vibinc

So last night was both disappointing and eventful.

First, I would like to echo the sentiments of Tennessee Senate Democratic Caucus Chairman Lowe Finney, about the Adrienne Pakis-Gillon campaign. She worked her butt off without much visible support from the establishment powers outside of Shelby Co. and deserves kudos for running a clean campaign against an opponent whose actions and legislative record literally begs for mudslinging.

Speaking of State Senator Finney, there was some interesting news in his neck of the woods last night that has taken the state by storm.

As if you didn’t already know, Rep. John Tanner (D-TN08), a founder of the Blue Dog Coalition announced his retirement after several media outlets reported his impending retirement based on an anonymous source.

This led to a weird series of events that started out with a whole lot of speculation on who would run for the seat and ended up with Democratic Gubernatorial candidate, Roy Herron, dropping out of the Governor’s race to run for TN-08.

Herron’s decision to run isn’t all that surprising. While he has been successful at winning straw polls all over the state, and is to be commended for out organizing his primary opponents at said straw polls, REAL polls suggest that his candidacy wasn’t really getting the reach required to overcome the presumed front runner in the race, Mike McWherter, who hails from the same area. For Herron, the political math made sense, and he did his math quickly dropping out of the race less than four hours after the first report hit Tennessee media.

Despite Herron’s early jump into the TN-08 race, several other elected and former officials have expressed interest in the seat or at least been mentioned, including; Phillip Pinion of Union City (burnout?), Mark Maddox (He’s more likely to run for Roy’s State Senate seat), and Lowe Finney (who is up for re-election in the State Senate in 2010).

In the mean time, Republicans have wasted no time in attacking Herron as an Obama lovin’ gay sympathizing socialist, which is funny on several levels. Herron has a pretty solid moderate to conservative voting record. Painting him as a wide eyed liberal is not just a stretch, but pure bullshit. As I said on twitter earlier today

If the GOP thinks Roy Herron is a “libural”, then I guess those (R) state legislators that voted for an unconstitutional gun law are too!

We’ll see how this pans out in the coming weeks, but unless Herron really screws up, he’s in pretty good shape to win the primary in August despite not being able to use the funds he’s already collected for his Gubernatorial bid, as noted by Goldni and Braisted.

So, what was I doing while all this was going on? Loading in a show in San Antonio that is featuring W. as a speaker. Yeah, it’s that one.

#FML

There are lots of other good posts about this out there, but I have a show to load out. Back in Memphis tomorrow. Thank God!

If you live in SD31, today is Election Day. You have before you, the choice between Brian Kelsey (R ) and Adrienne Pakis-Gillon (D).

Kelsey has made a name for himself in his five years in the State House as a serial self-promoter. This self-promotion has manifested itself in him taking credit for things where no credit is due. The Commercial Appeal detailed some of Kelsey’s more blatant truth stretching exercises in a November 22nd article, prompting City Councilman Bill Morrison to say, “You don’t take credit for somebody’s stuff. That’s not cool.”

Kelsey has also declined to appear in ANY forum with his opponent, as I detailed here, calling the League of Women Voters the League of Liberal Women Voters and skipping a forum sponsored by the Memphis Area Women’s Council for a birthday party. Obviously, he’s more invested in his social calendar than representing the people of SD31.

Today the voters of SD31 have an opportunity to rid our state government of Brian Kelsey. While armchair pundits and some members of the political class have written off this campaign as a gimmie for Kelsey, Adrienne Pakis-Gillon has been working tirelessly to earn the right to represent the people of SD 31. Along the way she has gained an impressive list of endorsements.

It’s time. Just over 4900 people voted early. For Adrienne to win she’ll need as many supporters as she can get to show up to the polls and cast a vote for sensible, honest representation.

If you’re not sure that you live in SD31, or where to vote, check out the precinct locator. Most importantly, go vote.

Strange, and very out of character for the “stunt-baby of Germantown”.

Makes me wonder what he’s afraid of?

The people of SD 31 deserve better. A vote for Adrienne Pakis-Gillon is a vote for responsive representation. Early voting is underway. If you live in SD 31, get out & give her your support. Vote Adrienne Pakis-Gillon for SD 31.

Edited to add: I should have included this post from Jackson Baker to the mix, because it’s spot on. One of the problems of writing on an iPhone is all the steps it takes to bang out a post.

From the article:

Peg Watkins, president of the MSCLWV, professed to find Kelsey’s characterization of her organization “amazing,” maintaining that the League was formally non-partisan and studiedly neutral concerning elections. “I’d be happy to send him a copy of our mission statement,” she said.

And, indeed, when Kelsey was reminded that the immediate past president of the League, Dee Nollner, was a Republican, he grudgingly acknowledged the fact. “Okay, there are a few, but mainly they’re the League of Liberal Women Voters, and I don’t have time for them.”

Can you believe this guy?

Go read it if you haven’t already.

Two months ago I wrote about the changes that have been going on in my life this year. Needless to say, it’s been interesting so far, and signs point to more interesting developments over the coming months. My recent absence from this blog and the twitter are partially the result of a wacky work schedule and a concerted effort to start down the path of many of the changes I talked about in that August post.

Aside from working my ass off, I’ve also been preparing to sell my house. This is by necessity more than anything else. While my original plan was to continue working and traveling through my first part-time semester back in college, the outlook on the work front isn’t that promising, so I’ve been looking at other avenues.

This is how life goes, and while it’s frustrating and challenging, I feel very hopeful and positive about what has happened so far, and what will inevitably be coming down the pike.

Through all of this, I’ve had little time to devote to the reading necessary to write. Longtime readers of this blog know that while I write a lot of opinion pieces, I usually make a concerted effort to source my material with as many supporting links as possible. I feel this is necessary because opinions ARE like assholes, everyone has one, but opinions pieces backed up by sources don’t necessarily suffer the problems that plague the typical opinionated blog post. This may sound a little arrogant, but I like to back up my opinions because I feel it not only makes them stronger to you the reader, but it also allows me the time to better formulate and hopefully strengthen my argument.

The downside of this is that it takes a REALLY LONG TIME to write…well, anything. Between work and work on my house, I really haven’t had the time. To be honest, even though the work I’ve been doing on the house has largely been of the manual labor sort, there’s a lot of thought that goes into the process, as well as a lot of Advil. I hope that I can get back to writing at the beginning of November, but I’m not making any promises.

In the course of all of this, I’ve also been re-evaluating just what I want this blog to be. For me Vibinc has been about advocacy, policy and politics from a decidedly liberal perspective. I don’t see that changing anytime soon, though I am looking at ways to better focus my attentions and perspectives to things that effect not only the way we live here in Memphis and Tennessee, but also the way we perceive the political environment in our community. I’m not really sure how this will manifest itself, or where it will take me, but I think it’s an interesting path to pursue.

Even though I’m re-evaluating the blog, that doesn’t mean I don’t have some things to say about the election Thursday. I know I promised some people, including @ MphsBlckPolitcs to write about it in the run-up to the election, but for the reasons listed above I never quite made it past the incubation stage. So, consider this a Post-Mortem of the election if you will…

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If you didn’t see the complete and total landslide that was Thursday’s election coming, then you aren’t really paying that much attention to local politics. Back at the beginning of the campaign I said that someone (presumably Wharton) could win with only 30% of the vote considering the large field. Under normal circumstances this could have been the case, but the abbreviated nature of the campaign and the strength exhibited by the Wharton camp made that circumstance highly unlikely.

As Mayor Pro Tem Myron Lowery said election night, AC Wharton has been running since the 2007 Mayoral election, had more money than anyone, and a better organization. This is neither “interesting” nor “odd” nor any other descriptor that would cast doubt on the election results. AC’s campaign organization was ready, and no one else’s was. As a result, EVERYONE that got into the race after the retirement announcement of Mayor Herenton was stuck in a situation that made winning a virtually impossible task.

There were some surprises…

Myron Lowery’s strong showing, despite a late start and a small war chest showed that, given more time, he could have made a run at Wharton. I like much of what Lowery has done so far and hope that Wharton will take note of some of the changes that have taken place at City Hall over the past two months and maintain them through his administration. On the flip side, I’m glad that Lowery will be returning to the City Council. For all his faults, Lowery can be a calming voice on a body that can be quite contentious from time to time.

Carol Chumney’s third place finish should be a wake-up call for the former City Council member and State Legislator. Any rumors of her exit from future runs are not only premature, but also ignore her resolve. Carol wants to be a part of making Memphis better. Through her work in the state legislature and City Council this should be more than evident. However, Chumney suffers from a multi-faceted public perception problem. Part of this comes from what I called her ”cold and combative” posture at the first Mayoral debate. While Chumney did herself no favors in this first performance, media accounts, including my analysis of the first debate, perpetuated many of the long-held stereotypes of women seeking positions of power in the political realm.

As Mary Cashiola reported in the Memphis Flyer, “Women are twice as likely to be described emotionally in the media,” according to Erika Falk, author of Women for President: Media Bias in Eight Campaigns.

Folks, this has to stop. We need women and men of all races and socio-economic backgrounds to engage in the political process. The manner in which women, particularly strong, passionate women, are covered in the media is shameful, dismissive and downright ugly. As consumers of media, we deserve better. As candidates, women deserve to be treated with the same level of respect as their male counterparts. Snippets like this are simply dismissive and disrespectful. Not only is the quote used in the piece not bitter, it is a relevant critique of her political opponent that should have been researched rather than used as a blunt object to further a stereotype.

All that said, Chumney did commit some serious tactical errors that likely led to her weak showing at the polls. First and foremost, the early lack of any clear messaging from her campaign, despite a run less than two years before, allowed her opponents to get a jump on her in an area where she could have shown early strength. Considering her strong showing in the 2007 race, the meme of the campaign should have been “Chumney vs. Wharton”. By allowing so much time to pass before any clear message emerged, Chumney ceded a great deal of ground to Wharton early, and Lowery late. Campaigns are about momentum, and unfortunately for the Chumney campaign, this early lack of momentum made the difficult task of overcoming a well-funded candidate even more difficult.

Charles Carpenter was the fourth place finisher, and while he only received 5% of the vote, there is little doubt that he will use this as a springboard for a future run. Carpenter brought some interesting ideas to the campaign, and even though I disagree with him on many of his campaign positions, I hope he continues to engage in local politics. We need all kinds of voices in the mix, even ones I disagree with.

While the rest of the field accounted for less than 7.5% of the total vote, their impact on the race shouldn’t be ignored, particularly from Lawler and Whalum. Both had potent messaging operations, though Whalum seemed to show more late momentum than Lawler. In the end, all the messaging in the world can’t overcome a strong, well run, and well-funded campaign.

Running for any office requires a level of intentional preparation that cannot be thrown together in three months. With the next Mayoral election just two years away, anyone considering a run should start making preparations now. Memphis is best served by a strong and diverse field of candidates competing to lead us forward, not the dominant dynasties of the far and recent past. It is through this competition of ideas that we can grow as a community. Without competition, comes stagnation like what we saw in the final years of the Herenton Administration. Regardless of the intentions of any elected official, it is critical that we foster this kind of competition going forward, lest we fall back into the patterns of the past, and allow the future to slip by us.

Well, you can’t say the past week has been boring!

Thinking about yesterday’s events (video and comments from other blogs follow) I am reminded of something I said in passing several years ago about “retirement”. Until recently, I could never imagine myself retiring. I always just assumed that I would work until I died. Until recently, the notion of having “free time” was so foreign to me that I reckoned any “retirement” forced or voluntary would pretty much kill me with boredom. Now with 5 months of “singledom” and 4 months of spotty work under my belt I think I’ll be fine in retirement, and hope I can figure out a way to do it soon (if I can just win the lottery).

That said, very few “type A personalities” ever successfully retire. If they do, they either drive everyone around them crazy or away, or they die of boredom. It’s easy to understand. They’ve been the movers and shakers all their lives. They’ve busted their humps to the point that they have little else but that hump busting, and after retiring they look around at the “all” they have and realize that aside from the material, it ain’t really all that much.

I don’t know if this is what our former Mayor is going through or not, but it stands to reason that for most type A personalities, 2 weeks with nothing to do is about all the time they can stand themselves.

So he pulled a petition and stirred up the media attention, and got just about every person in the city riled up to some extent. That’s what our former Mayor thrives on. But without the trappings of an office of import, eventually the media is going to figure out what the Memphis Flyer has figured out…that he’s just another wannabe.

The comments, particularly on Twitter have ranged from angry to pricelessly funny 140 character screeds. I won’t quote them here, because really picking just a few is unfair to the teeming throngs, but let’s just say it has been HIGHLY entertaining.

On the blogs, it’s been quite something else. I think many of us are still dumbfounded by the whole thing. Certainly, adanovi at Knoxviews is not only dumbfounded, but outraged:

Yes, that’s right. Willie Herenton who retired from Mayor of Memphis, has picked up a petition to run in the special election to replace himself….

…This guy needs to be out of politics. He should have to pay the more than 1 million dollars required to hold the upcoming special election. He DOES NOT need to be representing any constituency of Tennessee in Congress and Memphis CERTAINLY needs new leadership. (Source)

Our new friend The Memphis Liberal has some link love to several articles that are quite revealing.

But all pale in comparison to this post by Voice of Andromeda. Here’s a little sample

TO DR. HERENTON: We don’t need your help. You are not the ‘be all’ and ‘end all’ of Memphis politics. There are views and issues which deserve the air. There are problems you have ignored, including, most egregiously, your own African-American community which has not prospered under your reign. You poison race relations in Memphis and we need you gone in order to move forward. We love our city too and your continued involvement in our local affairs moves us backward, not forward.

Of course you have the legal right to resign and of course you have the legal right to re-file for the same office. People have all kinds of legal rights to do crazy things – doesn’t mean they ought to do them or that, in doing them, everyone else doesn’t have the right to question their sanity.

In 2007, you wasted a lot of taxpayers’ time, money and efforts in running for an office you didn’t want. Less than two years later, you resigned, causing we the taxpayers (you remember, the people you supposedly want to represent again) to foot the bill for a special election to the tune of $1 million-plus. Now you want taxpayers to foot the bill for this special election for no reason since you want your job back….THEN IF YOU WIN, YOU WANT US TO PAY FOR ANOTHER SPECIAL ELECTION WHEN YOU QUIT AGAIN NEXT YEAR TO RUN FOR CONGRESS. ENOUGH!!(Source)

I don’t think I have much more to say on the matter, other than “actions speak louder than words, but words have a pretty strong voice”. By repeatedly defending himself against charges of insanity, the former Mayor certainly raises the question of his sanity. Crazy is as Crazy does sir.

What follows are three of the interviews done by our former Mayor yesterday.

WDIA Interview