You can't take the politics out of politics.
But we would all be better off if we could at least within our own organizational apparatus.
I've seen the open debate about who would be the best Chairman. I've seen commentary by Mr. Jones, Mr. Richie, and Mr. Maxey.
I've even see an attempt for the Gubanatorial candidate to weigh in.
I hope this is all premature.
Again, I say, "Let's stop the madness of feeding on ourselves".
We shouldn't expect anyone to be more capable of taking the gloves off than party enthusiasts. But we should expect party enthusiasts to better understand the wisdom and approach that lends itself to positive outcomes with out customers - the voting public.
My observation says that we don't have a lot of winning experiences on how this can best be done, and that's what feeds most of the debate about which of these three or some other unannounced and not yet exposed candidates would be best for the party.
But with that observation, let's step back and tone down the rhetoric and get control of the situation - and not let our alligator mouths overload our hummingbird asses. Let's demonstrate our leadership potential within the party as well as to the voters.
Again I suggest that we need an aggressive care-taker for the party until the convention.
No, that doesn't put anything on hold with the SDEC.
No, that doesn't put anything in a bottle waiting for fermentation or staleness, either.
It simply means we don't spoil the whole case with internal strife that will not heal itself and become counterproductive.
The best approach is still within the TDP rules. It is to simply elect the senior vice chair to fill out the term of Mr. Soechting (until the convention) and therefore preside over the convention until a new chair is elected.
This person can continue on the current path and make whatever slight changes and alterations are necessary to keep our training efforts going in the field; keep the staff aggressive and on the leading edge; keep the definitional work from data bases, to organizations progressing at ramp up speed.
We don't need a new chair to do any of those things. The SDEC can clearly dictate these things to the staff and the new chair.
In the meantime, these and any other candidate can clearly step up and run for the position, and I, like all good Democrats would love to fully consider them.
But P-L-E-A-S-E let's not start wars that we will have to deal with later.
Let's be smart - mature, professional and demonstrate the brand of leadership we pledge to use when elected to lead Texas and this country.
As a management consultant and a part-time military guy, I easily see what is and isn't working within the Party. I'm neither unique, nor alone in that and the observations are fairly universal.
So what becomes obvious is that the fight between individuals and "political camps" has little really to do with fixing what is wrong. It's just more of the same . . .which hasn't been that successful.
I hope we can take the "politics" out of politics, at least for the short term and suggest we should try.
Bill Burkett
Baird, Texas
