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Results Matter
A perspective from Randy Voller
Members of the State Executive Committee “SEC” of the North Carolina Democratic Party “NCDP” will be gathering via ZOOM this Saturday to elect its officers for the next two years, approve its budget and conduct other party business.
The big question revolves around who should lead the party and be its chair for the 2023-2024 cycle that will include the 2024 Presidential race.
As much as party members in both parties and a vast swath of unaffiliated voters tend to view these intraparty races as part coronation and part popularity contest, the harsh reality is that at the end of the day results matter.
This is especially true for the NCDP.
Democrats lost statehouse and congressional seats in a national “red wave” in 2010 in an election that still haunts Democrats today in North Carolina.
No 2010 red wave result likely equals no Senator Thom Tillis.
Democrats lost a Presidential election in 2016 that begat the appointment and approval of three right wing justices who will haunt us like inebriated relatives at family gatherings or bad dating choices for a lifetime.
We are working on a whole generation of blue and blue leaning voters in NC not to mention young staffers and elected officials who have NEVER known the Democrats to control the statehouse “NCGA” in Raleigh.
Blue leaning voters in NC are forgetting what it was like to make and implement public policy in the statehouse in Raleigh and are starting to exhibit the signs and the tell tale characteristics of a political version of the “Stockholm Syndrome”.
Democrats lost on maps that we drew in 2010 and we lost on maps that were litigated and redrawn for races in 2022 and in between we have had to struggle to win on gerrymandered maps created by the GOP leadership in the Republican-led NCGA.
The Party needs a strategic overhaul with all players open and humble at the table and willing to hear new ideas and risk implementing new tactics and strategies.
In addition we need to thoroughly understand the game that we are playing and adapt our tactics and strategies to win the actual game we are playing as opposed to the one we wish we were playing.
Sometimes I think our team thinks everyday is a glorious episode of the “West Wing”, while Mitch “Tywinn Lannister” McConnell and his cadre of bannermen and flying monkeys are planning episodic “Red Weddings” for Democrats.
This phenomenon plays out in college basketball as well when one team plays gritty and physical and wins while the other teams complains about the officiating.
Democrats need to be willing to get gritty and play a long game.
This means patience and the willingness to commit to a strategy on some fronts that may pay off years down the road.
And at its most basic a political party is about winning the battle of ideas and winning elections. This should become a virtuous cycle as strong ideas are implemented in every community followed by winning elections. This was how FDR leveraged the New Deal to generations of influence, community building and leadership in America.
But in order to do that the NCDP will need to walk the walk so that its values and platform match what becomes manifest as a party and in leadership.
We simply cannot say we are for a policy or a value in our PLATFORM and then do the opposite in leadership.
I am all for pragmatism and realpolitik in leadership, but there comes a time when we should reject corrupting influences in the NCDP such as when the party accepted $500,000 from former convicted felon and billionaire Greg Lindberg back in 2018 or when the labor negotiations with the NCDP staff who wanted to unionize like other states dragged on and on until after the election in 2022—this just sends the wrong message. (Granted, the Lindberg funds were small potatoes when compared to the giant money haul that the NCGOP and its related candidates and independent expenditure “I.E..” groups received from Lindberg, but we should have never bargained away our institutional integrity for tainted shekels in the first place.)
Finally, we need to understand that the biggest opportunity that we have as a party to win elections is the growing “values gap” in younger Millennials and Gen-Z voters when compared to previous generations whose values became more conservative over time.
What’s left of the greatest generation tilts center right; Boomers also tilt center right, Gen-X and older Millennials are generally in the middle and only slightly center right; however for the first time in many generations we have a cohort of voters that is becoming more progressive/liberal (Gen-Z and younger Millennials) as opposed to more conservative and therein lies the opportunity for Democrats to flip the tattered script.
This group is the foundation upon which a 21st century “New Deal” can be built upon as an emerging and enduring new political majority that will shape the future of our country and North Carolina.
Saturday on a Zoom call will either be the opportunity for State Executive Party members to make their voice heard and decide whether maintaining the status quo will be the most effective way to begin the march to a new enduring blue majority in North Carolina or whether a change is needed to reboot the NCDP in order begin the race to win the future.
The future of North Carolina will be influenced greatly by which path is taken on Saturday by Democrats and as Robert Frost once said “that will make all the difference.”
(featured image: AP Photo/Lynne Sladky, File)
“Viewpoints” on Chapelboro is a recurring series of community-submitted opinion columns. All thoughts, ideas, opinions and expressions in this series are those of the author, and do not reflect the work or reporting of 97.9 The Hill and Chapelboro.com.
