Various observers had theorized that Thompson's belatedYou can boil this down to: "Bryant was late to get into a campaign, especially for an unknown. But Bryant himself said he couldn't have kept up the pace any longer." Yeesh.
announcement left the relatively unknown Bryant insufficient
time to establish a statewide identity to compete with the
well-known Alexander. But the congressman himself confided
last week, on the eve of the election, that he disagreed. "I
doubt that I could have kept this up for much longer than four
months," Bryant said of the grueling campaign ordeal.
Conspicuously missing from the fly-around, both in MemphisThat "snub-fest" sounds awfully close to the title of the CA's story on this: "Republican 'unity' tour spurns Sundquist." I wonder if one influenced the other.
and in the other five venues (the tour had begun in the
Tri-Cities area of northeast Tennessee) had been Governor
Don Sundquist, a circumstance which had led state
Democratic chairman Bill Farmer to issue a press release
charging the Republicans with an "out and out snub-fest."
First totals, which seemed to come mainly from inner-cityWhich sounds like more gloss.
Memphis, had made it appear that Wharton might head a
ticket sweep by the Democrats, most of whose candidates
took an early lead that was consistent with a measurably
stronger Democratic showing during the two weeks of early
voting.
During the heady early evening period for Democrats, when
the disproportionate reporting of inner-city votes put all of
them ahead of their GOP opponents, victory seemed more
than possible...
...it was clear that all three [candidates: Norris, Kustoff and Taylor]They must have been reading too many newspapers, eh? For many Tennesseans, Blackburn is a hero.
underestimated the districtwide popularity of anti-tax activist [Senator Marsha]
Blackburn.
We need to give the place an enema and just start over as far as policies, procedures, training--just take it back to ground zero."Yeah.
I'm certain that the company is going to explain it away, and I want to hear it....The Flyer reports something the CA didn't, that Lowe says he tried to contact Bricks and that the price given to Bricks was the same as given to another company bidding on the job.
"In the 103rd General Assembly, the income tax is a dead issue in bothDo you believe that for a single second? When the Legislature begins to run into problems with funding requests, the papers will harp on the inadequacy of the present system and bash those who set it up. Note, too, how Naifeh carefully limits his remarks to the 103rd session.
the Senate and the House," Naifeh said. "The revenue stream we
adopted in the 102nd Assembly is the funding stream we're going to be
using in the next few years."
Andrews said he and Rainey, both outdoors enthusiasts, selected theSo enchanted that they stripped off all the trees, laid down sewers and roads, and built homes! Next will come the cars and mowers and music to frighten the wildlife. Then the lights to make it "safe" for humans, but confusing to the native animals. Then will come the convenience stores, gas stations, video stores and strip malls to meet the needs of the new neighbors.
site because "we were just enchanted by this little piece of land on the
North Fork."
After Tennessee primary voters tossed four incumbent stateand then later in the same editorial say:
lawmakers out of office last week, apparently as punishment for
their support of tax reform....
...a state senator and three state House membersC'mon guys. Pick one!
who had supported tax reform were defeated in party primaries
by income tax opponents.
Hilleary said he wants to repeal the 1-cent sales tax increaseThis last is a rhetorical trick, favored especially of the CA against its enemies: Derail your enemy by making him bog down in details. Hilleary has already announced an advisory committee to help him here, but getting real numbers to work with will, I'm sure, prove to be very difficult. Dr. Warren Neel, the State Finance Commissioner, is famously tight with real and unfavorable numbers, and demonstrably disinclined to help anyone not favoring an income tax.
lawmakers approved at the end of this year's legislative session
to balance the new state budget. Earlier this year, when
lawmakers considered a better option - a tax reform package
that would have swapped sales tax cuts for a fair, broad-based
income tax - the East Tennessee congressman similarly vowed to
seek the repeal of the proposed income tax.
Reversing the sales tax increase would require major reductions
in state spending. Hilleary has declined to offer specific, detailed
ideas along those lines.
Bredesen, who echoed Hilleary's anti-income tax pledge lastNotice that it is Bredesen "echoing" Hilleary. That's telling. It tries to pin the blame to Hilleary, while allow Bredesen weasel room for future changes of mind.
spring, said this week that he, too, disapproved of the
legislature's decision to create the nation's highest state-local
sales tax rate. The Democratic nominee proposed a "sales tax
holiday" for back-to-school shopping.
Consumers deserve the tax relief a temporary sales taxReread that first sentence. "Deserve?" It's not for goverment to hand out, but for them to ask. Also notice the two weasel uses of "could" in each sentence.
suspension could offer for certain purchases. But a "holiday"
could depress state revenue collections and make it harder for
the budget to stay balanced.
Neither candidate has done the heavy lifting of offering a planNeither has the CA or any other paper offered to their readers the raw stuff, nor the tools, nor the methods, to do the same. Once again, check the word choice: "...inequities...shortcomings...antiquated...." The only true shortcoming is that legislators can outspend the revenue growth.
that would fix inequities and shortcomings in the state's
antiquated tax system while allowing the state to fund
adequately such essential services as education, health,
recreation and public safety.
House Speaker Jimmy Naifeh (D-Covington), who workedNotice the long build-up for Naifeh, only to rush past the unnamed "Republican opponent." It seems an out-of-place insertion.
unsuccessfully during this year's session for a tax reform package
that included a flat-rate income tax, apparently gained a
Republican opponent in November through a write-in campaign.
If, as Bredesen suggests, those results effectively have taken theFor ordinary Tennesseans, the first point is true. They do expect the IT to be off the table. The newspapers and the Democratic leadership, and their ultra-wealthy Republican allies, are going to continue to work for it. The battle is far from concluded.
income tax off the table, the question remains: What is a better
approach? Those who insist the state can cut its way to solvency
had better be ready to show - in detail - how that can be done
without crippling basic services that too often are already falling
short.
And simply loading more and more of the state's tax burden ontoNotice that there's no consideration, none at all, of trying to slow down or reduce the load--only restructure the way it's placed. This paragraph continues the false idea that a sales tax is "inelastic," a thought promoted by the often-wrong Dr. Fox. In fact, this very year, sales taxes have begun rebounding in Tennessee as other States with income taxes are still struggling with lagging revenues.
the regressive sales tax cannot be sustained. Higher sales taxes
are too inelastic to respond to changes in the economy, drive
consumers across state lines to make major purchases, and
deliver additional business to Internet marketers, most of whose
sales are not taxed.
A major change in the state's revenue collection system isNotice that those who don't want the IT are "oppose[d] to a permanent fix..." But the proposed IT would only have met this year's needs, which ballooned by one billion dollars over last year. Do they expect us to believe that spending next year would be any slower? Where will that additional money then come from? It's not a revenue problem, it's a spending problem. Always has been.
inevitable. Lawmakers - and candidates for governor - who
oppose a permanent fix are essentially voting to ensure that the
revenue problem remains a permanent fixture on the legislative
agenda.
The failure of the state's so-called leadership to address theThat address, I suspect, is coming this session. The "failure" was in this year's leadership, which is already on its way out, which stone-walled and buried in committee alternative spending-cut plans, ridiculed and threatened legislators who opposed the IT, and constructed the scenario that steamrollered the whole of the State into the crisis point we reached.
issue will require the legislature to put out budget fires again and
again, and to engage in rancorous arguments about the state's
fiscal problems without ever solving them.
"Tax defeat looms as 2 Democrats join Shelby foes""Defeat looms" is a scary image of impending bad outcome, not a neutral description; "as 2 Democrats join" implies defections; "Shelby foes" the CA would probably defend as meaning Shelby County Commission, but in the context it sounds like bad guys who are against Shelby County!
Straying from their Democratic colleagues, two Shelby CountyAgain, the word choice is all. "Straying from their...colleagues...." sounds like something bad, like lost sheep.
commissioners said Thursday that they plan to vote against a
property tax increase.
The commissioners are making their stances known...."Stance," like a posture, like posturing, like not a principled stand.
Even after the latest round of self-imposed belt-tightening,"Self-imposed belt-tightening..." sounds good, but it was "we move before they really hit us." And as we learned yesterday, the "cuts" that got them to this level amount to less than 2 percent.
county school officials said they would still be $9 million in the
hole and city school officials said they would be $21 million short.
Some of the students and parents at Raleigh-Egypt are shooting themselves in the foot when they try to crucify Dr. Love. He is a self-made man. Like millions of people in the United Staes, he went to school on the G.I. Bill in order to realize a life long desire to teach children. He wants to do the very best job he can to teach children. His military experience taught him that to teach, you have to have discipline. There is no proof that he has ever mistreated a child.Gotta love any paper that puts this on the front, and has comics that include oldies but goodies Popeye, Henry, and Flash Gordon.
Any school in Tennessee should be proud to have a teacher with his capabilities. There seems to be growing concern that most children, when they start to school are not prepared. Their parents do not have enough concern for their children's education, so instead of picketing Dr. Love, they should organize a welcome party. I don't think he has any idea of eliminating sports. He might be guilty of believing that education should come first....
"One week they're dealing with Shelby Farms, another week it'sOh, Michael, way to endear yourself to the troops. Besides, those upper tier folks know exactly what they're getting in to before they sign up. The CA further says:
zoning," Hooks said. "They're dealing with volatile issues. It's a
high-pressure job. Jobs in other elected officials' offices are
repetitive. All they have to do is follow statutes. Our people show
up on Saturdays for town hall meetings and 6 in the morning if
that's when we need them."
Hooks said he's seen what it's like downtown the minute the
working day is done for most county employees.
"In the county building, the elevator's tied up at 4:30," he said.
"We've become a training ground for the FedExs of the world thatSo, what's wrong with a constant flow of new people being trained in our government for better paying jobs in the private sector? It helps prevent kingdom-making and keeps employees fresh, not bureaucratically stultified.
are able to offer significantly higher salaries than we can," Rout
said.
Overall, hiring and retention is cyclic for the county, Kail said, and
depends on how well the private sector is doing.
"When the private sector is booming like it was two years ago,
we could hardly get enough applicants to fill an eligibility list," he
said. "Now, as the private sector has become weaker, we're
seeing more people turn to county jobs because they're looking
more at security and less at salary."
The current county property tax rate is $3.79 per $100 ofHow many $120,000 homes do you know of that are that undervalued? What the real impact would be is closer to $120 per year additional. And, as the story notes, they increased taxes just last year! Now comes this new increase, which because it's only 10 cents will only require a simple majority Commission vote and not a super-majority. Well-planned.
assessed value. The owner of a $120,000 home (assessed value
of $30,000) pays $1,137 a year. A 10-cent rate increase would
raise that by $30 to $1,167 a year.
City and county schools already receive half the county's wheelCorrect me if I'm wrong, but wasn't Bill Morris' lasting legacy to Shelby County, the "temporary" wheel tax which is still with us and was doubled last year, supposed to be only for education?
tax collections, which amount to a little more than $29 million a
year.
Giving schools the other half - which is now used to pay off bonds
for school construction, roads and hospitals - could create a
deficit of up to $8 million for the county in 2004....
After the latest round of slashing and digging into rainy dayNice choice of words--"slashing." With combined budgets around $2 billion dollars, the $34 million saved amounts to 1.7%! Big "slash" there.
funds, county school officials returned Wednesday with
projections that they would still be $9 million short, down from an
original $23 million deficit. City officials said they would be short
$21 million, down from an original $41 million.
Hooks said he remains optimistic the full commission will approveNotice the point of view here, the Democratic majority that is assumed to support and vote for the increase. It requires "unifying" and getting the vote of one of those "other" people, Republicans. The story then goes on to identify and try to track down the two presumed Republicans who might vote for it.
an increase and a redirection of wheel tax money. It will mean
unifying the Democratic bloc to get behind the increase, referring
to Chisholm's vote against the increase. And it will also take the
vote of at least one Republican.
Three years ago he was dissuaded from running against Willie HerentonAdmittedly, Flinn is an outsider with little party experience and connections. He should have used the past three years to build those. But he was turned down precisely because he's an outsider. The Republicans wanted someone safe, someone they could trust, someone they could depend on to be the "good ol' loser." It was little reported, but a majority of Republican Mayor Jim Rout's executive administrative staff had already aligned themselves with Democrat AC Wharton. They expected, and wanted, a smooth transition. Flinn ran the risk of screwing that up and so won the enmity of the party core.
for mayor of Memphis. When county Republican Party leaders were
having a hard time last year finding someone to be their candidate for
county mayor, Flinn volunteered. They turned him down and instead
persuaded state Rep. Larry Scroggs of Germantown to run.
Flinn turned to Phillip Langsdon of Germantown, a doctor, like Flinn, andTranslatation: Langsdon opposed the "go along to get ahead" core of the Republicans who work with the City's Democratic majority for their own enrichment. People who put money ahead of principle.
a staunch conservative. Langsdon spent four divisive years as the local
GOP chairman, which left him at odds with the party's moderate wing
and out of touch with the mainstream of GOP thinking.
With Langsdon's help, Flinn became the candidate of the far right. ButThis is an SAT fiction. Flinn never was, nor claimed to be, far right. This is SAT's attempt to slander Flinn with what her mind considers to be a terrible, terrible label.
Flinn doesn't fit the mold of a conservative, at least not based on his
voting record. According to the Shelby County Election Commission,
Flinn has voted four times since 1990 as a Democrat, most recently two
years ago in the Aug. 3 federal and state primaries. Being the candidate
of the right was not a role Flinn seemed comfortable with.
And Flinn had something Scroggs didn't: personal wealth he was willingYeah, yeah, yeah. He bought the election. Too bad I didn't see some of that money, nor any other voter. It went to television, radio and direct mailers, just like the $900,000-plus that AC Wharton spent.
to spend on his campaign....
Yet Flinn had no trouble winning the GOP mayoral primary. He spent
more than $400,000 of his own money...
His consultants came to town with a pre-packaged mold and tried to fitAhhh, straining at gnats again. She loves to harp on the "outsider" status of his advisers. Apparently being "out of town" is a bad thing, except when you're trying to sell papers in the surrounding communities and counties, as the CA does. And since when does opposing public financing of the arena, which is what Flinn opposed, not SAT's deliberate misrepresentation above, disallow someone from profitting from it later? He wasn't against the Grizzlies or the arena, only the choice to use public money that was made in rushed, questionable, closed meetings by a cozily tight group of developers and City leaders.
Flinn into it. They kept him from public debates and seldom let him take
questions from the press. They tried to persuade voters Flinn opposed
the downtown arena when, in fact, through a broadcast contract, he will
profit from it.
Rout and Herenton had been content to sit out the campaign. But onceThere's a wealth of information that you're not being given in that paragraph! Rout behaved badly, plain and simple. It was petty of him. And his son behaved even worse--publically proclaiming Wharton the next Mayor and dissing Flinn before the election. This from the head of the Young Republicans!
he was attacked, Herenton became enthused with the idea of beating
Flinn. Rout made it clear he would support any local Republican seeking
office but Flinn.
Flinn's campaign should be one for the textbooks. It's a classic case of aI will grant some truth to this. But more importantly for readers of the CA, it was as pure and clear an example of abuse of position by a columnist who oft proclaims, or allows others to proclaim, her lofty, disinterested sage status as you will likely ever see. SAT was so clearly, so biliously opposed to Flinn that I find it hard to believe that her editor would let these columns pass. But then her editor is Dave "K-Mushy" Kushma, so it's not that hard to see.
candidate's good intentions gone awry, and of the utter failure of outside
consultants to understand the culture and the politics of the community
they came to scorch.
"This is not a comprehensive tax reform package or anything like that....Eight years? Does he know something we the voters don't? Comprehensive tax reform? That sounds suspiciously like the code phrase the newspapers and the Naifeh crowd have been using instead of "income tax." Is that on his horizon somewhere?
"I don't want to leave office eight years from now with the highest sales
tax in the nation," he said.
[They] walk through the Shelby County Jail Tuesday with an eye for identifying and solving the problems that have boiled over in the downtown lockup.Riiiiiiight.... Like the hatchet found in the stairwell, those problems are just laying around for the sharp eye and mind of our new Mayor to spot.
"...several council members recountedShould we even take talk like this, bordering as it does on racism, seriously? Not one of them actually demonstrated any harm!
personal horror stories with young cruisers who were driving
erratically, shouting at other downtown visitors and otherwise
behaving badly....
Councilman Tom Marshall recounted how he and his family felt
threatened by cruisers during a recent visit to downtown to
celebrate his wife's birthday....
Council member TaJuan Stout Mitchell recalled an incident in
which another driver terrorized her by zig-zagging from lane to
lane on a downtown street.
"My wife was getting catcalls,'' Marshall said. "You feel like your
life is at risk."
"Automobiles are not toys,'' Holt said. "They can be dangerousCan we expect her to order the police to start setting up sobriety check-points around downtown to stop the numerous drunks leaving the area from threatening the rest of the community with their behavior? I'm not hold my breath.
weapons if not used appropriately."
Across the country, many metro columnists are polite or parochial or tendPerceptive, eh? There's more:
toward soft-feature blandness. Some newspapers seem to dole out the slots
on demographic grounds -- fielding a white man, a woman and a minority --
who play to their constituencies. Few register on the outrage meter.
Unlike op-ed pundits, who often deliver opinions from Olympian heights,
metro columnists are supposed to be out in the streets, more reporters than
pontificators. But as journalists have become more firmly entrenched in the
upper middle class -- writing books, sending their kids to private school,
moving from market to market -- many readers have come to view them as
out of touch with the community.
As he churns out three pieces a week, Lopez says he gets the greatestThat doesn't much sound like our Commercial Appeal, though, I must say. As does this:
response on "politically incorrect" subjects -- the kind that other Times writers
must treat delicately because of journalistic constraints.
"You have all these people wandering around the building talking about the
truth, and the truth is not in the newspaper," he says. "Here you come with a
column where there are no such rules and restrictions and you can just let
loose. You can take this two-fisted approach and not have to worry about the
tone and whether this is appropriate."
"If you're writing for urban readers, you're going to be writing for blacks and
Hispanics," he [Sam Fulwood, a Cleveland Plain Dealer columnist] says.
If he were to invent the local equivalent of Slats Grobnik,
Royko's fictional, beer-drinking Everyman, "it would have to be some sort of
yuppie who lives in the suburbs. The Plain Dealer and most newspapers are
aimed at that reader."
columnists tapped into "a certain idiom thatIn other words, in the case of the Commercial Appeal and especially the Memphis Flyer, they need to start recognizing the 50% of the population that is black and not just the wealthy whites out East in the County and beyond.
was largely white ethnic European life in neighborhood bars and pubs. That
was best captured by Breslin and Royko. That life has faded with the
assimilation of these ethnic groups. I keep looking for a new idiom to come
along."
Responsibility gave way to political opportunism, and in some cases to mob rule.Where do you want to bet he got his information from? The press.
When Tennessee considered a tax increase last year, legislators were intimidated by a riot stirred up by radio talk-show hosts. Only when lack of cash forced the governor to lay off half the work force did the state, which has the second-lowest per capita taxes in the country, face up to reality.
Your article failed to articulate many of the more serious aspectsWhat?! "An atmosphere of disorder and fear in a lot of people's minds?" That describes most of Memphis, for heaven's sake! How about we address that first?
of Memphis's cruising scene. Some behavior by participants has
created an atmosphere of disorder and fear in a lot of people's
minds.
Groups of youths block intersections and jump on hoods of otherI'm not excusing this kind of behavior, but how does it differ from most teenage wild behavior these days? Or from the past forty years, for that matter?
cars, while others rock the vehicles violently and make verbal
threats toward female occupants.
Other cruisers exit their cars and dance in the street. Challenging
and threatening words and gestures are exchanged by vehicle
occupants....
Many cruisers violate laws on seatbelt use, open alcohol, illegal
lighting devices, loud music, reckless driving and belligerent and
offensive conduct.
School starts in less than a week, but Raleigh Egypt High School parents say there's still time to bring in a principal of their choice.Ah, but that's not what the story says, nor what parents want. They don't want to choose, they just don't want Love.
Lamar Alexander, the Republican nominee,The first paragraph is correct, at least as Brosnan reported it last week. I suspect that's not a winning strategy, as now the AP has begun to paint Hillary as a moderate. A better comparison, at least in the negative sense though it can also backfire, would be to Harold Ford, Jr. He's a know, liberal quantity in this State.
will say Clement is a liberal who will vote
with Sens. Ted Kennedy (D-Mass.) and
Hillary Clinton (D-N.Y.).
Clement will describe himself as a moderate-conservative and maverick
who will often vote against the Democratic majority.
Wharton says he plans to deal first with the schools and debt issue, then
the criminal justice system and a smart growth plan to manage sprawl.
There are also safe streets and health care to consider.
Polls my company did for The Commercial Appeal and my interpretation
that George Flinn's campaign for Shelby County mayor was over (July
26 article, ''Wharton's lead widens as Flinn ads boomerang") did not
affect the outcome of the election, as radio talk show host Mike Fleming
and some of his call-in guests vehemently accused me and this
newspaper of trying to do...
Responsible journalism reports the truth of what is happening at any
given time, based on reliable evidence. That is arguably nobler than a
radio talk show host who incites small groups of people - who do not
represent the population as a whole - to increase his listening audience
for the purpose of selling more advertising.
Bryant ran well in West Tennessee, but because he lacked the time andFascinating. Can someone from East Tennessee back this up?
money to become better known in Alexander's East Tennessee base,
Bryant tried to attack Alexander's tax record as governor. Alexander
pollster Whit Ayres believes that backfired. "Bryant came into East
Tennessee slamming the local hero as a bad governor at precisely the
time people were wishing he was still governor," Ayres said.
Rep. Harold Ford Jr. (D-Tenn.), who will co-chair the Democrats'Former Governor Alexander? Really?
coordinated campaign in the state, said Shelby County is fertile ground
for both candidates, and that neither Alexander nor Clement is as well
known as he needs to be.
"Both candidates will have to come to Memphis," Ford said. "Alexander"Beaten?" What does this mean? Nationally? How does that apply inside Tennessee?
was beaten and Clement is probably less well known."
He said A C Wharton's successful race for county mayor is a modelAhhhh...interesting. Don't recall the CA talking about any "massive get-out-the-vote effort." Do you? More of their avoid-talking-about-Democrats activity, it would seem.
because it coupled a positive vision with a massive get-out-the-vote
effort.
"Before you can get out the vote you have to have a reason for peopleGiven that Alexander's base is the whole damn state, I'd say he's got the first part right anyway.
to vote," Ford said.
He argues that Clement will have the better message to reach beyond
his base, and that Bredesen will overshadow his Republican opponent,
Rep. Van Hilleary (R-Tenn.).
Let's pat ourselves on the back, fellow Shelby CountyWell...no. Not quite. It was AC Wharton's election to lose. He kept low, kept other Democrats in the back, especially Mayor Herenton, got serious media support, didn't screw up and let demographics do the job. He did it right. Flinn, on the other hand, screwed up. The only tactic he had was to challenge the front-runner. But he got very bad advice and payed for it. Wharton is a widely respected man, across the spectrum; Flinn was an unknown. Challenging him with the "reverse deniable smear" was a very bad move. He also got nearly zero support from his own party, which was probably a good 5-10% loss right there.
voters, for displaying our political sophistication in
splitting our tickets and electing Democrat A C Wharton
mayor and Republican Mark Luttrell sheriff.
Wharton's landslide victory surely was aided by the fact that theInept? Oh yeah. Mean-spirited? Only to the advisers and to the CA. Read that last sentence again.
campaign waged by his Republican opponent, George Flinn, was as inept
as it was mean-spirited - strangely so, since I wouldn't apply either of
those adjectives to Dr. Flinn personally. You wonder whether the
out-of-town hired guns whose expert political counsel he paid so much
for ("Go for the jugular, Doc; the voters love that!") are laughing up
their sleeves right about now.
Flinn spent nearly $1 million of his own fortune in a futile effort toStill with the "wealthy trying to take over" schtick. Never mind that Wharton spent about $900,000. Notice the "ousted" verb. Mean ol' Flinn knocking over the good guys. He must be bad.
replicate the temper tantrum that masqueraded as last May's primary
election, which put Flinn at the top of the local GOP ticket and ousted
two longtime, moderate Republican county commissioners.
...hard-right voters sometimes can prevail in a low-turnout GOP primary,More subtle "us v. them" dynamic at work. "Hard right voters" are "them," and not concerned with the welfare of Shelby County like "us." It's a common construction, a trick, and not often noticed by in-a-hurry readers. But it leaves the impression, and the point, behind.
but that there usually aren't enough of them to carry a competitive
general election.
Most of us are more concerned with preparing for Shelby County's
future than with prolonging the whining about the downtown arena or
declaring ourselves at the mercy of sinister "elites."
County voters fired two competent incumbents, General SessionsAnd again, notice here how party affiliations aren't mentioned. That leaves readers with the vague impression that cross-party voting happened, when the truth was something else. Nice try, Dave!
Criminal Court Judge Jim Robinson and county school board member
Karen Hill. But even in obscure down-ballot races for county row offices,
such as Juvenile Court clerk, voters appeared to make important
distinctions on the basis of issues rather than party or personality.
At the same time, U.S. Rep. Bob Clement won the Democratic SenateWhere was the CA in covering Clement and his challengers? Certainly not giving them the kind of coverage that, say, no-hoper but income tax supporter Jim Henry got. This was a theme of this election's coverage--avoiding the Democrats and ginning up the Republican differences to make them look unpleasant. I will add, though, that there were a whole lot of "no challenger" Democratic races, which might mitigate against the CA's apparent bias.
primary without breaking a sweat or spending much of his campaign
treasury.
