he tried to tie Ron with republican. To me Ron was saying that he is one of the few democrats in his area and the party needs to be more supportive of those out in the county. This makes sense to me.
But the first commentor was right about the bylaws. We should be careful about messing with it.
Nice pictures Reginald. Action Shots!
ANON 7:22 (or Del)
On any number of occasions you propose changing the by-laws.
Last week you were blogging about not allowing people who run against Democrats as Independents participating on the EC.
You continually want to add language about bona fide Democrats into the by laws.
How come when you talk about amending the by laws it is OK, but if anyone else does it is a plot?
And is there anything stupider about trying to label Ron as a Republican because he lives next to Republicans.
That would be like labelling your neighbors as farmers because they live next to an ass.
YOU WANT A FIGHT BRING IT ON BECAUSE THERE WILL BE CHANGES TO THE BYLAWS!
There are those who regard Turner's major benefactor, Desi Franklin, as a "republican."
You mean losers like you!
As a young person (Under 30) it seems there are not a lot of people like me in the Shelby County Democratic Party. Has there been an effort to connect with the Obama Community Organization groups? Race and sex are not the only forms of diversity, you know.
Reginald, you will see two groups causing division and problems on the Democratic Executive Committee. I hope the new members will realize that they are a minority and most of us want to work together.
1) Del Gill and company, including Eddie Jones, Boris Combest, and Bernard Jennings. Their only influence comes from rabble rousing and produce little positive results. You can read some of Del's typical writing in Anon 7:22 AM. He tends to bad mouth white members, calling them Republicans when he has an inkling of suspicion and sometimes just calls them Republicans and racists anyway.
2) The Sidney Chism faction. They are in shock now, having gone from practically running the DEC to little power at all. Sidney likes to be in charge and will probably instruct his people to resist one way or another, like he did when they lost power before, when Katherine Bowers was Chair.
New members will hopefully think for themselves and work together for the good of the Party and ignore the negative influences on the Committee.
4:30 is right!
For all you new members it won't take you long to figure out which group is out for themself and which group is out to help democrats.
Van has majority support and he is clearly ready to lead. I don't think you can take anything off the table.
Post a Comment