Old Wisdom for a New Day | Eastern North Carolina Now

    "I am not a member of any organized party - I'm a Democrat," humorist Will Rogers frequently said in the 1920's. The same is true today, especially in North Carolina. After a third consecutive poor showing Democrats need to ask what they must do to consistently win elections.

    I initially registered as a Democrat because my parents were, but also because you had to be a Democrat if you wanted to vote in North Carolina's primary elections in the 1960s. There were three registered Democrats to every Republican and the GOP was hard pressed to field candidates for the General Elections, much less compete against one another in primaries. Democrats still dominate slightly today, the GOP has gained strength, but more than 25 percent are unaffiliated.

    Political parties, like organizations, go through up to six cycles or stages. In the entrepreneurial beginning, one or more with a vision, passion or goal work extraordinarily hard toward accomplishing their dream and recruiting others to join them. Often armed with little more than unbounded enthusiasm and an unwillingness to fail they enter the second stage: growth. Profitability, growing acceptance and support propels the organization to the third stage: success. Money flows, acceptance grows, times are good. It is typically this stage when the organization feels the need for structure, rules, chains of command and bureaucracy. Founding leaders are often replaced, retire or become complacent.

    But organizations either improve or decline and more do the latter. The temptation is to take continued success for granted and relax innovation, customer or membership support and leadership development. Think of successful organizations that once dominated their fields but have now disappeared or are irrelevant.

    At this point the organization has two choices: reinvent itself and regain success or circle the wagons and go into a defense mode, protecting the organization itself. This is exactly where North Carolina Democrats find themselves today - pointing fingers of blame and defending increasingly unsuccessful leadership, strategies and performance. Uncorrected, the last life cycle stage is demise.

    As respected journalist Cash Michaels summarized the November elections on NC SPIN, Democrats' current posture of whining about Republican policies isn't resonating with voters. They need a makeover.

    Speaking of Will Rogers, he also said, "You've got to be optimist to be a Democrat, and you've got to be a humorist to stay one." For starters, Democrats need to restructure. The party transformed from an organization where decisions were made in smoke-filled back rooms by a handful to an unwieldy governance structure that is so large it cannot possibly develop clear and consistent strategies, take swift and decisive action or hold anyone accountable. They must re-examine who their constituents are and what issues are important to them, then they must completely revamp badly designed and executed communications.

    North Carolina needs at least two strong political parties. We saw what happened when Democrats, dominated for the better part of a century, growing stale and indecisive due to a lack of competition. They must decide, as Rogers told Al Smith, one of the leaders in the Democratic Party in the 1920s, that, "We can make this thing into a Party, instead of a Memory." We certainly hope so.

    It is fitting to close with a final Rogers quote: "Never miss a good chance to shut up."

    Publisher's note: Tom Campbell is former assistant North Carolina State Treasurer and is creator/host of NC SPIN, a weekly statewide television discussion of NC issues airing Sundays at 11:00 am on WITN-TV. Contact Tom at NC Spin.