OPINION

In all parts of Tennessee, conversations revealed to me a path forward for the state Democratic Party.

Christopher Hale | Guest Columnist

On Dec. 14, I got in my vehicle, pulled on Interstate 24 off Old Fort Parkway in Murfreesboro and began a journey crisscrossing this state several times over from Mountain City to Memphis in an attempt to become the 20th chair of the Tennessee Democratic Party.

I came up short on my ultimate goal, but after hundreds of meetings with Democratic Party State Executive Committee members, county party chairs, elected officials, and — most importantly — everyday Democrats, I learned four key lessons about how our party can create a new and better way after three decades of hemorrhaging at every electoral level across this state.

Put rural communities front and center

Marc Murphy, (Louisville, Ky.) Courier Journal

During my campaign, I argued that the Tennessee Democratic Party needed fewer cocktail happy hours and more fish fries and barbecues.

Strangely enough, rural communities provide a wonderful pathway to redemption for the Democratic Party. In smaller communities, name still means more than party.

Take Grundy County, a very small county on the Cumberland Plateau in Middle Tennessee, for example.

In 2016, President Trump beat Hillary Clinton by 55 points in Grundy County, but that same community has a Democratic Mayor, Michael Brady, and six of its nine commissioners are also Democrats.

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So if we want to start winning elections again, rural communities are a great place to start.

Compete in all 95 counties

Democratic politics is too often defined by false choices. We either punish heretics who disagree with our values on one or two issues, or we abandon all of our baseline values to win over a non-existent swing voter.

We either throw "Hail Marys" in every corner of Tennessee or put all our focus on a very small number of races that excludes the majority of the state.

That’s nonsense. We can and must choose both to be strategic in where we invest, but also identify races in every county where we can compete. Yes, there are 12 to 15 major races where significant state Democratic resources can change the result, but there too is at least one race in all 95 counties in this state that’s currently held by a Republican, but with sustained effort can be taken back by the Democrats in the next two years.

Run candidates who understand their communities

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Editorial cartoons for 2019 from the USA TODAY Network

Here’s how one lifelong Democrat from rural Bradley County put it to me: “We need politicians who can pray with the widows, preach with the preachers, drink with the bootleggers and play cards with the gamblers. Democrats who love us as we are, not folks who hate being with us.”

Many Democrats in rural communities felt that we had a dearth of Democratic politicians who are able to fit in with people’s baseline worldview.

And if they did fit in well, they felt progressive forces who held the money, the influence and the power in the party rejected them. To put it simply, there was a belief our party—particularly at the national level—was spending too much punishing heretics and not enough time seeking converts.

Don’t miss the main message

The Republicans — despite their hypocrisy when in power — have a clear political message: Lower taxes, less government. At times, we seem to forget that our party isn’t disparate interest groups all seeking their own agendas, but rather a unified community around a simple belief as old as the republic.

In fact, the campaign trail gave me a clear sense of the lesson Tennessee Democrats must remember time and again: never underestimate how much it matters for people to be able to provide for their families and how deeply it destroys them when they cannot.

An older white guy in Milan put it to me well: “We know the Democratic Party cares about everyone on the planet, but does it care about me as a person?”

Let me put it this way: Most Tennesseans know that the Democratic Party — despite its lack of political courage when it’s in power — cares about young people in Nashville, African-Americans in Memphis, the LGBT community in Chattanooga and Muslims in Knoxville.

But do they know we care about white farmers in South Pittsburg, factory workers in Morristown and single mothers in Ripley?

I’m convinced if they did, Tennessee will go blue again.

A noble adventure indeed. I’ll see you on the road.