A once reliably Democratic state, Tennessee, which has produced three U.S. Presidents (four when you count Al Gore) is now firmly in the hands of the Republican Party.
The big news here isn't that Barack Obama lost. Or that Democratic Senate candidate Bob Tuke lost. Both of those outcomes were predictable. The big shock is what happened in the Tennessee General Assembly.
It was a massacre for the Democrats.
For the first time since Reconstruction, the Republicans now have control of both houses of the General Assembly. In the Senate, which was essentially tied at 16-16-1, the Republicans now have a comfortable lead at 19-14. And in the House, a GOP landslide erupted as they picked up four seats to give them a new 50-49 edge.
This means that when the General Assembly reconvenes in January, the GOP will now get to set the entire state legislative agenda. They will get to replace all of our state constitutional officers (Secretary of State, Comptroller, and Treasurer) with Republicans. And they now have majority control of every single county election commission in the state - even in solid Democratic areas like Memphis, Nashville, and Chattanooga.
This is the second election in a row when Tennessee has seen real Republican gains while a Democratic tidal wave has swept the country. You may remember that in 2006, Harold Ford Jr., who ran an awful campaign, became the sole Democrat in the country to lose a Senate seat.
ATTENTION TENNESSEE DEMOCRATS!! You have TWO YEARS to fix your party. Because whoever controls the General Assembly in 2010 gets to redraw the political maps. That means we'll go from a 5-4 Democrat delegation in Washington to a 7-2 one.
TWO YEARS to purge the party leadership of its "pro-business" element that thinks Democrats have to act like Republicans to win. (Newsflash: they don't).
TWO YEARS to build a party infrastructure that is grassroots-driven, not dependent on massive media buys from idiotic consultants.
TWO YEARS to recruit candidates like Ty Cobb who are not afraid to run as genuine "man of the people" populists and understand modern campaigns and can win even against popular Republican incumbents.
TWO YEARS to develop a Democratic Party platform that allows voters to see how Democrats actually differ from Republicans. Because right now, they don't.
I will be posting more diaries over the next week to explain what has happened to the Democrats in Tennessee, who's to blame, and a plan on how the party can dig itself out of a mess of its own making.
In the meantime... the clock is ticking and it's going to get worse here before it gets better unless we have some MAJOR changes in our party and our candidates.
Stay tuned.