Lessons Learned? I don't think so....

Per Left in Alabama blogger countrycat;   approximately 300 people attended the Alabama Democratic Majority's first Grassroots Convention at the University of Alabama this weekend, where Judge Mark Kennedy opened the event with one of his barn burner speeches, Congresswoman Terri Sewell provided a free lunch to participants, and Executive Director Bradley Davidson listed the the following goals:

1. Defeat the GOP super-majority.
2. Expand the electorate.
3. Equip the electorate with voter IDs.
4. Build a progressive infrastructure that lasts past a single election cycle.
5. Launch a grassroots donor base instead of relying on a few large donors.  That shifts power to the grassroots instead of a few party bosses.

Now these goals sound fine and dandy but my question is, why was there a need to form a separate party to achieve these goals?  

Oh, I forgot....because of Joe Reed and his bunch.

Joe Reed and his bunch want to Defeat the GOP super-majority.
Joe Reed and his bunch want to expand the electorate.
Joe Reed and his bunch want to Equip the electorate with Voter IDs.
Joe Reed and his bunch want to Build a progressive infrastructure that last past a single election cycle.
Joe Reed and his bunch want Launch a grassroots donor base instead of relying on a few large donors.

According to Davidson this is the path to victory for democrats;

The Democratic path to victory, he explained runs through the Senate and the ADM will work to help all Democratic candidates, but particularly Senators Tammy Irons & Mark Keahey.  Both intimidate the GOP because they're young, articulate, and popular in their districts.  The GOP has targeted their races and the Democrats have to hold those seats.
Targeted GOP seats include:

• Senator Paul Sanford, District 7 in Madison County. 
• Senator Bill Holtzclaw, District 2 in Madison County. 
• Senator Shadrack McGill, District 8 in Jackson, DeKalb, & a sliver of Madison County.
• Senator Phil Williams, District 10  from Gadsden.
• Senator Gerald Dial, District 13 in Randolph, Cleburne, Chambers, Cherokee, & Lee counties.
• Senator Gerald Allen, District 21 from Tuscaloosa.
• Senator Del Marsh, District 12 in Calhoun & St. Clair Counties. He's the GOP Senate leader.

Question:  Why waste time and resources on candidates who young, articulate, and popular in their district just because the gop has "targeted them"?  If they are as popular as you say it won't matter if the gop "targets" them or not.  And wouldn't it be helpful to have actual candidates to run against  Sandford, Holtzclaw, McGill, Williams, Dial, Allen, and Marsh?  Where are the candidates?

This is is precisely why I oppose the creation of this organization.  It is dividing the Alabama Democratic Party.

Strike that, it is destroying the Alabama Democratic Party. 

For too long we have been seen as stupid, redneck, backward and just plain simple. Serious thought and consideration must be given to the path of destruction that beckons our state, and we as a people must march out of the abyss of our own making.
In the overall scheme of Alabama politics, there are choices, and they are not difficult ones to make. If you are poor, you are a Democrat, even if you deny the obvious.

A party divided will NOT stand.

 My advice to them at the time? The real progressive Democrats in Alabama — and there are many, in spite of the false picture painted by the corporate media institutions here — should unite and figure out a way to take over the Democratic Party and rewrite the platform, like the conservative, religious wing of the Republican Party took it over in the 1980s.

Real  Alabama democrats can't win for the journalist.

And we wonder why the Alabama Democratic Party is dysfunctional?

The Alabama Democratic Majority, a grassroots organizing group (aka the Artur Davis wing of the Alabama Democratic Party), started by former ADP Chair Judge Mark Kennedy  "is only a few months old, but according to countrycat,   it's already making progress on its goals of registering, organizing, and informing voters  "

Oh, really?

 Left in Alabama  (links inserted for emphasis are  mine and mine alone):

 Judging by the response to its first Grassroots Convention, it appears that many Alabamians have responded to the ADM's message - so much so that the conference is being moved to a larger venue, and,  ADM Executive Director Bradley Davidson is expecting "a packed house."

The Locust Fork Journal's Glynn Wilson says;  If this doesn't wake some  people up I don't know what will.

It has now become obvious that Kennedy, the paid party executive director Bradley Davidson and former state campaign chair for Obama’s campaign, Leanne Townsend, had been planning to walk away from the party to start something new for some time before the budget meeting where Kennedy and Joe Reed got into it.
According to key sources, the state party’s fund raising Website had already been disabled months before the April meeting when the visible split occurred. Members of the Over the Mountain Democrats had tried to make donations, but got nothing but error messages. When they tried to report it, they were given the cold shoulder.

 I said it once, and I will say it again, a party divided will not stand.

(Emphasis mine)

 My advice to them at the time? The real progressive Democrats in Alabama — and there are many, in spite of the false picture painted by the corporate media institutions here — should unite and figure out a way to take over the Democratic Party and rewrite the platform, like the conservative, religious wing of the Republican Party took it over in the 1980s.~ Glynn Wilson

Amen and Amen.

Edited: How did the Alabama Democratic Majority get my email address?

 

First, Alabama Democratic Majority Chairman Mark Kennedy sent me an email wishing me a Happy Mother's day asking me to donate a few dollars to the ADM.  Click. 

Then,  I get another email from ADM Executive Director Bradley Davidson announcing the first month anniversary of the Alabama Democratic Majority asking me to like them on facebook and twitter and help them out by donating a few bucks a month to the ADM.  Click

I don't know how the ADM (of which I am NOT A MEMBER) got my email address but I suspect they got it from the Alabama Democratic Party (of which I AM A MEMBER).   I never received emails asking for support or money from  Kennedy or Bradley during their tenure at the ADP, so why am I receiving them now? 

The Alabama Democratic Majority came in for heated criticism at the board meeting by not just Worley but by Joe Reed, the party's long time vice chairman and chairman of the party's black wing, the Alabama Democratic Conference.
Worley said in addition to the financial chaos there are equipment, supplies and art work missing from party headquarters. Worley charged that a quick review has shown that Kennedy and the party staff he took with him appear to have taken data including information on over 2.8 million voters and to have cut off bank drafts from donors to the party and diverted them to Kennedy's new organization.
Among the alleged missing equipment are laptops, cell phones and printing paper. Worley said she personally observed a car parked at the back rear of party headquarters over the weekend of April 20^th and saw equipment and art work and printer paper lined along the back wall.

Psst, Alabama Democratic Majority!   Remove me from your email, phone, or any other list you have with my name on it.  I am a proud member of the Alabama Democratic Party.  You know, the party that stands up for the least of these and the middle class.  The party that stands up for civil rights, equal rights, and human rights.  The party that stands up for public education and public educators.  The party that stands up for labor.  The party stands up for a woman's right to chose to have a safe legal abortion.  The party that stands up for immigrants.  The party that stands up for our LBGT sisters and brothers. Not the party who doesn't want to be seen as the party that caters to black voters at the expense of white voters.

The Alabama Democratic Party may be broke, broke, broke but WE ARE NOT BROKEN.  I know someone with the courage and the fortitude will step forward and lead the Alabama Democratic Party because if they don't, who wins in the end?  Not us "progressives" that's for sure.

"Right now, it's a hard job, a really hard job given the fact the party has no money, no staff, no office and a debt of $600,000. You'd have to be a little crazy to want to take on all that but I'm sure someone will want it but it won't be me. I'm winding down. This job will need a young person."
And it still needs a white person, said Reed.

 Uh, NO Mr. Reed, the Alabama Democratic Party needs the RIGHT person, regardless of age, race, gender, or sexual orientation.  You are beginning to sound like the republicans and those who say they won't contribute to the ADP as long as YOU are in power. 

Again:

So while the red, republican controlled Alabama State Legislature is waging a full scale war against poor women, poor children, the voting rights act,  public education and teachers, the Alabama Democratic Party continues to embarrass itself  trying to figure out who can herd the white cats and the black cats.

Enough!  It's time to move FORWARD.

Taking the black vote for granted Alabama Democratic Party style

Kennedy has my support as long as he's opposed to Reed. Reed is the problem and as long as he's there, white Democrats in Alabama will continue to be on the endangered list. What Reed doesn't realize is that the money that used to come to the party is drying up and there is no budget for useless staffers any more.  yellerdog

What's down is up, what's up is down.  The republican party is reaching out to black voters while the Alabama Democratic Party is trying to figure out how to get rid of them.  It seems the Alabama Democratic Party is doing more than its fair share to ensure that Alabama remains a de facto one-party state under GOP dominance for decades to come.  Sigh

This is the headline that greeted me on al.com this morning.


Democratic Party Chair Mark Kennedy not bowing to Joe Reed's demand to rehire fired staffer

Reading past the headline,  ADP Executive Director and Kennedy confidant Bradley Davidson fired Felix Parker Jan. 7 from his $30,000 a year job as director of voter management. According to sources familiar with the firing, Parker was fired for several reasons but the only one Davidson would confirm was Parker's chronic absenteeism from the job, with Kennedy's blessings. 

Since efforts to reach Reed and Parker were not successful, and reporter Charles Dean couldn't wait to hear from them we don't have both sides of the story.  A quick google search for information about Felix Parker led me to this March 22, 2011 post/comment at Left in Alabama where it appears to have something to do with Kennedy's decision not to sell the voter list.

It may not make him popular with the insiders (4.00 / 1)

But the decision not to sell the voter list to candidates may help both candidates and the ADP. Candidates who have bought that list tell me it's full of holes and inaccuracies. Here locally the candidates have been working with OFA and hope to use THAT list in 2012.
Ideally, some campaign will merge the ADP and OFA files at some point, providing a more complete picture of Democratic voters throughout the state to the benefit of both organizations.
I know I have heard tremendous dissatisfaction from candidates about the fact that in the past, not only did they get little/no support from ADP, they had to pay for the voter list and it was not as advertised when they got it. More than one person has wondered in my hearing "what exactly Felix Parker does all day, because it sure isn't manage the voter file"
By providing the voter file gratis, Judge Kennedy starts off on the right foot with those who would run for office and helps make the Democratic party a positive presence in this state.

 So now we get down to the real nitty-gritty. It's about paying for the voter list, and it's about reaching out to donors who might be willing to give money to a reinvented Democratic Party.  Keyword reinvented.  And what does that mean exactly?  It means, getting rid of Reed and his bunch of people.

And what do you have if you get rid of Reed and his bunch of people?

The Dixiecrats were a political party organized in the summer of 1948 by conservative white southern Democrats committed to states' rights and the maintenance of segregation and opposed to federal intervention into race, and to a lesser degree, labor relations. The Dixiecrats, formally known as the States' Rights Democratic Party, were disturbed by their region's declining influence within the national Democratic Party. The Dixiecrats held their one and only convention in Birmingham.

What do black folks have to do to be included and treated as equals in the American political process?

The fight between Reed and Kennedy comes at a time when the party is struggling to find its way in a state that has now turned deep red. Republicans hold all state-wide elected offices for the first time since Reconstruction. Six of seven congressional seats are in the hands of the GOP and both state senators are Republicans.
Kennedy, a former justice on the Alabama Supreme Court and a man who had little history of deep involvement in party politics, was a surprised choice for chairman when he was tapped for the job two years ago. Kennedy inherited a party in financial debt and seemingly politically bankrupt in terms of its appeal to a majority of voters.

I guess it depends on what your definition of politically bankrupt IS Mr. Dean.  If standing up for democratic principals, i.e. equal rights, human rights, civil rights, women rights, LBGT rights, public education, and labor don't appeal to the majority of voters in Alabama that's too bad.  You get the Bats#it crazy you vote for.

What to do, and where to go? 

Ours is a different era, and I'm not suggesting that the old Southern strategy persists in unreconstructed form. The Republican Party's dominance among white Southerners is not based on the kind of raw, unambiguous race-baiting that we saw decades ago.
What I am saying is that the Republicans have made no serious effort to appeal to black voters. Such an initiative would begin with an acknowledgement of the specific problems that African Americans face -- including the legacy of centuries of oppression and discrimination -- and a proffer of policies to address those problems. But this would contradict the GOP's dogmatic stance that government should be severely limited in its ambition.

“It appears that my worst fears have been realized: we have made progress in everything, yet nothing has changed.”~Derrick Bell