by David Safier
The leadership of the Arizona Democratic Party took a surprising shift at today's State Reorganization Meeting. Out is former State Chair Don Bivens. In is new State Chair Paul Eckerstrom. There were a few other surprising shifts in other offices, but nothing as dramatic or unexpected as the change at the top.
Here's the best way I can describe what happened.
Think of outgoing chair Don Bivens as the DNC in the Al Gore/John Kerry days. It worked just fine in an earlier era when politics was more of an insiders' game, where the party heads were in the same camp with the major campaign advisers, both were on easy terms with deep pocket donors, and all remained at a distance from the rank and file. Things were cozy and predictable, and if everything worked out right, the Dems held their own or even picked up a little ground in the elections.
It's common knowledge among active Democrats, and it's been reported in the press, that the Dems outspent the Republicans on state races in 2008 and still lost ground. The blame has been put on an unresponsive state party that was run by the Phoenix office and the consulting firms they hired. There was little or no communication with the long time party members working for candidates around the state. It was old style, centralized politics.
Think of Paul Eckerstrom standing at the podium with Howard Dean, who threw out the old DNC rules and lauched the dynamic 50 State Strategy, at one side, and Barack Obama, who perfected the grassroots style of campaigning Dean pioneered, at the other.
Eckerstrom was among those who had fumed at the lost opportunities of the 2008 state elections. He spoke long and often about the changes Dems need to make if they hope to win in 2010 and 2012. But no one knew until today that he planned to run for Chair. It's not clear he knew himself until he arrived at the meeting.
After Bivens gave a perfectly acceptable campaign speech in front of the almost more than 500 assembled Democrats, Eckerstrom launched into a barn burner. As he neared the end of his speech, Eckerstrom's words were nearly drowned out by the audience's cheering. His words and his passion were what people wanted to hear, even though they didn't know it until they heard it. He represented the party of Dean and Obama at a moment when Arizona looks like the only western state carrying on the Bush/Cheney legacy.
Eckerstrom won by a substantial margin.
To compound the change, Eckerstrom is from Pima County. He'd been Dem County Chair a few years back. I don't know my Arizona history well enough to say the last time someone from Pima led the AZDP, but if it happened before, it was a long, long time ago.
Among the six vice chair positions, two are also Pima County Dems -- Vince Rabago, the outgoing county Dem Chair, who Eckerstrom was instrumental in bringing into the party, and Mohur Sidhwa, who was Rabago's first vice chair. The axis of the party's power base has shifted geographically and politically. Maricopa is no longer the absolute center of the Arizona Democratic Party universe.
This is new territory. The Arizona Dems are taking a chance making changes of this magnitude. But change is the name of the game for Democrats right now. Remember, the safest pick during the Dem presidential primaries was supposed to be the white guy, John Edwards. Turned out, that wouldn't have been such a good idea. When he was gone, it seemed safer to pick a well known white female than an untested black male. I don't think I have to tell you the rest of that story. And I won't even venture a guess how the Arizona Democratic story will end. But it's going to be well worth watching.
Update: Though I'm older than Tedski, he can definitely "old man" me about Arizona history. Here's what he says about the last time the Dem Party had a Pima Chair. Be sure to read to the end.
Okay, to answer the quesion I’ve gotten from a few of you, the last Democratic Party chairman from Pima County was Bill Minette, who served from 1991-1993.
And, by the way, since we had a chairman from Pima County that year, that meant the First Vice Chairman could come from Maricopa County. The First Vice Chair during Minette’s reign was a lawyer from Phoenix named Janet Napolitano.
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