Roy Exum
At lunch about a month ago, I was talking with Esther Helton, the East Ridge Councilwoman who is running for state representative in the August primary, and we were talking about ways to win an election. I have watched a lot of political races in my time and know a slew of candidates who have both won and lost that I still admire very much. Each of them had class.
I told her just about every race comes down to the last 30 days and the one singular trait I watch for is ‘class.’ I detest what we now call “a lack of civility” and I guess it has now become an epidemic with hateful people making more noise than ever before. Esther is running against a known brawler – Jonathan Mason – who gained infamy the day he quite shamefully and loudly asked former County Commissioner Curtis Adams to leave a Pachyderm Club luncheon.
Curtis is one of my all-time best friends and he switched from the Democratic Party after it began to assault his personal beliefs. Had it been me, I would have switched back rather than to be associated with such a belligerent GOP creep. Mason then famously ridiculed Phil Smart for his religious beliefs. I think the only thing that kept Phil from taking the punk to ‘fist city’ was the fact Mason’s scurrilous attack was actually inside a church.
So I told Esther her ace was to show class, don’t dare let this professional Republican huckster who is cashing in on his party loyalty with phony indentured endorsements pull her into his muck-and-mire. Already he is claiming Helton voted for Obama when in fact she has voted in nine of the last 12 Republican primaries. Please. Esther will rout this guy as he hangs himself with his lack-of-class.
“Don’t ever worry about me. I refuse to be negative,” Esther told me. “I promise I’ll be the lady my mother raised me to be. I’ll be the same way in Nashville, too.”
And that’s my point. Three of the finest people in this state are in the thick of the Republic primary for Governor and, between now and August 2, the field will separate – just you watch. The winner will be which of the three candidates – Diane Black, Randy Boyd, or Bill Lee (in alphabetical order) – emerges as the best statesman in the next month. All three are classy but by August 22 there’ll be only one that doesn’t stub a toe.
What I can’t understand is how the Tennessee Republican Party so severely limits our choices in other races. It’s no secret I detest Senate candidate Marsha Blackburn for her outrageous support of “The Dirty Lick,” the scoundrels who continue to ‘sore’ Tennessee Walking Horses. “Death by colic” is so epidemic in dirty horse trainers’ barns they are thinking of renaming the disease “Blackburn’s Syndrome.”
Roy, look at you! Here you are, writing that you pick your votes in close political races based on class, when you are showing “a lack of civility” in your own mirror!
Nope, when a politician blatantly and openly uses their power to make sure not one Senator or Congressman from Tennessee has endorsed legislation against animal abuse in the state where it is the worst, this for three years running, Marsha Blackburn is a total exception to any form of civility.
Marsha Blackburn epitomizes the very worst in all of politics and, if you think horses suffer as the acid eats into their forelegs, the “Dirty Lick” dance ain’t nothing like what you’d see if Marsha got the reins of power.
It has just been announced that Vice President Mike Pence will come to Chattanooga to do a fund-raiser for the rightfully terrified Blackburn and for $25,000 you can sit with Mike at a round table and get an autographed picture. But for just $100 I will sit with you at a square table and give you a personalized, signed picture of Mike Pence.
Oh, the handwriting might look a little different but by the time you frame it and put it on your office wall, not one person will have the slightest idea its phony because Mike doesn’t exactly have any pen pals down here. Then again, give Phil Bredesen $25K and you can lead him around like a Shetland pony. Heck, I’m thinking Phil will even come down some Saturday and cut your grass.
My conservative friends agree yet say we have no choice – vote for Phil Bredesen and you’ll give Chuck Schumer D-NY (Senate Minority Leader) a badly-needed bullet. I say that’s not my problem – you never sacrifice one evil for another. If the Republican Party doesn’t get a backbone and stop disqualifying far better candidates because some lout “paid his dues,” they deserve exactly what they create.
In this part of Tennessee we are led by two members of Congress who are regarded as the weakest in the nation -- Chuck Fleischmann and Scott Desjairis. Because both are relatively harmless, local Democrats don’t even care anymore and that is the saddest thing in all of politics – people who could make a huge difference would rather not.
Tomorrow is the last day to register and vote in the August election. Vote for the ones who show the most class.
royexum@aol.com