Moving On...

I apologize for the delay in responding to the dramatic news in our state senate, but unfortunately Blogger.com decided to do maintenance on our site. But in case you didn't already hear, Senator Ron Ramsey (R) is now Speaker Ramsey or Lt. Gov. Ramsey if you prefer. For the first time since the Civil War era (1869 to be exact) a Republican is Speaker of the Senate and second in line behind Bredesen for the governorship. Many Democrats, like myself, were a bit upset about the whole thing. Not because former Speaker Wilder was all that and a bag of pretzels. Hardly. As a younger voter and one still growing into the Tennessee Democratic Party, I was left scratching my head trying to figure out how the man had retained the position this long. No, the reason for my dismay was how this event transpired.

But crying about it won't help, and complaining about it doesn't make things right. If we are truly Young Democrats then we must accept the good with the bad and learn to work with what we've got. The double-edge sword of the Democratic Party is that we each have individual thoughts and beliefs. We do not step in line on issues as easily as our Republican counterparts. The good news is that we have the ability to hear all ideas and cooperate or compromise in getting work done. But as we saw yesterday, it also shows how just one of us can really throw a wrench into the system.

What's done is done. Senator Kurita voted her conscience and, though it may have killed her future chances politically or, at worst, forced her to change her party loyalty, we all must live with that choice and move on. State Republicans now have an opportunity to shake things up, the same opportunity our national leaders have in the Congress. All eyes will be focused on the Speaker Ramsey and his decisions over the next two years.

My hope is that our Tennessee Democratic Party will take this dramatic chain of events as a wake up call for internal reform. My fear is that we'll forget about this in a few days and it will be politics as usual. Either way, it's time to move on.