Ben Vos, Citizen

See, here's the thing. I'm not an Executive Committee member. I'm not a Finance Council member. I'm not a corporate bigwig. I'm not an elected official. I'm a husband, a father, a therapist, and a citizen.

That's why I write in support of Chip Forrester today.

Chip Forrester has been tremendously active, responsive, engaged, and inclusive over the past 2 years. He has said to me, from Day One, "This is your party. Our office is your office. Come, organize, mobilize, do what you need to do. We want you to be here." And he has been active in organizing Democrats all over the state, wherever there is a willingness to join the party.

There were tremendous failures and setbacks in 2010, and painful losses. Having invested all I did, it's easy to think, "It was a waste of my time and energy." Two years after I sat in the State Capitol and watched Chip Forrester give his acceptance speech as the new chairman of the Tennessee Democratic Party, I feel that we have made little or no progress against the onslaught of lies, deceptions, distortions, distractions, and divisions from those who are more interested in winning the food fight than ending the food fight.

It would be easy for me to give up after this kind of experience. I know many of my dear friends have given up long ago, and ridicule me for continuing to be a "hopemonger". Unemployment is at 10%. We are still addicted to foreign oil. And an oil company executive is now our governor.

I know many major donors to the state party have threatened to walk out on it if Chip Forrester is re-elected. I find those kinds of threats repugnant. To turn your back on the Tennessee Democratic Party in 2011 is to turn your back on the last best hope for our state to restore its sanity and rediscover its greatness. To turn your back on the party now is to allow the haters to win. And if the haters win, then tolerance loses. The democratic experiment fails. We are not E pluribus unum.

I'm watching my Republican friends sharpen their knives against Muslims, Methodists, and Mexicans. I'm watching them bow to lobbyists who are more interested in personal gain than shared responsibility. Instead of cutting waste, they're cutting corners. And they are more interested in destroying our Commander in Chief than in assuming their responsibility to lead.

Chip Forrester will survive if he loses his position as the state party chairman. But I'm not sure it makes sense to scapegoat him, or to allow him to be an excuse for continuing divisions that existed before I was ever born.

My humble request to those with the power to make a difference is that you remember nobodies like me when you cast your vote. Whatever happens, there needs to be a place for "the least of these" in a winning coalition. Chip Forrester understands that.

Sincerely,
Ben Vos, an unimportant nobody in Nashville