Why did the Tennessee Democratic Party implode so badly?

[IceSpear]

Yes, I know the same trend has happened all throughout the interior South and Appalachia, but at least places such as WV/AR/KY can still put up competent candidates like Tennant, Manchin, Conway, Grimes, Ross, etc. In 2006, Tennessee had an incumbent Democratic governor getting re-elected in a landslide and sweeping every county, and almost elected a black Democrat to the Senate over a competent mainstream Republican. Democrats also controlled 5 of the 9 House seats. Fast forward a few years later, and they nominate an unknown right winger who is a member of hate groups for the Senate in 2012. In 2014, they nominate a mentally ill guy who can't spell his own name for governor. Hell, even Parker Griffith is a more credible candidate than anyone the TN Dems have put up recently.

So why was the complete implosion of the TN Dems so much worse than in the states around it?

[IceSpear]

Charlie Brown was not mentally ill lol, he just misspelled his name on Facebook. I see your point though, and I can only guess:

Obama

Yeah, but why was it so acutely bad in Tennessee? I'm pretty sure Obama is even more unpopular in WV/AR/KY than in TN.

[bedstuy]

Tennessee was less Democratic to begin with compared to WV/AR/KY.  At the Presidential level, those three have moved right more than Tennessee if you think about it.   And, the state level parties in those three states are just stronger for a variety of reasons.  Coal mining unions play into it in Kentucky and West Virginia for sure.

Also, I think Phil Breseden and Harold Ford's Senate success is also a bit of a blip.  It's sort of like how Massachusetts had Scott Brown and currently has a Republican governor.

[Attorney General, Senator-Elect, & Former PPT Dwarven Dragon]

Tennessee was less Democratic to begin with compared to WV/AR/KY.  At the Presidential level, those three have moved right more than Tennessee if you think about it.   And, the state level parties in those three states are just stronger for a variety of reasons.  Coal mining unions play into it in Kentucky and West Virginia for sure.

Also, I think Phil Breseden and Harold Ford's Senate success is also a bit of a blip.  It's sort of like how Massachusetts had Scott Brown and currently has a Republican governor.

Massachusetts having a republican governor is nothing odd. Look through the recent history of ma gov elections, and you'll see the state has no problem with electing moderate republicans to the governorship. In fact, 5 of the 6 most recent MA governors (including Baker) are republicans. Baker's win gets blamed on Coakley's existence, sure, but it's not like Grossman/Berwick would have done any better had one of them won the primary instead of Coakley, if anything they would have done even worse.

[Indy Texas]

There's also the fact that, on the other side, the Tennessee GOP has been a "real" political party continuously since the Civil War. It didn't just get cobbled together in the 1950s and 1960s from the right flank of the Democratic Party like most Southern state Republican Parties did.

[VPH]

There's also the fact that, on the other side, the Tennessee GOP has been a "real" political party continuously since the Civil War. It didn't just get cobbled together in the 1950s and 1960s from the right flank of the Democratic Party like most Southern state Republican Parties did.

Truly so. There's a whole cluster of counties that have pretty consistently voted R since the Civil War.