Category: Politics Beat Blog

There’s a move on to entice outgoing Vice President Al Gore to consider taking over the reins of the University of Memphis – unclaimed since the resignation last year of former president V. Lane Rawlins to become president of Washington State University.

That’s the word from Cherrie Holden of Germantown, member of the State Board of Education from the 7th Congressional District, which includes substantial portions of Memphis and Shelby County.

Holden said several members of the university’s faculty urged her to take up the matter with her fellow Board members when the state board meets in Nashville next with with the members of the Tennessee Higher Education Commission.

The university’s search for a successor to Rawlins has run into serious and prolonged controversy, with no consensus nominee in sight and several faculty members expressing public embitterment that interim U of M president Ralph Faudree and communications dean Richard Ranta were eliminated from consideration by the Board of Regents search committee.

Gore was known to be interested in the open presidency of Harvard University but was among 450 nominees eliminated some weeks back by the Harvard Corporation search committee after Robert G. Stone Jr., a senior fellow of the corporation, publicly stated of Gore’s semi-declared candidacy “He doesn’t have the academic and intellectual standing.”

Attention is also being paid in political and media circles, off and on, to the prospect of a Gore candidacy in 2002 for the governorship of Tennessee. The Gore-for-Governor talk has been fueled by the encouragement longtime Gore ally Johnny Hayes has received by the vice president’s allies to seek the Tennessee state Democratic chairmanship.

Some have also speculated that Gore might be asked assume a ranking position at The Tennessean of Nashville, from which vantage point he could ultimately move up to an executive position in the Gannett organization or to the leadership of the chain’s Freedom Forum. Others have suggested that Gore might find a bully pulpit with the First Amendment Center of Nashville, yet another Gannett-related institution.

GREENVILLE, S.C.– The good folks (for that is how they see themselves) at Bob Jones University are no doubt astounded to find themselves for the second time in a year — nay, for the second time in a brand-new millennium — to be a focus of national, even world attention. Inexorably, it must seem, this monastic tribe is brought out of its preferred backwater by the presence of some or another prominent politician.

In 2000, it was George W. Bush, touching base with the hard core of the Religious Right to win a primary over the insurgent John McCain. Now, in a way, it’s president-elect Bush’s doing again. He went and nominated another paragon of conservative Christianity, John Ashcroft, to be his attorney general, administerer of the laws and beacon of justice for an increasingly diverse nation. And once the politically correct media found out that Ashcroft had been to Bob Jones last year to receive an honorary degree and speak (actually, the word seeped out in Ashcroft’s losing Senate campaign), he, too, was fair game. Why did he do it? What did he say to the faithful? Picky, picky!

That’s how it must have seemed, in any case, as the administration of President Bob Jones III settled in for another siege – this one occasioned not by national remonstrations over the school’s anti-Catholic persuasion nor by the oddities of its social practices but by the hunt for a possibly mythical tape. Unbelievably, given Ashcroft’s prominence as a U.S. Senator and — in May 199, when he made his remarks at BJU — by his potential presidential candidacy, his visit was not publicly noted. Not by the local Greenville, South Carolina, media, not by the national media, and not even by BJU’s own media (since commencement exercises, by their very nature, mark the end of a school year).

There was no particular evidence that Ashcroft – under fire as his confirmation hearings neared for his attitudes and actions concerning blacks, women, and civil liberties – had said or done anything inflammatory. It was more a case, as the general counsel for one prominent Democrat on the Senate Judiciary Committee put it, that “Ashcroft is trying to pretend that he’s beyond reproach, that he had no idea what kind of place Bob Jones University was or what kind far-right belief it stood for. There was the sense that anything he said at Bob Jones would have to indicate his eyes were open concerning its anti-Catholicism and its other bigotries and that, by being there, he approved of them.”

Hence, the Judiciary Democrats were almost as zealous as the media in trying to ferret out some spoor, some documentary evidence of Ashcroft’s deeds and statements at Bob Jones. When it was learned, late last week, that, in fact, a videotape did exist and that the school’s spokesman, Jonathan Pait, had reviewed it (read: Bob Jones III himself had checked it out), Pait made a point of saying (a) that the school would not release the tape to anybody in the media; and (b) it would be released to the Judiciary Committee if Ashcroft requested it to.

This last indulgence was cover for the root fact that Judiciary would have the tape, either by subpoena or by Ashcroft’s recognition that his nomination was doomed if he connived in the holding back of a document presumed vital.

The denial to the media was spite and sweet revenge, nothing else. As Pait confided later on (after Bob Jones had decided to let Larry King, who had been permitted to interview Jones at the time of last year’s flap): “We wanted to punish the liberal national media for their unfairness and their determination to slander Bob Jones University.”

Larry King was allowed to have the goods again, after two or three days of the most intense – and futile – courtship (or siege) by the rest of the national media. And the tape, when finally shown, seemed superficially to be fairly innocuous, not worth the fuss. Ashcroft, then a senator facing either a reelection race or a presidential bid, had been honored by the university along with U.S. Reps. Asa Hutchinson and Lindsey Graham, two of the managers in Bill Clinton’s impeachment trial. The Missouri senator had been, as president Jones noted in his introduction of the tape on the King program, the first senator to call for Clinton’s impeachment.

So it was no great stretch to see that the honor bestowed on these three tribunes of the Congress was, in effect, intended as a rebuke to the reigning Caesar.

Ashcroft, in his brief remarks, played on that theme.

He reminded the listening students and faculty of what he said was a war-cry of the American colonists: “We have no king but Jesus.” He dilated upon the civil authority vis-ˆ-vis the “eternal authority,” and he said that “when you have no king but Caesar, you release Barabbas.” It was clearly an allusion to the recently aborted attempt by congressional Republicans to oust Clinton.

But it was also a rhetorical fallback onto the turf of government-bashers and religious interventionists, and that part might still give Ashcroft fits as Judiciary readies for its hearings with him, beginning on Tuesday. When president Jones had a chance to provide his gloss of the tape immediately after it was shown to the nation on the King show, he made haste to proclaim that Ashcroft’s acceptance of an honorary degree should not be held against him. “In no way does that imply that he endorses the granting institution. . .,” Jones said, by way of providing an absolution of Ashcroft against any presumed guilt by association. Was he surprised at the furor of the last several days? King asked. Jones replied: “Not considering the source. The raucous political left … makes a lot of noise.”

Jones said he thought Ashcroft’s words on the tape would “comfort” rank-and-file Americans and help the senator in his confirmation fight. He conceded, however, that his own support and that of his university might have hurt Ashcroft somewhat. “Sometimes I don’t like myself very well,” he jested. Acknowledging that much of America incorrectly believed that Bob Jones University was racist, he attempted to absolve Ashcroft of the taint, contending that it was unlikely the honoree had known of the school’s then existing ban on interracial dating among students.

Ashbrook was a “a fine godly gentle covictioned man,” Jones insisted -one fully deserving of confirmation.

As for Jones himself and his institution, he had once again – as he did a year ago on the self-same Larry King show – showed that he possessed some degree of flexibility. Not only did he admit that Bob Jones University could be an albatross, he could make unexpected forays onto secular turf, as when he pronounced about an emblem that sits atop South Carolina’s capitol: “The Confederate flag needs to come down; it’s an unnecessary offense to good people.”

It was instructive to remember last year’s appearance, when Jones had chosen the moment of his emergence – and that of his institution’s — in the national spotlight on the Larry King Show to make an unexpected about-face, revoking in prime time the school’s interracial dating ban.

This week Jones quoted a saying by Jesus: “Give to Caesar that which is Caesar’s,” and went on to say that John Ashcroft believed so, too. In a curious way, his very appearance on King’s secular medium and his behavior on his two Warholian nights reinforced the maxim. In the year since his first appearance, change had conspicuously occurred at his school. A visitor to the campus last year noticed that the school’s female students wore long, floor-length skirts, without exception. This year there were several coeds on campus conspicuously ambling about in skirts cut as high as the knee, showing a fair amount of leg.

Earlier, Pait had been asked about that and had said about the long skirts, which had been widely reported as being in obedience to a school mandate, “It was never anything but a style. I saw a picture during the year of Bill Clinton with Chelsea in front of the Taj Mahal. She was wearing a long skirt. She could have been a Bob Jones student!”

There was something odd about this coupling of the Clinton ambience with that of Bob Jones University – but something that was, in its own way, appropriate. For if there was anything that was demonstrated by these two Bob Jones moments, a year apart, it was that even the most isolated and different amongst us could be brought into a semblance of conformity with evolving national custom.

Between now and John Ashcroft’s confrontation with the Senate Judiciary Committee, and perhaps even afterward, many will continue to focus on the presumed rigidity of Bob Jones University and its backers The real story, however, might be the very obverse of all that. The main thing that seems to have happened in both of these highly publicized eyeball-to-eyeball encounters of church and state is that it wasn’t Caesar that ended up blinking.

In both cases it was the state, or the secular-minded, that ended up being rendered to.

GREENVILLE, S.C.– The good folks (for that is how they see themselves) at Bob Jones University are no doubt astounded to find themselves for the second time in a year — nay, for the second time in a brand-new millennium — to be a focus of national, even world attention. Inexorably, it must seem, this monastic tribe is brought out of its preferred backwater by the presence of some or another prominent politician.

In 2000, it was George W. Bush, touching base with the hard core of the Religious Right to win a primary over the insurgent John McCain. Now, in a way, it’s president-elect Bush’s doing again. He went and nominated another paragon of conservative Christianity, John Ashcroft, to be his attorney general, administerer of the laws and beacon of justice for an increasingly diverse nation. And once the politically correct media found out that Ashcroft had been to Bob Jones last year to receive an honorary degree and speak (actually, the word seeped out in Ashcroft’s losing Senate campaign), he, too, was fair game. Why did he do it? What did he say to the faithful? Picky, picky!

That’s how it must have seemed, in any case, as the administration of President Bob Jones III settled in for another siege – this one occasioned not by national remonstrations over the school’s anti-Catholic persuasion nor by the oddities of its social practices but by the hunt for a possibly mythical tape. Unbelievably, given Ashcroft’s prominence as a U.S. Senator and — in May 199, when he made his remarks at BJU — by his potential presidential candidacy, his visit was not publicly noted. Not by the local Greenville, South Carolina, media, not by the national media, and not even by BJU’s own media (since commencement exercises, by their very nature, mark the end of a school year).

There was no particular evidence that Ashcroft – under fire as his confirmation hearings neared for his attitudes and actions concerning blacks, women, and civil liberties – had said or done anything inflammatory. It was more a case, as the general counsel for one prominent Democrat on the Senate Judiciary Committee put it, that “Ashcroft is trying to pretend that he’s beyond reproach, that he had no idea what kind of place Bob Jones University was or what kind far-right belief it stood for. There was the sense that anything he said at Bob Jones would have to indicate his eyes were open concerning its anti-Catholicism and its other bigotries and that, by being there, he approved of them.”

Hence, the Judiciary Democrats were almost as zealous as the media in trying to ferret out some spoor, some documentary evidence of Ashcroft’s deeds and statements at Bob Jones. When it was learned, late last week, that, in fact, a videotape did exist and that the school’s spokesman, Jonathan Pait, had reviewed it (read: Bob Jones III himself had checked it out), Pait made a point of saying (a) that the school would not release the tape to anybody in the media; and (b) it would be released to the Judiciary Committee if Ashcroft requested it to.

This last indulgence was cover for the root fact that Judiciary would have the tape, either by subpoena or by Ashcroft’s recognition that his nomination was doomed if he connived in the holding back of a document presumed vital.

The denial to the media was spite and sweet revenge, nothing else. As Pait confided later on (after Bob Jones had decided to let Larry King, who had been permitted to interview Jones at the time of last year’s flap): “We wanted to punish the liberal national media for their unfairness and their determination to slander Bob Jones University.”

Larry King was allowed to have the goods again, after two or three days of the most intense – and futile – courtship (or siege) by the rest of the national media. And the tape, when finally shown, seemed superficially to be fairly innocuous, not worth the fuss. Ashcroft, then a senator facing either a reelection race or a presidential bid, had been honored by the university along with U.S. Reps. Asa Hutchinson and Lindsey Graham, two of the managers in Bill Clinton’s impeachment trial. The Missouri senator had been, as president Jones noted in his introduction of the tape on the King program, the first senator to call for Clinton’s impeachment.

So it was no great stretch to see that the honor bestowed on these three tribunes of the Congress was, in effect, intended as a rebuke to the reigning Caesar.

Ashcroft, in his brief remarks, played on that theme.

He reminded the listening students and faculty of what he said was a war-cry of the American colonists: “We have no king but Jesus.” He dilated upon the civil authority vis-ˆ-vis the “eternal authority,” and he said that “when you have no king but Caesar, you release Barabbas.” It was clearly an allusion to the recently aborted attempt by congressional Republicans to oust Clinton.

But it was also a rhetorical fallback onto the turf of government-bashers and religious interventionists, and that part might still give Ashcroft fits as Judiciary readies for its hearings with him, beginning on Tuesday. When president Jones had a chance to provide his gloss of the tape immediately after it was shown to the nation on the King show, he made haste to proclaim that Ashcroft’s acceptance of an honorary degree should not be held against him. “In no way does that imply that he endorses the granting institution. . .,” Jones said, by way of providing an absolution of Ashcroft against any presumed guilt by association. Was he surprised at the furor of the last several days? King asked. Jones replied: “Not considering the source. The raucous political left … makes a lot of noise.”

Jones said he thought Ashcroft’s words on the tape would “comfort” rank-and-file Americans and help the senator in his confirmation fight. He conceded, however, that his own support and that of his university might have hurt Ashcroft somewhat. “Sometimes I don’t like myself very well,” he jested. Acknowledging that much of America incorrectly believed that Bob Jones University was racist, he attempted to absolve Ashcroft of the taint, contending that it was unlikely the honoree had known of the school’s then existing ban on interracial dating among students.

Ashbrook was a “a fine godly gentle covictioned man,” Jones insisted -one fully deserving of confirmation.

As for Jones himself and his institution, he had once again – as he did a year ago on the self-same Larry King show – showed that he possessed some degree of flexibility. Not only did he admit that Bob Jones University could be an albatross, he could make unexpected forays onto secular turf, as when he pronounced about an emblem that sits atop South Carolina’s capitol: “The Confederate flag needs to come down; it’s an unnecessary offense to good people.”

It was instructive to remember last year’s appearance, when Jones had chosen the moment of his emergence – and that of his institution’s — in the national spotlight on the Larry King Show to make an unexpected about-face, revoking in prime time the school’s interracial dating ban.

This week Jones quoted a saying by Jesus: “Give to Caesar that which is Caesar’s,” and went on to say that John Ashcroft believed so, too. In a curious way, his very appearance on King’s secular medium and his behavior on his two Warholian nights reinforced the maxim. In the year since his first appearance, change had conspicuously occurred at his school. A visitor to the campus last year noticed that the school’s female students wore long, floor-length skirts, without exception. This year there were several coeds on campus conspicuously ambling about in skirts cut as high as the knee, showing a fair amount of leg.

Earlier, Pait had been asked about that and had said about the long skirts, which had been widely reported as being in obedience to a school mandate, “It was never anything but a style. I saw a picture during the year of Bill Clinton with Chelsea in front of the Taj Mahal. She was wearing a long skirt. She could have been a Bob Jones student!”

There was something odd about this coupling of the Clinton ambience with that of Bob Jones University – but something that was, in its own way, appropriate. For if there was anything that was demonstrated by these two Bob Jones moments, a year apart, it was that even the most isolated and different amongst us could be brought into a semblance of conformity with evolving national custom.

Between now and John Ashcroft’s confrontation with the Senate Judiciary Committee, and perhaps even afterward, many will continue to focus on the presumed rigidity of Bob Jones University and its backers The real story, however, might be the very obverse of all that. The main thing that seems to have happened in both of these highly publicized eyeball-to-eyeball encounters of church and state is that it wasn’t Caesar that ended up blinking.

In both cases it was the state, or the secular-minded, that ended up being rendered to.

In an existential sense (to evoke a term you don’t see much anymore but still applies), Al Gore is up against it. After the public injury of losing an extended, public double-overtime contest for the presidency of the United States of America last month, his more sub-rosa quest for the presidency of Harvard, ended in something of an insult.

Two weeks ago Robert G. Stone Jr., a senior fellow of the Harvard Corporation search committee publicly stated of Gore’s semi-declared candidacy, “He doesn’t have the academic and intellectual standing.”

And the Harvard Crimson rubbed it in by reporting last week that the search committee had “whittled” the list of contenders down, “discarding” some 450 nominees, “including Vice President Al Gore ’69.”

That made it all the more likely that Gore would have to follow through on his concession-speech pledge that he’d be coming home to Tennessee “to mend some fences.

If there ever was a homestead that could stand some mending, fences and all, it is the Tennessee Democratic Party, which hasn’t won a major statewide race in more than a decade now and hasn’t even fielded a serious statewide candidate since 1994 – a year which saw the governorship and both the state’s U.S. Senate seats pass into Republican hands.

Gore, who in November lost home-state Tennessee’s 11 electoral votes (enough to have won him the presidency, with or without Florida) was, ironically, the state party’s last big winner – having romped to a reelection victory in 1990 over a no-name opponent.

But that was then; this is now, a scant two months since Gore finished 80,000 votes behind GOP rival George W. Bush in Tennessee, in the process losing the [5th] Congressional district he once represented and salvaging his home county of Smith only by the narrowest of margins.

The state’s still-popular former two-term Democratic governor, Ned Ray McWherter, stumped relentlessly for Gore during the presidential campaign’s home stretch but kept running into versions of the same chorus. As he told the Associated Press two weeks ago, “They told me, `Ned, we’re glad to see you. You’re always welcome here. You’re our friend and always will be. But we haven’t seen or heard from Al Gore since 1992.’ “

Uncooked Seeds

It is now axiomatic that in his vice-presidential years the once cautiously conservative Gore evolved positions on issues like abortion rights, limited gun control, and rights for gays – to mention only a few – that were way out in advance of most Tennesseans. Add to that his well-earned reputation for personal stiffness and, as McWherter noted, his recent inattentiveness to a home-state constituency that he once, as a congressman and as a Senator, had favored with abundant “town meetings.”

Even the most casual observer of the late presidential campaign, and especially of the five-week Florida runoff, would be entitled to conclude that Gore’s quest for the presidency went far beyond political dedication. Psychic necessity, or at least an urge to self-definition, seemed clearly to influence Gore’s candidacy as much as any ideological matter had.

Just as Gore forbade his eminent father, the former congressman and senator and presidential aspirant, from intervening in his maiden congressional race in 1976, so did the campaigning Gore of 2000 keep Bill Clinton, whom he had served so faithfully as vice president, at an arm’s – nay, a continent’s – length.

Gore and his inner circle evidently convinced themselves that the various Clinton scandals – especially l’affaire Lewinsky of 1998 – were a detriment to his own presidential candidacy. And, indeed, many in the retiring vice president’s circle continue to believe that a Clinton hex was the major factor in creating a tight race and, ultimately, George W. Bush’s highly tarnished – even suspect – victory.

That Gore’s own failures – especially in the three debates with Bush – contributed significantly to the outcome is a fact that, at some level of consciousness, has to motivate this able and driven public figure, who, after all, had his moments in connecting with an audience (the convention address of 2000 being a clear example, his concession speech being another).

It is too pat to conclude that Al Gore the public figure still has a need to prove himself at the polls. But one doesn’t even need a Freudian primer to appreciate the uncooked seeds in a man who led a presidential race by half a million votes and probably will be demonstrated by various unofficial recounts to have “won” the key state of Florida as well.

An Opportunity

There are many good reasons for Gore not to hazard a gubernatorial race in 2002 in Tennessee – not the least of which is the state’s currently intractable fiscal crisis. And he is surely aware of the fate that befell Richard Nixon, another first-try loser for the presidency, in his unsuccessful 1962 race for governor.

Y

et Gore has the kind of analytical mind that lends itself to problem-solving (sometimes on a cosmic scale), and he is prideful enough to want to avenge this year’s loss in his own back yard. Moreover, he knows that other potential Democratic presidential candidates are out there (does the name “Hillary” ring a bell?) and that he may have alienated many in the party by the simple fact of his defeat last year.

How better to begin his redemption than by winning a race in Tennessee in 2002 – especially when there is a chance Gore would be opposed by another formidable personality, Senator Fred Thompson, and that the two of them would create the kind of energizing spectacle that the media looked for – and failed to get – in the aborted Guiliani-Clinton race of 2000?

And, perhaps, whoever is governor of Tennessee after 2002 will have a perfect opportunity to demonstrate economic ingenuity to a nation which may not be so giddily prosperous in 2004 as it was in 2000. (The signs of such a come-uppance are already being trumpeted, ironically enough, by the incoming president and vice-president.)

And what do we make of the fact that Thompson and Gore easily headed the list in last week’s poll by the Mason-Dixon organization of Tennesseans’ preferred choices for governor?

And who is to say that Nixon’s loss in California in 1962 – however abject it seemed at the time – wasn’t a necessary precursor to his ultimate presidential victory in 1968?

All of which is to say that, however remote a prospect it may seem just now, the state – and the nation – may have another Al Gore candidacy to kick around. Sooner than most think.

– JACKSON BAKER

AND IF NOT GOVERNOR. . .

Two more job prospects for Al Gore, both in Nashville.

First, how about editor of The Tennessean? Gore worked there as a reporter in the early Seventies under former editor and old friend John Seigenthaler, who is still an influential Nashvillian although no longer in the daily newspaper business. And he also knows current editor Frank Sutherland, who would surely be persuaded to move aside for his out-of-work colleague.

Gore could preside over editorial meetings, freshen his ties to his home state, and restore some of The Tennessean‘s fading prestige and liberal edge lost under the auspices of Gannett ownership. Then he could quickly move up the ladder to succeed Al Neuharth at USA Today or at Gannett’s Freedom Forum, which will be moving into its new headquarters on Pennsylvania Avenue in Washington D.C.

A related possibility is an emeritus position with the First Amendment Center, a Gannett creation at Vanderbilt which sponsors symposiums and such. Gore would be a natural for the Center’s political bent and its lofty rhetoric. He could invite his old friends down to Nashville while they cool their heels until 2004.

Either job would return Gore to his home state and to Nashville, where he moved his campaign headquarters last summer. Neither post is exactly on the order of president of Harvard, but then Gore is not exactly Daniel Moynihan either, having dropped out of law school and divinity school at Vanderbilt.

Nashville has already rehabilitated an unpopular pro football team into a beloved Super Bowl contender. It could do the same for Al Gore.

– JOHN BRANSTON

It is way premature to be reckoning on it, but there is some circumstantial evidence indicating that outgoing Vice President Al Gore, who has lost not one but two presidential bids in the last month (of the United States and of Harvard University, his Alma Mater), could be thinking of running for yet another executive position – that of governor of Tennessee.

Various Gore intimates, Democratic functionaries, and commentators have talked up the prospect (the Washington Post‘s David Broder made it the subject of some out-loud musing on NBC’s Meet the Press week before last).

The chief indication that something may be afoot is that one of Gore’s main men is letting himself be talked up for chairman of the Tennessee Democratic Party. This would be Johnny Hayes, ex- of Gallatin, who has served Gore’s electoral ambitions for years, most recently as a top presidential-campaign fundraiser.

Hayes, a stocky, good-natured former insurance man, is a T.C.B. type who was with Gore in his first congressional campaign in 1976 and has been with him ever since, taking time out to serve as TVA board member before going full-time with the Gore presidential campaign in early 1999.

“I don’t know if Al himself is urging Johnny, but I don’t have any doubt that some of his people are,” opines Bill Owen of Knoxville, a member of the Democrats’ state executive committee and a national committeeman as well.

Though he makes an exception for the well-liked Hayes, who has always kept fairly close liaison with Democrats in Tennessee, Owens is one of several state party people who were seriously underwhelmed by Gore’s national campaign entourage.

Another is executive committee member David Upton of Memphis, who with Owens attempted to pass a committee resolution last year forcing the Tennessee Democratic Victory 2000 committee (a.k.a. the “Coordinated Campaign Committee”) to clear its state expenditures (and confer on strategy) with the state party.

“They ran a terrible campaign in Tennessee,” Upton says of the Gore campaign surrogates. “They let the presidential candidate down, and they let down all the local candidates and organizations they were supposed to be ‘coordinating’ tactics with.”

While as complimentary toward Hayes as Owens, Upton isn’t prepared to concede that Hayes is the inevitable chairman, pointing out that other strong contenders are still out there – notably Lebanon trial lawyer Bill Farmer, who is declared, and Memphis attorney John Farris, who is still thinking about it. Two other possible candidates are Middle Tennessee State professor Jeff Clark, who just lost a U.S. Senate race, and legislative employee David Bone.

Owens won’t buy into that. “I don’t want to call him [Hayes] the ‘gorilla,’ but he’s the 800-pounder in the race. If he wants it, he probably gets it.”

And if Al Gore wants him to want it, Hayes will dutifully develop the desire. He is a loyalist like Knoxville businessman Doug Horne, the virtual political unknown whom Gore backed for the chairmanship in 1998 and who will step down, yielding to a successor at a state committee meeting later this month.

Horne intends to run for governor – unless, as he has put it, a “serious contender” announces by the end of May. Speculation as to who that might be has so far focused on two congressmen, Bob Clement of Nashville and John Tanner of Union City.

After December 12th, the night of Gore’s concession speech, speculation began to move in another direction.

(More to come.)

Several deals went down Monday at one of the most significant meetings in the history of the Shelby County Board of Commissioners. Let us count the ways:

* Developers, always a major force in commission proceedings, amplified their clout considerably by electing one of their own, homebuilder Tom Moss, to fill a commission vacancy;

* Democrats, consigned up until now to the minority position in a 7-6 partisan mix, appeared by virtue of Moss’ election to have permanently broken up the commission’s dominant Republican bloc;

* Commissioner Shep Wilbun, who has been angling for a clerkship for years now, finally landed his appointment — to the juvenile court clerkship vacated by the now-retired Bob Martin;

* Commissioner Clair VanderSchaaf, who provided the key votes to elect both Moss and Wilbun to their respective new positions, has earned what apparently is a pledge from Shelby County Mayor Jim Rout to see to VanderSchaaf’s defeat for reelection in 2002;

* Commissioner Buck Wellford, a strong candidate to become the next U.S. attorney in Tennessee’s Western District, left little doubt that he intends to sound the alarm about potential special-interest involvement in commission affairs.

Whew! And, as they say, that ain’t all: There are spin-offs from each of these developments as well.

The Moss Affair

Moss, a political unknown who defeated GOP favorite David Lillard for the commission seat (made vacant by the resignation of State Senator-elect Mark Norris) is sure to be opposed by a strong Republican candidate in the next regular commission election of 2002.

Although he described himself at Monday’s meeting as a “moderate Republican,” most Shelby County Republicans regard Moss as politically suspect. Literally, his first act, after taking his seat Monday, was to vote with five black Democrats on the Commission to elect Democrat Wilbun (who abstained in the voting for the clerkship).

Businessman/pol Joe Cooper, who during Monday’s proceedings sat in the back of the commission auditorium with mega-developer William R. “Rusty” Hyneman, a close associate, boasted, “Rusty and I put the deal together,” but denied that anything untoward was involved and said one major consequence of the new commission lineup would be that Democrats would have greater power, with Moss functioning as a swing voter.

Hyneman’s involvement in the outcome was sure to provoke controversy, especially in that Moss’ ability to represent the commission’s District 4 is predicated on his brand-new residence in a house he has just leased from Douglas Beatty, who is serving as a trustee for the property, which is actually owned by Hyneman.

The arrangement is a reminder of a similar transaction whereby city Councilman Rickey Peete last year acquired a house from Hyneman by means of a complicated process involving the developer’s making over a quit-claim deed to the councilman. Disclosure of that arrangement, which freed Peete from the need to qualify for a conventional loan, came at a time when Peete voted with a council majority to suspend existing restrictions on development in Cordova.

Wellford and other Republicans acknowledge that a shift in the commission’s partisan lineup is one likely outcome of Moss’ election, but Wellford for one makes no bones about what he sees as the more significant result — a quantum leap in the power of developers.

Questioning Moss Monday before the commission voted, Wellford — a sponsor of several environmentalist ordinances, including a recent one restricting developers’ ability to clear forest land — made an effort to trace the connection from Hyneman to Beatty to Moss and voiced his suspicions that a deal had been cut between developers and the commission’s black Democrats to accomplish their respective purposes. “I have no doubt about it,” he said.

Like other Republicans, Wellford said there was reason to doubt the bona fides of Moss’ new residence. Asked by the commissioner whether he had actually lived in the house, on Macon Road, Moss answered in part, “I stayed there last night.”

VanderSchaaf’s Role

Just as Moss has become a marked man to the Republican hierarchy and to the administration of Mayor Rout — which had solidly backed Lillard for the commission vacancy and Deputy Juvenile Court Clerk Steve Stamson for the clerk’s position won by Wilbun — so has Commissioner VanderSchaaf.

VanderSchaaf, himself a major developer, said he voted for Moss over fellow Republican Lillard “because I’ve known Tom longer and better.” He said he had been candid with Lillard about his intentions, and he fueled the partisan controversy by saying that the new, less partisan lineup on the commission could make it possible “for us to take our heads out of the sand” on matters like potential tax increases, “where we tried to hold the line for six years.”

VanderSchaaf said, however, that he thought Moss would eventually become a reliable part of the Republican majority on the commission. In the vote for juvenile court clerk, VanderSchaaf also played a pivotal role. On the commission’s first three ballots, which deadlocked at six votes for Wilbun and six for Stamson, VanderSchaaf had stood with fellow Republican Stamson, Martin’s longtime aide.

“But I had told Steve in advance I might have to break the deadlock,” said VanderSchaaf, and ultimately, on the fourth ballot, he did just that, voting with the Democrats to give Wilbun the position. The general feeling among the commission’s Repubicans was that VanderSchaaf’s vote for Wilbun was preordained and that his first votes for Stamson on the first three ballots were, in the words of one Republican, “so much window-dressing.”

“I have a good idea of what to expect,” VanderSchaaf said of the prospect that he will have organized Republican opposition for his reelection effort in 2002. And he indicated that he was resigned to the fact, widely discussed in political circles, that Rout would personally target him for defeat. “There are certain things I’ll just have to accept,” he said.

Wilbun’s Reward

Commissioner Wilbun has made no secret during the last several years of his wish to acquire one of the county’s well-paying clerkships. He has expressed interest in several vacanies — most recently that of the position of register, made vacant when incumbent Guy Bates died last summer.

Wilbun attempted to get the Democratic nomination for register for November’s special election and became incensed, charging “collusion” when he lost out to John Freeman in a three-way race conducted by the Shelby County Democratic executive committee. He later made peace with the party hierarchy.

As a prelude to his register bid, Wilbun had hoped to get a leg up on the job by being named to the position by his fellow commissioners but was foiled when the body’s seven Republicans presented him with a united front in favor of waiting for the special election.

After the turbulent commission meeting on Monday, which culminated with Wilbun’s being named juvenile court clerk, Wellford charged that Wilbun had approached him back then with an offer to support Wellford, then chairman, for a second term in return for his vote, along with those of the commission’s black Democrats, to name Wilbun acting county register. (As of press time, Wilbun was not available for comment on the charge.)

In any case, the commissioner — backed by Moss and his five fellow Democrats and, ultimately, by VanderSchaaf — now has his county job. He indicated through an intermediary afterward that he was open to the idea of keeping Stamson on as chief deputy, and Stamson — whose father died only last week and who was making an obvious effort to remain stoic about the turn of events — said that he, too, was open to the prospect.

Like Stamson, attorney Lillard — a Republican member of the Shelby County Election Commission and a onetime candidate for county Republican chairman — was philosophical in being denied the office he sought.

But, he said, he thought “there was a lot of dishonesty involved in the process,” and he compared the course of events in Memphis to those of a city like New Orleans, where private interests and governmental processes are often known to intersect. “If we are to be a truly first-class city, we have to have a politics that has the appearance and fact of honesty and aboveboardness,” Lillard said.

Unless someone intervenes with a suit that seeks an earlier special election, Moss’ commission seat and Wilbun’s juvenile court clerk’s position (which will be filled by the commission next year after a prior public notice at the body’s January 8th meeting) will be subject to a vote in the regular general election of 2002.

Future Prospects

Several of Monday’s disappointed principals may fare better later — and fairly soon. Lillard’s name has been floated on a short list of Republican lawyers (GOP national committeman John Ryder and Hardy Mays, former chief of staff to Governor Don Sundquist, are two others) for appointment to the federal district judgeship made vacant earlier this year by the death of Jerome Turner.

And Wellford is perhaps the leading prospect to succeed U.S. Attorney Veronica Coleman, who was appointed under Democratic auspices in 1993 and will be leaving office early next year. Wellford was Shelby County campaign manager for the several races of U.S. Senator Fred Thompson, the state’s ranking Republican federal official.

* At some point in the proofreading and printing process of last week’s Flyer, an extra “n” slipped into the name of Anie Kent, one of three Memphis electors for George W. Bush and a well-known local activist. “Annie” she ain’t.

* Division 9 Criminal Court Judge J.C. McLin on Monday dismissed a felony charge against Faith McClinton, one of several Shelby County voters charged with concealing past felony convictions on their voter applications.

McLin said he thought McClinton had not been properly apprised by the district attorney’s office of the implications of a guilty plea and the acceptance on her record of a second felony. McLin also advised McClinton that she could apply for the restoration of her voting rights.

“All cameras are on the one with the ball, and I’m about to score a touchdown on them!”

That was Jesse Jackson‘s gleeful explanation Thursday for the attacks directed his way by various commentators and by partisans of the now victorious Bush-Cheney campaign.

“They keep worrying, ‘Jesse Jackson’s gonna riot! Jesse Jackson’s gonna riot'” the veteran activist said, mimicking his critics’ imagined mantra to the delight of a turnaway crowd in the auditorium of the Civil Rights Museum.

Jackson’s noon-hour appearance was under the auspices of an ad hoc movement called The Fairness and Democracy Viligance, and he left little doubt that, on what could be a zig-zag path way to his ultimate end zone, he intended picking up some first downs.

For one thing, he wants to be one of the agents forcing exposure of the actual presidential-vote situation in Florida. “We need to know the history. We need to set it straight,” Jackson said, and to that end he called for an investigation of the matter by a presidential commission, to be named and activated during the last weeks of the current Clinton-Gore administration.

Jackson also promised that he will lead a series of “massive, non-violent voter registration drives” in the seven days beginning January 15th, a period which incorporatess both a commemorative birthday week for the late Dr. Martin Luther King and the scheduled presidential inauguration of George W. Bush.

Repeating previous charges that as many as 50,000 votes had been suppressed in Florida, either by leaving them uncounted or by turning away minority voters, Jackson asked his listeners to imagine “the humiliation of having your vote thrown out by the thousands.”

Jackson praised Democratic presidential candidate Al Gore, who withdrew from the race after the U.S. Supreme Court ended manual recounts in Florida, as one who stood for “pay equity. . ., public education. . ., workers’ rights. . ., and women’s right to self-determination.” To extended applause, he said, “Tennessee should be proud of its native son.”

Referring only indirectly to a telephone conversation he had late the previous evening with Gore’s now victorious rival Bush, Jackson said the Republican candidate did “not yet have a grasp, but I think he wants to reach out.” Jackson said Bush’s Wednesday night acceptance address was “very democratic” but that Bush “can not run American the way his campaign was run in Florida.”

Beyond “the keyhole,” said Jackson, one could detect the influence on Bush of such un-Democratic (and, by implication, undemocratic) types as Tom Delay, the GOP House of Representatives whip, Senate Majority Leader Trent Lott, and Senators Jesse Helms and Strom Thurmond.

“To be successful,” Jackson said, the new president would have to reach out beyond such men “across the lines of party, religion, region, and race.”

While noting that “black America’s interests are in America’s interests,” Jackson said, “The biggest divide in America is not between blacks and whites but between haves and have-nots.”

Once again, Jackson compared the controversy over alleged voter intimidation and vote suppression to the battle for voters’ rights that he, Dr. King, and others had participated in at Selma, Alabama in 1965. “This is an issue that isn’t going to go away,” he promised.

One of the regrettable aspects of the protracted post-election showdown between Democrats and Republicans over the identity of our next president has been the utter predictability of the partisan antagonists’ rhetoric, which reflects almost word for word what is available nonstop on the TV cable shows.

An antidote of sorts to all this was an open letter e-mailed by Shelby County Republican Joseph Keene to assorted partymates. At the present fractured (and fragmented) moment, it is worth quoting at some length:

“…Here in Shelby County, Germantown is a nice city, but its voters won’t carry our party to victory in county elections. Outreach into the city is not an option for us any longer.

“We saw what happened on election day and the day after — Al Gore beat [George W.] Bush in the popular vote. Bush is the legitimate winner of the presidency because of the electoral college, but we can’t depend on this glitch in the electoral college forever, can we?

“I get tired of seeing some of my fellow Bush supporters bring up this USA Today map showing a sea of red and claiming that Bush won most of the country. Perhaps Bush won in area, but not in votes. Last I checked, it’s ‘one man, one vote,’ not ‘one square mile, one vote.’ My fellow Bush supporters bring up the fact that Bush won 78 percent of all counties in the United States.

“So what? It’s not ‘one county, one vote,’ either. I think it’s great that some rancher in Wyoming who owns hundreds of acres of land would vote Republican. But in a piece of land equivalent to the size of a western ranch, several thousands of Democrat-leaning voters live in the wealthy Lincoln Park area of Chicago.

“We won the Presidential election fairly and Constitutionally, even though we achieved less than the popular vote nationally. We have a lot of things to be proud of, especially here in Al Gore’s alleged home state of Tennessee. We sent the nation a message that Al Gore is NOT one of us.

“I’m proud of Tom Leatherwood’s victory in the Shelby County Register’s race, but would he have won had there not been a Commercial Appeal-endorsed Otis Jackson on the ballot splitting Democrat votes from John Freeman? I doubt it, since most of Jackson’s support came fron heavily Democrat precincts. I’m proud that [U.S. Senator] Bill Frist handily carried the county, but he would have had more trouble here if he had a credible opponent. Bush lost Shelby County by 49,000 votes.

“What can we do to broaden our party? Plenty. First of all, DeSoto County (MS) isn’t becoming the most Republican county in Mississippi for no reason. Republicans are moving from Shelby County, Tennessee, to take advantage of lower tax burdens. And the emigration to DeSoto is substantial, according to an article I read in the local fishwrap.

“This means that our Republican leaders in this county must act and govern like Republicans to keep Republicans here. Instead, we’ve seen nothing but more taxes, especially the property tax. When that property tax goes up, folks, DeSoto looks like a better place to live.

“Secondly, the local GOP (especially in Shelby County) must be more proactive in bringing new voters into the party. We need to be visible at city events, especially. We have no midtown or downtown presence at all, and I didn’t recall a Bush office in either location, whereas the Gore forces held one in midtown and one in east Memphis.

“At the Cooper-Young Festival, I remember seeing a Democrat booth, a Green Party booth, but not a Republican one. At the Taste of Midtown event, I remember seeing the exact same thing. A recent NAACP event was held shortly before the election, and while the GOP representatives were invited, none showed up (and predictably, talk show host Mike Fleming and other conservatives got on the air to complain that it was a partisan event, when it was the GOP that caused it to be a partisan event by their absence).

“We can’t sit back and smugly expect that ‘the voters will wake up and support us’ because ‘the truth is on OUR side’ or count on this mythical ‘silent majority.’ That’s lazy and complacent thinking. We have to make our case to the undecided and Democrat constituencies. And given the political climate, we have to make our case in 30-second sound bites.

“When Al Gore got up in front of an African-American audience, he criticized Bush’s plan to appoint ‘strict Constitutional constructionists’ to the federal bench by implying that such a jurist would also interpret the section about black Americans only counting as 3/5 of a person. In an ad campaign worthy of Nazi propagandist Josef Goebbels, an anti-Bush ad implied that he was somehow responsible for the dragging murder of James Byrd. It all boggles the mind because Bush isn’t a racist by any stretch of the imagination, and I know the GOP here in Shelby County Tennessee isn’t either.

“But did we make that case to the African-American voters who are already used to GOP neglect? We have a great philosophy about government — less government, more freedom, more opportunity, better education. Why can’t we market it? Why can’t we come up with the sound bites? Why can’t we make it seem as though we care more about the community than our tax returns? “Part of it is that we allow the Democrats to define us, when we should really be more aggressive with the sound bites, define the Democrats first, and define the debate terms. Bush did a great job of that after his convention, but got knocked off course about the time of the ‘RATS’ ad.

“Yes, we won the Presidency fair and square. We have a lot to be proud of here in Tennessee. But the fact is that nationally we lost the popular vote, even though we won in terms of square miles and number of counties and other measures that simply don’t mean squat. If we are going to ever become a majority party, we have to reach out to minority voters and other demographic groups we lost, properly market our vision, and perpetually keep the Democrats on the defensive.

“I say we should start that here at home. That’s my gripe. I am discouraged that Republican party leaders at all levels don’t seem to do enough to broaden the party. Does anyone else share this concern? Or are we happy with the GOP being the suburban party?”

Erstwhile gubernatorial canddidate John Jay Hooker went into U. S. District Court in Nashville over the weekend and threw a temporary monkey wrench into the machinery that was to declare that Gov. George W. Bush carried Tennessee in the November presidential election. A long-shot appeal could possibly place that wrench back in the machinery later.

About sunset Friday, after the courts had closed for the week, gadfly Democrat Hooker filed a suit in the overnight depository challenging the constitutionality of the presidential election in Tennessee. Judge Robert Echols called an emergency hearing on Hooker’s suit at about sunset Monday (Nov. 27).

The judge, after a thorough hearing on the matter, said he considered this a serious suit which raises serious questions. However, Echols said he felt he must deny Hooker’s motion to enjoin Tennessee Attorney General Riley Darnell from certifying Bush as the winner in Tennessee. Hooker said the judge indicated to him that he was ruling from the bench so Hooker could immediately begin his appeal to the Sixth U. S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Cincinnati.

Hooker’s move delayed by at least a day the certification of Tennessee’s 11 electoral votes for president. Unless Hooker prevails in his suit, those 11 votes go to George W. Bush, who received 1,057,586 votes to 978,189 for Vice President Al Gore in the Nov. 7 general election.

A supporter of Gore, Hooker asserts in his suit that the U. S. Constitution gives the various state legislatures, and only the state legislatures, the right to appoint presidential electors. Alleging that any certification of popularly-elected electors is null and void, Hooker asserts that a legislature cannot delegate to the people its responsibility to appoint the electors.

Although Bush carried the state in the popular vote, he would likely lose if the matter were left to the Tennessee General Assembly. Democrats control both houses in the Tennessee Legislature.

Hooker is hoping that his suit will be joined to the other presidential election suits now pending before the U. S. Supreme Court. If that were to happen, the election dispute could take on an entirely new dimension.

Across the nation, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures, Democrats and Republicans control 17 legislatures each, and 15 legislatures are split with one party controlling the house and the other the senate. Nebraska has unicameral, non-partisan legislature.

The U. S. Constitution, in Article II, Section 1, reads: “Each state shall appoint, in such manner as the Legislature thereof may direct, a number of electors, equal to the whole number of senators and representatives to which the State may be entitled in Congress. . .” Hooker argues in his suit that since the early 1800s the state legislatures, in violation of the Constitution, took it upon themselves to delegate this appointment to the people.

Hooker asserts in his suit that the Legislatures did this “in direct violation of the plain language of the Federal Constitution, above cited, which circumstance has been ignored by both the State and Federal Courts, including the Supreme Court of the United States for all these years.”

In recent years, Hooker has filed and lost a number of federal and state lawsuits attacking campaign financing and the retention election of judges on the Tennessee Supreme Court. Hooker has twice won the Democratic nomination for governor in Tennessee and lost each time in the general election. This past August in the Democratic primary for U. S. Senate, Hooker lost a close election to college professor Jeff Clark, who in turn lost in the general election to incumbent U. S. Senator Bill Frist.

A little known aspect of the post-election votecount battle in Florida has been the presence of Tennesseans on the front lines there.

Some of those people we see on those cable-TV long shots checking the votes or observing the process may, in fact, be home-staters, even home-towners. Both parties have seen cadres into the Sunshine State.

Among the interlopers was Memphis Democratic activist Calvin Anderson. A day or two after election day, Anderson received a call from Johnny Hays, the Gore-Lieberman finance chairman and a longtime Tennessee acquaintance of Anderson’s who wanted the Memphian to round up some other Tennesseans to go to Florida to participate in the continuing post-election campaign down there.