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.
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."
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.
Always independent, always free (never a paywall),
the Memphis Flyer is your source for the best in local news and information.
Now we want to expand and enhance our work.
That's why we're asking you to join us as a Frequent Flyer member.
You'll get membership perks (find out more about those here) and help us continue to deliver the independent journalism you've come to expect.