- Graycen Colbert
- Heidi Shafer
The Facebook entry of Heidi Shafer which contains the assertion that she is “thinking about running for the County Commission” is followed by this comment: “George Flinn, Dee Nollner, Lang Wiseman and 5 others like this.”
As well they might. George Flinn, the radiologist and radio magnate, is Shafer’s employer. Commissioner Flinn is giving up his Shelby County Commission seat this year to seek the Republican nomination for Congress in the 8th District.
And this acknowledgement by Shafer, a fixture at commission meetings and an all-purpose assistant to Flinn in his medical office and his business dealings as well, confirms a long prevalent rumor — namely,that she would seek to succeed her boss on the commission.
Dee Nollner, like some of the “5 others” on the reaction thread, is a local Republican activist, and Lang Wiseman is the chairman of the Shelby County Republican Party. So Shafer will clearly have some decent support from within the local GOP.
One of the other commenters to Shafer’s Facebook entry is one Judson Phillips, best known to the outer world as the impresario of the recently concluded Tea Party Nation convention in Nashville.
Which is to say, Shafer has friends in high places, and she is something more than a factotum. Those Shelby Countians with not-so-long memories will recall Shafer as the activist who, more than any other, launched the local protest against the now notorious FedEx Forum deal in 2001-2.
Which is to say, she is unlikely to be a rubber stamp for her current boss or for anyone else, and her emergence in a politically active role in 2010 is a reversion to type, not an occurrence out of nowhere.
Before the filing deadline of next Thursday, February 18, others will undoubtedly file for Flinn’s now open District 1, Position 2 seat, but they had best beware. If she follows through, Shafer will be a formidable adversary.
