Local GOP responsible for its decline
If Shelby County Republicans want to blame anyone or anything for their crushing defeat in last week’s countywide elections, they might look in a mirror to find the answer. The Shelby County GOP is responsible for its own collapse, which was more than a quarter of a century in the making.
Shelby County enjoyed a long history of non-partisan politics going back deep into the 20th Century. But in 1992, with the local GOP’s growing acceptance among white suburban voters and the growing dominance of AfricanAmerican leadership in the local Democratic Party, a band of Republican leaders found the magic formula to win countywide elections far into the future. They insisted on implementing partisan primaries in countywide elections despite pleas by the Democrats not to do it.
Yet Republicans turned a deaf ear to the Democrats at the time, saying that countywide partisan politics was a healthy way to promote good government at the local level. In other words, party leaders believed there was a Republican way to pick up the garbage, as Republican operative John Ryder told
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me at the time.
What the GOP’s successful push for partisan primaries did was to guarantee local Republicans the political power to win countywide elections, since the local GOP had deeper pockets and could be far more organized in get-outthe-vote efforts than the Democrats.
The Democratic Party was a disorganized group burdened with infighting and struggling to survive after many white Democrats jumped to the GOP because they no longer felt at home in the Democratic Party.
The GOP’s push for partisan primaries also clouded the political landscape because it linked partisan politics to race in a community already divided along racial lines.
To implement partisan primaries was an extremely short-sighted political plan for the Shelby County Republican Party. At that time in 1992, the count of registered voters in Shelby County was estimated at just over 51 percent white, about 40 percent black, and 9 percent others. Plus, there never was a large-scale effort among Republicans to recruit black membership into the nearly all-white party.
Nothing in politics is more blinding than success. Election after election Republicans gloated with win after win. But there was a perfect political storm forming on the horizon. The Republicans plan to win local offices built on the franchise of partisan primaries was set to crumble.
Today, of Shelby County’s 550,500 registered voters, it is estimated that the percentage of white registered voters and black registered voters is just about even.
Enthusiasm among local Democrats has never been greater and the Democratic blue wave is fueling their spirit. The Shelby County Democratic Party now enjoys young and progressive leadership, which helped to raise large contributions of money that funded a successful countywide Democratic get-out-the-vote effort. Democrats fielded a slate of candidates that overshadowed a lackluster Republican slate.
A divisive GOP primary for governor angered many Shelby County Republicans who didn’t vote. And local GOP leadership failed with a weak get-outthe-vote effort.
The result: A political sweep by Shelby County Democrats and a Republican Party that needs to get its head out of the sand.
Susan Adler Thorp is a local political analyst and owner of Susan Adler Thorp Communications in Memphis.
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