Barack Obama, the Democratic senator from Illinois who wants to be president, came to Tennessee Tuesday in pursuit of that aim.
After meeting in Nashville with Governor Phil Bredesen, state House Speaker Jimmy Naifeh, and members of the legislative black caucus, and just before heading off to a couple of private fund-raisers elsewhere in the state’s capital city, Obama put it this way:
“I think Tennessee has smart Democrats who are able to fashion a kind of agenda that attracts independents and Republicans. So I want to get some good advice and maybe some good supporters while I’m here.”
Both Bredesen and Naifeh were complimentary about Obama but noncommital on the issue of supporting him as against other Democratic contenders.
Meanwhile, chairman Bob Davis of the state Republican Party professed to be unimpressed.
“The only thing Barack Obama and Tennesseans have in common is that we both know Hillary Clinton shouldn’t be president,” said Davis in a prepared statement which went on to accuse Obama of “endorsing same sex marriage, disputing a ban on partial birth abortion, raising our taxes,[and] cutting funds for our troops….”
–Jackson Baker
