Relevance factor dropping
Obviously, there are numerous flaws with Andre's argument - the most pressing being that Jane Kidd still has two years remaining on her term as chairwoman of the Democratic Party of Georgia - but most of them really aren't even worth wasting your breath over, particularly over someone who uses juvenille public criticism as a means of expressing his personal disappointment over being let go from the DPG.
Regardless, this criticism lacks some serious content ...
I’ve looked at every financial disclosure between 2003 and 2006 when Bobby Kahn was the Democratic Party Chair and at no time did the Democratic Party of Georgia have $142,000 worth of debt.
In March of last year, state Democratic Party chair Jane Kidd was quoted as saying, “We made payroll this week but we can’t do it again” [Source: Atlanta Journal Constitution, "Democrats' New Leader Hits The Road", March 9, 2007]. Here’s a newsflash, the Georgia Democratic Party can’t make payroll now. They have $142,000 worth of debt.
Of course, something worth keeping in mind is that Republicans took control of the state in 2002 and consolidated that power in 2004. As a result, donors shifted from the old majority party and flocked to the new one. Add to this the fact that several longtime Democratic elected officials, as is the case in many transitions of power, opted to switch parties and take with them not only their donors, but also the brand they had built up for Democrats in their neck of the woods.
Bobby Kahn presided over an unprecedented time of rapid decline for Democrats in this state in which valuable resources were lost, many of them for good. As a result, the available funding necessary to effectively re-build the party's infrastructure wasn't there and, as we see here after a rather competitive election (in which two Democratic candidates reached runoffs in races they had no business reaching runoffs for), there is some debt the DPG must deal with.
It happens.
The DPG is going to have to do some restructuring, and that will mean probably eliminating some existing positions and outsourcing some of its functions. That isn't necessarily a bad thing either (and Kidd's management of these tasks, I would put forward, are more valuable areas of scrutiny rather than a surface glance of electoral results from the most previous cycle).
Moaning about changing leadership now doesn't make much sense to me, and it comes across more like sour grapes than anything else.
Regardless, this criticism lacks some serious content ...
I’ve looked at every financial disclosure between 2003 and 2006 when Bobby Kahn was the Democratic Party Chair and at no time did the Democratic Party of Georgia have $142,000 worth of debt.
In March of last year, state Democratic Party chair Jane Kidd was quoted as saying, “We made payroll this week but we can’t do it again” [Source: Atlanta Journal Constitution, "Democrats' New Leader Hits The Road", March 9, 2007]. Here’s a newsflash, the Georgia Democratic Party can’t make payroll now. They have $142,000 worth of debt.
Of course, something worth keeping in mind is that Republicans took control of the state in 2002 and consolidated that power in 2004. As a result, donors shifted from the old majority party and flocked to the new one. Add to this the fact that several longtime Democratic elected officials, as is the case in many transitions of power, opted to switch parties and take with them not only their donors, but also the brand they had built up for Democrats in their neck of the woods.
Bobby Kahn presided over an unprecedented time of rapid decline for Democrats in this state in which valuable resources were lost, many of them for good. As a result, the available funding necessary to effectively re-build the party's infrastructure wasn't there and, as we see here after a rather competitive election (in which two Democratic candidates reached runoffs in races they had no business reaching runoffs for), there is some debt the DPG must deal with.
It happens.
The DPG is going to have to do some restructuring, and that will mean probably eliminating some existing positions and outsourcing some of its functions. That isn't necessarily a bad thing either (and Kidd's management of these tasks, I would put forward, are more valuable areas of scrutiny rather than a surface glance of electoral results from the most previous cycle).
Moaning about changing leadership now doesn't make much sense to me, and it comes across more like sour grapes than anything else.
posted by Jmac at 2:53 PM
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