Month: March 2008

The newest member of the Shelby County delegation to the Tennessee General Assembly is Karen Camper, an entertainment executive and entrepreneur and a veteran of 21 years’ Army service as an intelligence officer. Camper won nine first-ballot votes from members of the Shelby County Commission on Monday and eventually won acclamation as successor to the late Gary Rowe in House District 87.

Other candidates for the interim appointment were Jennings Bernard and Andrew Withers, both of whom, along with Camper, had indicated a desire to seek the position in this year’s regular Democratic primary.?

Camper ran unsuccessfully for the District 2 position o the city council last year and was one of several aspirants late last year for interim appointment to complete the school board term of Wanda Halbert, who had been elected to the city council.

Shelby County’s Democrats made it official Saturday, as the party’s executive committee, meeting at the IBEW Union Hall, nominated current interim Trustee Paul Mattila as the official Democratic candidate, The Trustee’s position became vacant after the death in January of longtime Trustee Bob Patterson. The Shelby County Republicans will follow suit early this week when they choose their nominee from among several candidates — Ray Butler, Derrick Bennetrt, and Jeff Jacobs. There is speculation, too, that the GOP’s John Willingham will make a run as an independent.

Mattila’s major test, if you can call it that, occurred last week during a meeting with the Democrats’ candidate recruitment committee. Given that one — count ’em, one — Democrat, himself, was seeking the nomination, Mattila’s success was assured. That didn’t stop an inquisition of sorts from one or two dissenters, however. That was based mainly on Mattila’s statement, after being named interim Trustee by the county commission, that he intended keeping “the team” together that he had inherited from Republican Patterson.

Mattila, who refused to back down on the point, was able to convince most committee members that it would be folly to interrupt continuity in the conduct of the Trustee’s office or to junk experienced employees merely because they had been appointed by a Republican. (Mattila himself had been an integral member of the team as governmental liaison.)

In the end, only one member of the examining committee, Tara Maxwell, voted not to endorse Mattila.

The GOP will make its decision at a formal convention on Tuesday after a preliminary meeting of the party’s candidate recruitment committee to make a recommendation.

As Democrats nationally try
to puzzle out how to resolve the seemingly nonstop struggle between presidential
candidates Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton, Tennessee governor Phil Bredesen
has come forth with the latest would-be solution. Bredesen appeared on Fox News
Sunday to plug a plan whereby a “superdelegate primary” would be held early in
June to resolve the impasse before the Democrats’ August convention. As he
acknowledged, however, DNC chairman Howard Dean threw some cold water on the
idea.

Here is a transcript of Bredesen’s
conversation Sunday with Fox News Sunday host Christ Wallace:

WALLACE: Now we turn
to the increasingly bitter fight among Democrats for their party’s presidential
nomination.

The race is still close, as
you can see, with Barack Obama holding slim leads both in delegates won and in
the popular vote, excluding the contested states of Florida and Michigan.

But with both Obama and
Hillary Clinton unlikely to clinch the nomination in the remaining primaries,
both camps are looking to the superdelegates, those elected officials and party
bigwigs, who automatically get a seat at the convention and can vote for anyone
they want.

Well, joining us now, one
superdelegate with a plan to resolve this mess, Tennessee Governor Phil Bredesen,
who comes to us from the Democratic governors meeting in Big Sky, Montana.

Governor, your plan is that
shortly after all of the primary votes end in early June that the 794
superdelegates would get together for a two-day business meeting, what you’re
calling a superdelegate primary, and they would, in effect, vote and put
somebody over the top.

/**/

Before we get to the
question of exactly how this would work, what damage do you think that this
prolonged campaign and the lack of any resolution is doing to the Democratic
Party?

BREDESEN: I think it’s
hurting us, hurting us tremendously. You know, at the end of August, come Labor
Day, we’re going to have a nominee, but if it’s the nominee of a divided party
and an emotionally exhausted party, there’s just not time to conduct the kind of
campaign we need to have.

We can win this election,
but we’re making it — that way a lot steeper and rockier road than it needs to
be.

If it comes down to the
superdelegates — and I don’t think anybody wants that to happen, but if that’s
what it is, it just seems to me common sense to try to move that decision back
earlier into June.

And you know, let’s get on
with a summer of engaging the Republicans. Let’s get on with a summer of getting
ready and organizing for the fall elections and win this election.

WALLACE: Now, you may not
have gotten a chance to read it out there in Montana, but in today’s Washington
Post, Governor, Hillary Clinton says that she is going to stay in this campaign
to resolve the issue of seating the Michigan and Florida delegations even if she
has to go all the way to the convention. Your reaction to that, sir?

BREDESEN: I guess my feeling
is I certainly understand the point of view of a candidate wanting to, you know,
hang on to their strategy as long as they possibly can.

But there’s a third leg to
this stool. It’s not just the two candidates. There’s a party here. There’s a
Democratic Party. And I think that we have an obligation as a party to try to
find some way to bring closure to this thing and not let it tear us apart and,
you know, lose us an election in the fall.

I don’t think John McCain is
any pushover whatsoever, and we need to run an “A” campaign, not a “B-minus”
campaign come the fall.

WALLACE: Let’s talk about
the kind of reception your idea has gotten. Tell us what you’re hearing, first
of all, from the campaigns, then from the party. And my understanding is that
national chairman Howard Dean has been pretty negative about it.

BREDESEN: Yes. I’ve heard
certainly from both of the campaigns. And you know, we talked to them at the
time that I put that op-ed piece out, I guess, 1.5 weeks ago now.

I think they’re interested
and intrigued. I think everyone feels that there has to be some — you know, some
end game here and some strategy to move us beyond what we’re going through right
now.

I certainly am aware that
the national party and Howard Dean have spoken coolly about it. And I’ve spoken
with Governor Dean personally, and he’s cool to the idea. I think that’s fair.

But I think it’s an idea
that as I at least get outside of the Beltway and into places like Montana,
where I am, there’s a lot of people that think it’s a commonsense approach to
the thing.

If you’re not caught up day
to day in the mechanics of the campaign, I think people see it as a reasonable
way to try to resolve a very thorny problem which we didn’t expect.

WALLACE: Now, let’s talk
about what would happen if we got to that superdelegate primary. Superdelegates
can, by their very nature, vote for any candidate they want.

You said recently if Obama
ends the primaries with the lead in the popular vote that there would, quote,
“be hell to pay” if the delegates were to overturn it and to give the nomination
to Clinton unless, you added, there was a very good reason.

What reason would be good
enough to overturn the will of the electorate as expressed in the popular vote?

BREDESEN: Oh, I just think
that if there were new information, if one of the candidates had some enormously
damaging thing come out, or if the polls shifted enormously — I mean, the
superdelegates, I think, you know, were designed to, and are certainly entitled
to, exercise an independent judgment here.

The point I was making was
simply that as we exercise that judgment, I think we have to recognize that
there is a sense of fairness about popular votes.

And if the superdelegates
are seen as in any way kind of thwarting the will of the people or making a
decision, you know, differently than, you know, the majority of the Democratic
Party would make, I think there’ll be problems.

I think we can navigate
that. These are, you know, sophisticated people, elected officials and party
officials, who can navigate that. But we need to be careful.

WALLACE: What about the
argument — and there might even be polls by them — that show that one candidate,
not necessarily the candidate who leads in the popular vote — that one candidate
would have a better chance of winning in November than the other candidate?

BREDESEN: Well, I think, you
know, any poll that, you know, shows a 2 percent or 3 percent advantage — those
things disappear in a hurry. I don’t think that would influence, you know, a
superdelegate.

I think, I mean, as one who
has not made up their mind — I think, certainly, what the people who I’m
responsible to think is an important component of the thing. I think
electability is an important component.

But I don’t think any of us
are going to chase the polls around as to, you know, where they are in June or
something like that. I think we need to exercise a much longer view of this
thing and how it plays out.

WALLACE: We’re starting to
see this week increased calls from some top Democrats — and the most notable
case this week was Democratic Senator Pat Leahy — for Hillary Clinton to drop
out now, not to wait until June. What do you think of that?

BREDESEN: Obviously, each
campaign is going to make up their own minds about those things. I’ve heard some
of those — you know, some of those kinds of comments from other Democrats.

I think, certainly, any
candidate is entitled to remain in, certainly, until the primaries are over. And
I mean, I personally think that if it can be resolved early in a very
satisfactory way, I think that’s great.

But I certainly would not
call on anybody until at least all of the voters have had their say in the
thing, and that will happen on June 3rd. And that’s really the reason why I’m
talking about mid- June.

WALLACE: Is there a danger
here, Governor — these calls for Hillary Clinton to drop out — that it could
backfire, especially with women voters, who are a very important part of the
Democratic base?

BREDESEN: Yes. Yes. I think,
you know, it’s not only a matter of bringing this to closure, which we have to
do. I think it’s bringing it to closure in a way that reasonable people on both
sides would see as fair.

And I think, you know, some
Democratic bigwigs trying to pressure one of the candidates to drop out — and it
just does not have — it doesn’t have the right feel to me.

I think we need to, you
know, look to a much broader base of people to make this decision, and it could
be the superdelegates. It could be the popular vote.

But it’s not only getting it
over and done with. It’s getting it over and done with in a way that’s seen as
fair and doesn’t hobble us going forward.

WALLACE: You know, Governor,
there’s an old saying, politics ain’t beanbag. But do you think that the
Clintons have gone over the line in some of their attacks against Barack Obama?

BREDESEN: You know, I think
politics is a contact sport, and certainly, running for president is the
ultimate contact sport.

I think this kind of stuff,
at this point in time, in a close campaign, is not — I don’t see it as a big
problem. To me, the whole trick is to say — you have to bring it to a closure
sometime long before the end of August so that you can start that healing
process and, you know, whoever wins can say their mea culpas about what they
said, and bring the party back together.

I also think, frankly, the
American people — when I look at someone running for president, you’d like to
see how they stand up to those kinds of things. So I don’t think that’s
necessarily all bad. It just needs to be contained and brought to an end early
and get on with the business of running as a party.

WALLACE: Finally, as the
governor of Tennessee, I want to ask you about one of your constituents, sir.

BREDESEN: OK.

WALLACE: Political columnist
Joe Klein this week suggested that both of these candidates, Obama and Clinton,
may be so bloody by the time you get to August, if we don’t have that
superdelegate primary, that just perhaps party leaders like yourself might want
to give the nomination to the then strongest candidate, Al Gore. What do you
think of that idea?

BREDESEN: I think, again,
there have been two very strong candidates, and if this thing can be brought to
closure early on, I don’t think that really is a possibility. I think it would
have to be an extraordinary circumstance.

I like Al Gore. He’s a
neighbor of mine in Nashville. But you know, to have two candidates as strong as
the ones that we have, and have run as effective campaigns as the two have —
that’s our problem. They’re both very strong and they’ve both run very good
campaigns.

To sort of set both of them
aside and go to a third person, I think, would be a prescription for disaster,
in my opinion.

WALLACE: Governor, we want
to thank you so much for joining us today. We’ll see what happens to your plan.
It makes sense, so chances are nothing will come of it. But thank you, sir.

BREDESEN: All right. Thanks.
Thank you.