Column: Healing process begins for Lenoir County Democrats

Two weeks ago, the Lenoir County Democratic Party was declared “unorganized” by statewide Democratic leaders, who said they would punish local Dems … if only they could.

Tuesday night, the LCDP received its punishment — not from the North Carolina Democratic Party, but from Kinston voters. The election of B.J. Murphy as the first Republican mayor of Kinston in more than 100 years served notice that politics as usual has run its course in a community that is registered nearly two-thirds Democratic.

“I was very surprised by the fragmentation of the Democratic Party establishment and especially the comments by the district chairman that basically called the local party illegitimate and disorganized,” TACC-9 talk show host Reece Gardner said. “But it’s a sign of the times that more and more people are declaring themselves independent or unaffiliated.”

The story of what helped cause the startling death of the LCDP begins with nearly every elected Democratic leader in Kinston and Lenoir County not supporting the Democratic candidate for mayor, Jimmy Cousins. Instead, they backed the unaffiliated candidate, Earl Harper, a former Republican county commissioner.

It made Cousins admit he felt like the black sheep of the LCDP.

“I just found out that the Democratic Party is not for everyone, because I was a Democrat and they weren’t even for me,” Cousins said.

Tuesday’s results were somewhat refreshing to Gardner, though, who is considered one of the area’s most independent political thinkers.

“More than anything else, Tuesday meant that we do not any longer need to be bound by tradition, in terms of one party dominating while the other is not important,” Gardner said. “This election didn’t just blur the lines, it tended to free up the political situation here to the point that people will be far less likely in the years to come to focus on a person’s party affiliation.

“That is a healthy sign — and it’s going to be wonderful to free ourselves from ultra-partisanship.”

For years, the leader of the LCDP was Lyle Holland, a charismatic fellow who — I’m told — kept his party in line. He handed the leadership over to longtime county commissioner George Graham before last year’s presidential race; around the first of the year, though, after Graham was elected the chairman of the county commission, Graham resigned his LCDP post as an honorable and ethical gesture.

Holland re-assumed his old post as the LCDP interim chairman, although he was an active supporter of Harper in the mayoral race. That support of Harper by Holland and nearly every other Democratic in a Lenoir County and Kinston city elected office drew Cousins’ ire.

“The Democratic Party is very, very fragmented because everyone is looking out for their own selves and not after the Democratic Party,” Cousins said. “As long as you keep doing that, you’re not going to have a Democratic Party.”

Lenoir County Republicans are certainly happy about Tuesday’s result — but you won’t catch any of them getting the big head.

“The Democratic political machine in this community will not allow this to happen again,” Edwards said. “They learned their lesson about having a divide; in four years, they won’t make this mistake again.”

Local Democratic Party strategist Rita Spence said that after the exhausting 2008 campaign, it was hard to mobilize the party for the municipal election.

“After the (2008) election, people were just kind of burned out,” Spence said. “We need to get some more folks, maybe even younger folks, in those precinct chairs. We just need to regroup and reorganize. We’ll do that after the first of the year.”

Graham agrees with Spence. He feels that local Democrats will be ready for the 2010 local, regional and statewide elections.

“It’s going to take a healing process; if you stick your hand in a bucket of water, the water comes apart,” Graham said. “When you pull your hand out, that water goes right back together. The party will reorganize, refocus and will be stronger than ever.”

Bryan C. Hanks’ column appears every Sunday in The Free Press. You can reach him at 252-559-1074 or at bhanks@freedomenc.com. Want to read more about this issue, including quotes not used in this column? Check out Bryan’s blog at bhanks.encblogs.com.