A few weeks ago Keith Norman, matched against rival
candidate Jay Bailey, seemed a good bet to become the next chairman of
the Shelby County Democratic Party.
His public boosters included both Shelby County
commissioner Sidney Chism, the former Teamster leader and ex-party
chairman who leads one of the major party factions, and Desi Franklin, a
leader of the Mid-South Democrats in Action, a reformist group that came on the
local political scene in the wake of the 2004 presidential campaign.
The combination of Chism’s supporters and the MSDIA group
(abetted by members of Democracy in Memphis, an outgrowth of the erstwhile
Howard Dean movement) was enough to put Matt Kuhn over as party chairman
in 2005. At the time, Kuhn, a youthful political operative and veteran of
numerous campaigns, was regarded as a compromise “third-force” choice – a break
from the back-and-forth pendulum swings between the party’s “Ford faction” and
Chism’s group, loyal more or less to Mayor Willie Herenton.
To be sure, local Democrats are disputatious (maybe we
should say “free-minded”) enough to do justice to 20th-century humorist Will
Rogers’ line, “I’m not a member of an organized political party; I’m a
Democrat.” Their loyalties are not so hard and fast as to be confined
permanently to this or that bloc.
Lawyer Bailey, son of a former longtime county
commissioner, had a span of his own, ranging from members of the old Ford
faction to party loyalists grateful for his legal representation of several
defeated Democratic candidates who challenged the results of last year’s
countywide elections.
Even so, depending on how the delegate-selection process
from the party’s March 3 caucus actually sorted out, the Chism-Franklin
arithmetic was regarded in many quarters as good enough to give Norman, a
Baptist minister, the advantage in the forthcoming local Democratic convention,
to be held on Saturday, March 31.
This impression was bolstered by Norman’s speaking
appearance late last month at a meeting of the MSDIA – one that was attended by
curious party members from various factions.
At that event, Norman, spoke eloquently and persuasively
(as befits someone long used to dealing with a large congregation, in his case
The First Baptist Church on Broad St.). He proclaimed a “big tent’ philosophy in
which a variety of viewpoints would be welcomed within the party, talked turkey
on matters of fund-raising, Get-Out-the-Vote efforts, and party organization, and
managed to skirt potentially divisive issues like abortion and gay rights.
Though Bailey is a trial lawyer with ample rhetorical
skills of his own, it seemed obvious to attendees at the MSDIA meeting that
Norman, a towering but good-natured presence, would be a hard man to match up
to, one-on-one. It seemed clear, too – both from Norman’s presentation and from
testimonials paid him by various Democratic luminaries and activists – that his
appeal could be wide enough to transcend factional differences.
9th District congressman Steve Cohen
passed along his compliments, and even David Upton, Bailey’s longtime associate and backer, had good things to say about Norman.
Some of his professed supporters, however, may have done
him more harm than good.
The Fields Case (Continued)
There was the strange case of attorney Richard Fields,
who in recent election years has comported himself in the manner of a would-be
kingmaker. In fairness, Fields probably sees himself as some kind of public
ombudsman, overseeing the political process in the interests of the people.
In any event, Fields made a big splash during the 2006
countywide election process, composing open letters about the attributes,
positive and negative, of various candidates. His widely distributed
observations on judicial candidates in particular were regarded as having had
palpable effect in the election results.
Fields, however, was not universally accepted as an
unbiased observer. Some African-American observers – notably blogger Thaddeus
Matthews – argued that Fields was bolstering mainly white,
establishment-supported candidates and selectively bashing independent-minded
blacks.
The very charge, true or not, was ironic, given Fields’
background as a civil rights attorney, his marriages to black women, and the
bi-racial nature of his several children.
In truth, Fields supported both whites and blacks and
Democrats as well as Republicans, though Matthews and others, notably attorney
Robert Spence, saw him as having hedged his endorsements, even changing
several, in order to create a false appearance of objectivity.
As chronicled in a previous column (“The Fields Case,”
February 1) two white candidates for General Sessions judgeships – Janet
Shipman and Regina Morrison Newman – saw their promised endorsements
belatedly withdrawn by Fields in favor of equally qualified black candidates,
Lee Coffee and Deborah Henderson, respectively.
Coffee and Henderson, who, among their other important
endorsements, had that of the Shelby County Republican Party, both won, and
Shipman and Newman each later agreed with Spence’s assessment that they had
fallen victim to Fields’ need to do some old-fashioned ticket-balancing.
Spence himself had serious arguments with erstwhile
supporter Fields during his service some years ago as city attorney and later
made unspecified charges that Fields had tried to extort unwarranted favors from
him.
When Spence became a candidate in the special Democratic
primary to fill a state Senate vacancy early this year, Fields materialized yet
again as a public scold, sending out an advisory letter warning voters of what
he saw as Spence’s derelictions as city attorney. Spence lost to fellow Democrat
Beverly Marrero, who also won the general election last week to succeed
Cohen (and interim fill-in senator Shea Flinn) as state senator from
District 30.
In any case, Fields’ ad hoc career as commentator on
elections and would-be arbiter of candidacies was already well-launched when he
rose during the last several minutes of Norman’s meeting with MSDIA members to
make a point of revealing his own support of the minister, announcing, in fact,
that he had “vetted” Norman’s candidacy beforehand.
That statement, together with Norman’s own wry revelation
that Fields had made several telephone calls to him that day to make sure he
would be in attendance at the MSDIA event, created an impression, right or
wrong, that Fields was a prime mover in the Norman candidacy.
Confusion in the Ranks
Reaction to Fields’ intervention was virtually immediate.
This was, after all, no judicial election for which Fields, as a longtime
practicing attorney, could be thought of as supplying a pure, even-handed
evaluation of credentials. This was the most partisan of all possible partisan
matters – the selection of a party leader – and Richard Fields was not exactly
the ideal endorser.
He had, after all, been forced to resign last year as a
member of the very Democratic committee that will have to decide on a new
chairman. His offense? Pooling his legal efforts with those of the state
Republican Party to overturn the 2005 special election victory of Democrat
Ophelia Ford for reasons of possible election fraud committed on her behalf.
No one on the committee quarreled with Fields’ right to
seek that legal end – just not as a member of the Democratic committee. (Ford’s
election was, in fact, ultimately voided by the state Senate, though she won
election to the seat overwhelmingly in last year’s regular election.)
Several rank-and-file Democrats expressed open displeasure
concerning Fields’ involvement in the chairmanship race, and blogger Matthews
would later report that Norman, when asked about it, “denounced” Fields as a
potential supporter. Asked about that this week, Norman declined comment. He
also would neither confirm nor deny that he had distanced himself, as reported
by Matthews, from Chism’s support.
For obvious reasons, all
of this fuss caused some rethinking about Norman’s inevitability as a chairman.
The pastor himself would say only that he preferred to speak of “principles”
rather than personalities, that he wanted to avoid immersion in factional
disputes, that he had no wish to be judgmental, and that he had resolved to keep
his own efforts “on higher ground.”
the resolution of two political mini-dramas with the special-election victories
of Democrats Marrero and G.A. Hardaway for state Senate and state House
positions, respectively. (New District 92 representative Hardaway, a longtime
campaigner for father’s-rights legislation in child-custody cases, will
presumably bring with him his continued dedication to that cause.)
One other piece of news from the week (actually late last week): Shelby County
Election Commission chairman Greg Duckett was named to the state Election
Commission — which means that a new member will shortly be named to the county
Election Commission.
Woops! Here comers another political drama — maybe not so mini. The fact is, the
local Commission is facing, not a single routine replacement, but something
resembling a total makeover — at least of its three-member Democratic Party
contingent.
The Commission as a whole has come under frequent challenge during the past year
for alleged derelictions in supervising elections, and, while the commission’s
two Republicans, Rich Holden and Nancye Hines, appear to have
escaped their partymates’ wrath and seem assured of a safe return.
As Senate Democratic leader Jim Kyle, a member of the Shelby County
legislative delegation that will resolve the issue, put it on Thursday: “I
wouldn’t be surprised if either Maura [Sullivan] or O.C. [Pleasant]
went off, too. In fact, I wouldn’t be surprised if they both did.”
A total swap-out for the Election Commission’s Democrats? Other legislators from
Shelby County – like delegation chairman Joe Towns, who personally took
no position on the prospect of a complete makeover — said they’d heard similar
conjectures
The list of Democratic applicants for one, two, or three positions include the
two party holdovers, Sullivan and Pleasant, and several other well-known local
Democrats, including former commissioner Myra Stiles’ recent countywide
candidates Coleman Thompson, Shep Wilbun, and Sondra Becton;
, local AFSCME leader Dorothy Crook, and local Democratic Party secretary Norma Lester..
Some measure of Democrats’ discontent with the status quo on the commission can
be gleaned from the fact that Suzanne Darnell, representing the local
Democratic executive committee’s task force on the election process, has
requested a meeting with Election Commission members and staff to discuss 14
separate points of misgiving concerning the way elections went last year.
The points ranged from doubts concerning election hardware and software to
questions concerning the commission’s oversight and the fact that the post of
deputy Commission director continues to go unfilled.
of civil rights and feminist issues, will be the only posthumous recipient of
the seven Women of Achievement awards that will be given Sunday at 4 p.m., at
the University of Memphis-area Holiday Inn as part of National Women’s History
Month.
jb
Chairman wannabe Keith Norman (top) and ‘helper’ Richard Fields
Legislative
Leaders: West Tennessee
may have lost some clout in the Tennessee General Assembly, but not Shelby
County, which boasts both party leaders in the Senate. Here Mark Norris (left),
Republican majority leader, and Jim Kyle, Democratic leader, mull over a
compromise on medical tort reform.
