JB
Speaking to supporters at Railgarden, former Governor Phil Bredesen appeals for a good turnout at the polls. 9th District Congressman Steve Cohen (l) was one of several Democratic officials attending the Thursday lunch, which was hosted by Shelby County Mayor Lee Harris.
With only days to go before final votes are cast on November 6, former Governor Phil Bredesen made it clear that he is counting on a good turnout in Shelby County to bolster his bid for the U.S. Senate seat being vacated by incumbent Republican Bob Corker.
Bredesen, the Democratic nominee, is opposed by Republican nominee Marsha Blackburn, currently the U.S. Representative of Tennessee’s 7th congressional district. Speaking at a luncheon at Railgarden, he said he thought there were enough Democrats, independents, and independent-minded Republicans in Shelby County to help him across the finish line, but “it really is about turnout.”
But it wasn’t just the numbers and availability of voters that he considered important. Asked about various charges and counter-charges involving the Shelby County Election Commission, Bredesen seconded in general the concerns expressed by local Democrats.
“I do think that the Shelby County Election Commission, from what I’ve seen, needs to gets its act together here, and I hope they can put some time and energy to it by next Tuesday,” said Bredesen, who continued without referring to specific controversies. “There have been some issues coming up that don’t exist in other places. I think they should make sure that everybody who is supposed to vote gets to vote and the results are put out in a timely fashion without politics going on. They’re certainly capable of doing that.”
The former Governor said that, as he had anticipated, “the election is very close, on the knife edge, and I think — I certainly hope — I’m on the right side of the edge.”
Bredesen went light on specific issues, though he mentioned health care as a problem transcending ideological positions. “Social Security and Medicare are not Democratic laws. They are American laws,” he said.
As he has stated in his previous public statements and in ads on his behalf, Bredesen made it clear that he intended to avoid taking purely partisan positions, either in his campaign or in office if elected. “I still have this high-school civics view of our government,” he said. “The job of leadership is not to divide each other, but to find common ground.”
Making a point of lamenting the attack-ad nature of the Senate contest and other campaigns these days, he said, “I hate what is going on. It‘s not what the founders intended.” He defended both his recent statement that he would have voted to confirm President Trump’s nominee, Brett Kavanaugh, for the Supreme Court, and a TV ad in which he suggested working closely with the President, “a skilled negotiator,” to bring down drug prices.
“I think people across the spectrum do not want people of one party or another,” he said.
“I believe fundamentally in working together.”