Tag: Allan Creasy

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Tipping is Going Automatic in Many Places, But is It Here to Stay?

Photo by Jessie McCall on Unsplash

Automatic tipping is familiar to any dinner gathering with a large party or, more recently, on checks for servers during the pandemic. But it’s arrived on every check at some restaurants and it may be here to stay.

Tipping is hardwired into the American hospitality industry. So are strong opinions about it. Some diners believe tipping is sport, a lagniappe earned on a server’s hustle. Some diners can’t bring themselves to tip less than 20 percent — no matter what — because servers depend on them as a big part of their salaries.

Even professional opinionistas can’t agree. A 2019 opinion piece in The New York Times claims the tipping system is “immoral.” However, an opinion piece for The Washington Post in 2018, claimed that if you get rid of tips, you’ll “lose your best servers.”

Automatic tipping, usually 20 percent-18 percent on every check, became more widespread during the pandemic. The demand for restaurants was high for diners looking for something familiar, normal. The supply of servers dwindled as many were laid off, quit on health concerns, or looked for new jobs. 

Many restaurant owners made tips automatic. They wanted to retain their valuable, in-demand servers with steady cash, rather than leaving it to the whims of customers to determine their paychecks. This sentiment is said out loud at Margaritas in Cooper-Young. There, a sign in the dining room read recently that automatic tips would be included on all checks in order to keep servers.

“In the wake of the current employee shortage in the restaurant industry, many employers are beginning to understand that they can not maintain quality [front of house] staff at $2.13 [per hour] plus optional tipping,” said Allan Creasy, a political consultant and longtime Memphis bartender. “What I find unsettling is that in any other industry, the solution would be simple: raise the hourly wage.”

This tipping structure, called automatic gratuity, has been around and discussed long enough to need a shorthand, an abbreviated portmanteau. Those in the restaurant industry just call it “autograt.” But it’s not for all.  

I’m opposed to it.

Mike Miller, owner Patrick’s Neighborhood Bar & Patio

“Me and my operation at [Patrick’s Neighborhood Bar & Patio], I’m opposed to it,” said Mike Miller, the restaurant’s owner, past president of the Memphis Restaurant Association, and 2019’s Tennessee Restaurateur of the Year by the Tennessee Hospitality and Tourism Association. “I have never, nor do I have any desire or intent ever to institute an autograt. … I want my staff accountable to their customers. The idea of a gratuity is to ensure proper service.”

Tipping is ingrained in American society, Miller said. But the model is also ingrained in the American restaurant business. 

Profit margins at independent restaurants are thin, Miller said, probably somewhere between 3 percent and 6 percent to the bottom line. Wages for many restaurant’s front-of-house workers — servers, hosts, and bartenders — make up around 5 percent of a restaurant’s expenses. 

Increase current minimum wages (of around $2 per hour) to $10 per hour, Miller said, and those wage expenses would rise to 25 percent of a restaurant’s income. That wipes out the profit margin (of 3 percent-6 percent) and makes the business no longer viable, Miller said.     

Numerous restaurants around Memphis have gone to the autograt system, sometimes quietly. But diners are taking notice. 

Will it last? Miller thinks maybe so. 

“I would say that once you go down this road — it’s kind of like the wheel tax — you never go back,” Miller said. 

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Food & Drink Hungry Memphis

The City’s ‘Best’ Bartender Steps Away After 15 Years

CREDIT: Justin Fox Burks

Justin Fox Burks

Allan Creasy

If you’ve ever had a perfectly pulled pint of Guinness backed by a perfectly timed dad joke, you’ve been served at Celtic Crossing by Allan Creasy, easily one of the best bartenders in Memphis.

Flyer readers have voted Creasy as the city’s best bartender for several years in our annual Best of Memphis poll. He believes the honor should go to a slate of other bartenders, whose names he can reel off the top of his head. But our readers have put him at the top of the heap so many times, he must’ve had some magic mojo behind the bar.

Creasy’s 15-year magic at Celtic Crossing ended this past weekend. He stepped from behind the bar and into a new role at Future 901 to raise money for progressive political candidates in West Tennessee.

The differences in the roles could seem stark if you didn’t know that while at Celtic, Creasy ran twice for a state House seat for the 97th District. He didn’t win but raised the debate on progressive topics here, and raised his own political clout.

While his friends and regulars have commended him on getting a “big-boy job,” Creasy says no. He’s passionate about the restaurant industry and respects and cherishes his time there and those who work in it.

We caught up with Creasy after his final weekend shifts. He talked about his service-industry career, what makes a good bartender, and his moves into a new career. — Toby Sells

Memphis Flyer: So, how were your last few shifts up there? How was the weekend?

Allan Creasy: It was pretty phenomenal. My last day, I got surprised. [D.J. Naylor], my employer, sent me a bagpiper who led me out to the patio and, you know, socially distanced gave me a going away speech, and they had cake.

It was definitely not as big as sendoff as it might have been during other times. But it was really moving. It touched me, certainly, in many ways.

MF: Did a lot of regulars show up and say farewell?

AC: I had a lot of folks who showed up. There’s only so many people you can allow in the building at a certain time, right? I had all those tables adjacent to the bar with friends, regulars, and plenty of elbow bumps that symbolized hugs. Yeah, it was very touching. It was really moving.

MF: How did you start working at Celtic?

AC: Well, way, way back in the day, I worked at Dan McGuinness Downtown. When I left there, a couple of folks who had worked at McGuinness had left to start at Celtic. At first, they didn’t feel so right about hiring me because they didn’t want to feel like they were stealing employees.

But it was late night one night — 1 in the morning — and I was working on Beale at the time and a ran into the [Celtic general manager] at the time. He bought me a shot of whiskey and said, “You want to come work for me?” I said yes.

You know, restaurants are supposed to do job interviews between the hours of 2 p.m. and 4 p.m.

MF: (laughing) I guess they just shifted back about 12 hours given the nature of the work, right?

Did they did you start as a bartender?

AC: No, I started as a server and a barback. I just, basically, did whatever they needed me to do. For a while there, I’d come in and open up as a barback. You know, I’d sweep the floors, set up the dish room, get everything set up in the back of the house. Then, I’d clock out as a barback and clock in as a server and wait tables for three hours. I’d clock back out and clock back in as a barback and do dishes for a while.

MF: Then, later on you got a shot and got behind the bar?

AC: As other folks moved on, I suddenly looked up and kind of realized that I was the one of the main folks there. [The bartender job] just kind of came slowly but surely over the years. By 2008-2009 I was behind the bar pretty much full-time.

Allan Creasy/Facebook


MF: Flyer readers have voted you as the best bartender for many years in our Best of Memphis poll. What do you attribute that to? What makes a good bartender? How do you approach your job?

AC: I think more than anything else it is listening to people. It’s not done as much, and I don’t think it’s appreciated. That’s a stereotype about bartending, but it’s damn true. I just try to listen to people.

You’ve got to listen to people, but you got to keep moving. You’ve got to make that quick, one statement, and then you got to get out, get to that next person. You can’t be trapped.

To be honest with you — when it comes to being a mixologist or anything like that — I’m a terrible bartender. David Parks (Memphis Whistle), or Vincent Hale (Dodici and Bari Ristorante), and the folks over at Bari, or the folks at Catherine and Mary’s, they’re much better at [mixology]. I was just the guy who could really quickly get you your draft Guinness, or your whiskey-Coke, and make a one-liner, and give you a dad joke you hadn’t heard before.

So, I always felt a little guilty when I would come ahead of folks like, you know, David Parks in the best bartender [category] or Vincent Hale, the folks who do things that I’ve never had the ability to really do. I’ve always kind of felt a little guilty about coming out ahead of those folks because it’s two different skill sets entirely.

MF: Everyone knows you’re a good damn bartender but probably not many folks know that while you were at Celtic you ran for office twice. The District 97 House seat, right?

AC: Yes, in 2018, and then 2020. In 2018, I was the first person in my party to have ever run in this district — at that point — in 16 years. No one had run — either party, other than the incumbent — for over a decade. So, there was a lot of ground to make up.

But it’s all those things that you do as a bartender — listen to people and try to come up with a solution for their problems — it’s the same thing that needs to be done for people running for office.

So, in 2018 there were 10,000 people voting for our campaign, and I think it was pretty incredible. I think we raised well over $100,000, too.

I, honestly, got tired of being behind that bar. People would tell me their problems. It wasn’t just about the girlfriend, or the boyfriend, or the ex. People worried because their kid’s school isn’t doing well, or they’ve been a victim of violent crime, or their record got so messed up because they got caught with weed years ago. It just felt like I needed to do something other than to just keep posting on Facebook.

I started out volunteering as much as I could for local nonprofits, as a bartender. But that led to helping local political candidates as a volunteer. I would usually canvas as a door-knocker. Then, I was, basically, running field [offices] for local candidates on a special election.

At that point, the executive political director of the state party said, “You need to think about doing this for yourself.” My response was, you know, I’m just a bartender. His response was, “Who the hell cares? Go out there and do it.”

Even though we came up short in 2018, in 2020 we ended up in a primary against a really phenomenal candidate, Gabby Salinas. I’m very proud of the campaigns that we ran, especially trying to run a campaign during the darkest days of COVID. As far as Xs and Os, it’s a loss. But I think in many different ways, it’s a win. I’m really proud of that.

MF: That kind of leads into your new job at Future 901. What do they do and what are you going do with them?

AC: What everyone thinks about someone running for office does happen, going to campaign events and giving some speeches. But that’s the tip of the iceberg.

Allan Creasy (left) at a March 2020 political fundraiser at Celtic Crossing. Among those attending were (l to r) County Commissioner Van Turner, political consultant Michael Lipe, City Councilman Dr. Jeff Warren, and state Representative Dwayne Thompson.

What you really are doing for the majority of your time running for office is calling people and asking them for money. You’re telling them that your ideals are ideals worth investing in and that you have the ability to be in striking distance to win. A lot of folks still don’t realize that when they first run for office.

Working in the restaurant industry, I have no shame asking people for money while maintaining a sense of dignity. I lived off people’s spare change for a good while of it and pretty well for 23 years, 15 at Celtic. So that’s what I’ll be doing with Future 901 is helping them fund-raise and move our state legislature forward.

[We’ll be] supporting candidates who believe in public education and not the movements to privatize it and destroy it with vouchers, and candidates who believe that when the federal government offers the state money to expand Medicaid and improve healthcare at a statewide level, you take it. We’ll support candidates who believe and respect a woman’s autonomy over over own body, and candidates who believe in and respect the rights of the LGBT community.

[It’s important to have] an organization that lets voters know that there are candidates who don’t support [Tennessee Governor Bill Lee’s] plan for private school vouchers, or candidates who don’t support the idea that victims of rape or incest have to carry a pregnancy to term.

Those truths need to be out there. They need to be told to the voters of Shelby County. So I’ll be doing my best to fund-raise for them so that those stories can be told about those candidates, like my former opponent, Gabby Salinas, and Jerri Green.

MF: Is there anything that we left out or anything you want to add before we get off the phone?

AC: I want to thank my employers [D.J. and Jamie Naylor] and my co-workers for 15 long, damn-fine years that I’m very proud of.

Also, there’s another thing. I’ve had some folks try to congratulate me by saying, “Congratulations on getting the big-boy job” or ”the grown-up job.”

For me and for a lot of folks who work in that industry, that is the big-boy job. That is something I respect and cherish and there are plenty of us in that field who take that job very seriously and care an awful lot about what we do.

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Politics Politics Feature

Two 2020 Races Generate a Flood of Candidates in Shelby County

Ready? Deirdre V. Fisher, Eddie Jones, Gortria Anderson Banks, John Ford, Paul Boyd, Rheunte E. Benson, Thomas Long, Del Gill, Joe Brown, Tanya L. Cooper, Tavia Tate, Adrienne Dailey-Evans, Michael Finney, Reginald Milton, George D. Summers, Lisa W. Wimberly, Wanda R. Faulkner.

Those 17 names represent just the first wave of applicants at the Shelby County Election Commission for the right to seek the post of General Sessions Court clerk, a post that has been held since 2011 by Ed Stanton Jr. (not to be confused with his son, lawyer Ed Stanton III, who received appointments from President Barack Obama both as U.S. attorney and later as a U.S. district judge, though his nomination for the judgeship was bottled up and kept from confirmation by Republican Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell).

The senior Stanton, a Democrat, was a longtime employee of county service before his selection by the General Sessions judges to fill a vacancy as clerk and his subsequent two re-elections in 2012 and 2016. Stanton, a solid sort, attracted few challengers as an incumbent clerk, but there are obvious reasons — foremost among them, perhaps, being the $134,986 annual salary — why the job, now open, has generated the current flood of office-seekers.

Jackson Baker

District 97 Candidate Gabby Salinas (r)shmoozes with voter Sherry Compton; Another District 97 hopeful, Allan Creasy, chats up Norma Lester

Some of the candidates are neophytes. Others have names that are, how to put it — well-worn: Del Gill, Joe Brown, John Ford? Ford may not ultimately be eligible, inasmuch as his rights seem not clearly to have been restored since a felony conviction from the FBI’s Tennessee Waltz sting. Two current county commissioners are on the list of hopefuls — Jones and Milton. Long and Boyd have previously held clerkships. Of this early list of 17, all are Democrats except for Boyd, Finney, Summers, and Wimberly, who are Republicans. 

So far, only seven of the petition-pullers have filed, but expect that number to grow, as will the number of new applicants asking for petitions.

• Meanwhile, the candidate field for state House District 97 is doing some multiplying as well. This is the seat in Bartlett/Eads that has been the bailiwick of longtime Republican incumbent Jim Coley, who decided to take his leave after a final term in which various ailments were incapacitating him. Two fellow Republicans have declared their candidacies for the job — John Gillespie, who works as a grant coordinator for Trezevant Episcopal Home, and Brandon Weise, an employee of the Shelby County Register’s office.

Gillespie made the first splash and has attached himself to Coley’s coattails, as well as to the Republican establishment in general, and lines up with a somewhat modified version of the education savings account bill (aka: voucher program) steamrollered into passage last year when then House Speaker Glen Casada, acting on Governor Bill Lee‘s behalf, kept the voting rolls open in the House long enough to to turn one legislator’s crucial nay note into an aye.

Weise stands in opposition to the voucher program, which would affect only Shelby County and Davidson County schools and would be likely to fall in behind new GOP Speaker Cameron Sexton of Crossville, who opposed the bill relentlessly last year and has indicated he would like to at least delay its immediate implementation. Weise, however, does observe Republican orthodoxy on matters such as opposition for federally funded Medicaid expansion and support for block grants to deal with health-care issues.

Democrats have their own contest pending in House District 97, with Allan Creasy, a narrow loser to Coley last year, making a renewed try for the seat. And another Democratic near-success story from 2018, Gabby Salinas, is also looking for another way into the General Assembly, after giving GOP state Senator Brian Kelsey a serious scare in his re-election race last year.

Both candidates see themselves as still having hot hands and ready-to-go constituencies. Before taking on Kelsey, Salinas had been able to turn on a head of steam to defeat David Witherspoon, a well-supported candidate and an early favorite in the Democratic primary. Salinas has the benefit of an affecting backstory regarding her childhood pilgrimage to the United States from Bolivia with her family in order to seek treatment for her at St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital. A personal endorsement by Marlo Thomas of St. Jude, daughter of the institution’s founder, Danny Thomas, proved helpful to Salinas’ candidacy.

Both Creasy, a popular manager and bartender at Celtic Crossing restaurant in Cooper-Young, and Salinas are opposed to the governor’s voucher legislation, and both also favor acceptance of federal Medicaid expansion funds under the Affordable Care Act. Both were much in evidence pressing the flesh at Sunday’s annual Democratic Women’s Christmas party at the IBEW headquarters building on Madison.

After several years in which Democrats figured only as sacrificial lambs in suburban legislative districts, the fact of having competitive primaries in such districts has the party faithful both nervous and excited.

• At its regular monthly meeting on Monday, the Shelby County Commission: 1) approved with near unanimity the use of PILOT (payment-in-lieu-of-tax) rents in the Pinch District TIF area by the Center City Revenue Finance Corporation, contingent upon the developer’s complying with CRFC requirements that not less than 28 percent of spending on construction will go to minority vendors; with the same requirement being imposed on the ongoing Union Row project; 2) voted to resolve a work-overload issue in the Register of Deeds office by approving two new full-tme positions and three temporary positions; 3) approved an add-on funding formula to enable additionl capital improvement projects at municipal schools; 4) agreed to hear in committee a proposal by Commissioner Van Turner for a MATA Capital Funding Ordinance to codify Shelby County’s commitment to transportation needs.

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Politics Politics Feature

Bogus Ballot Battle on Hold; Candidates Line Up for 2020

So what’s the status of the “bogus ballot” question, which was due to be given a post-election judicial hearing last week?

“On hold” is the answer. Several factors have intervened to postpone a final reckoning about the legality of sample ballots circulated at election time by entrepreneurs on behalf of candidates willing to pay potentially thousands of dollars to have themselves “endorsed” by shell organizations.

One factor was a heart attack suffered by retired Circuit Court Judge William B. Acree of Jackson, who was imported before the election to rule on the propriety of “pay-for-play” ballots circulated by organizations calling themselves the “Greater Memphis Democratic Club” and the “Shelby County Democratic Club,” respectively.

The former is operated by Greg Grant, the latter by M. Latroy Alexandria-Williams. Neither organization has an actual connection to any official organ of the Democratic party, and both “endorsed” candidates with demonstrable Republican connections in sample ballots mailed and handed out to prospective voters.

Lawyer John Marek, a candidate for Memphis City Council in the recent city election, the Shelby County Democratic Party, and the Young Democrats of Shelby County all joined on a request for an injunction against circulation of the ballots. Acree wound up hearing the case when all local judges, most of whom had previously patronized such ballots, recused themselves.

With three hours to go before the polls closed on election day, October 3rd, the judge issued a temporary restraining order against further circulation of the ballots and scheduled a follow-up hearing for last Wednesday, November 13th, to consider a permanent ruling on the matter.

Judge Acree’s heart attack was not the only event to intervene against that schedule. Defendant Alexandria-Williams, as was his right, filed a notice of removal of the case from state to federal jurisdiction. For his part, Grant has of yet not made a decision to join in the notice of removal. The case now rests in the hands of U.S. District Judge Sheryl Lipman, who has not yet ruled on whether she intends to keep the case or remand it back to state court.

Nor have the attorneys for the plaintiffs — Bruce Kramer, Jake Brown, and Melody Dernocoeur at Apperson Crump — decided on whether to seek the remand themselves. A goal of the attorneys, incidentally, in whatever is the final court of record, is a ruling of “unjust enrichment,” whereby the ballot entrepreneurs would be required to forfeit the profits they made from the sale of their endorsements.

• The 2019 Memphis city election may have come to a finish with the conclusion of last Thursday’s runoff elections for two city council positions in District 1 and District 7, won by Rhonda Logan and Michalyn Easter-Thomas, respectively.

But 2020, which will be chock-full of elections, is just two flips of the calendar away, and one of the races sure to draw much attention will be that for the position of General Sessions Court clerk, which will be vacated by current longtime clerk Ed Stanton Jr. (father of former U.S. Attorney Ed Stanton III).

Three of the known contenders for the clerkship are, like Stanton, Democrats and well known to followers of local politics. The first name in the hat was that of Shelby County Commissioner Eddie Jones, who filed two weeks ago. At about the same time, Commissioner Reginald Milton began informing people of his interest in the race.

The two commissioners were just joined on the ballot by former longtime state Senator John Ford, who filed for the race on Monday. Yes, that John Ford, the controversial member of the Ford political clan who ran afoul of the FBI’s Tennessee Waltz sting in 2005, was convicted of bribery, and served a term in state prison.

Ford formerly served a term as General Sessions clerk, simultaneous with holding his Senate seat. Having long since regained his citizenship rights, Ford aims to re-establish himself as a public official. Despite his notoriety, he was regarded as someone with an in-depth knowledge of the ins and outs of state government and as a go-to legislator for mental health and various other public issues.

Milton, a community organizer and chairman of the commission’s community grants committee, which he brought into being, was a veteran of several political races before his 2014 election to the commission and his 2018 re-election. He greeted the news of Ford’s filing by saying, “I’ve never run an easy race. I’m used to it.”

Confiding that he would make a formal announcement next week, Milton said, “I appreciate those willing to offer themselves for public office, and I look forward to sharing with the public why I feel I would be best suited for this position.”

• As was noted in this space recently, state Representative Jim Coley (R-District 97) has decided to retire and won’t seek re-election in 2020. So far, two Democrats have made known their interest in seeking the seat — Allan Creasy, who got 45 percent of the vote in District 97 in a race against Coley last year, and Gabby Salinas, who gave Republican State Senator Brian Kelsey a close race in his 2018 re-election bid.

Republicans will try to hold on to the seat, of course, and there is an active GOP candidate in the field — John Gillespie, who works as a grant coordinator at Trezevant Episcopal Home and is making his first try for political office. Gillespie issued a press release this week claiming receipts of $47,000 at a recent East Memphis fund-raiser — not a bad first-time haul.

…

Jackson Baker

Democrat Edmund Ford Jr. (left) and Republican Amber Mills (right) co-sponsored County Commission resolutions providing $80,000 to the County Health Department for testing children for alleged exposure to lead in water sources at Shelby County Schools and adding to the Commission’s legislative agenda an official notice of the issue to the General Assembly and Governor Bill Lee. The Commission approved both resolutions unanimously.

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Politics Politics Feature

Blackburn, Dean, Lee, and Donald Trump All in Memphis Area

CREDIT: Jackson Baker

The semi-lull in politics that had lasted from the mid-summer election of August 2nd until Labor Day is now unmistakably over, as the present week’s events well indicate.

On Monday night, Tennessee was favored with the presence of one Donald J. Trump, who turned up for one of his patented political rallies in Johnson City, in the far corner of northeastern Tennessee. Trump was on hand to bolster his own permanent campaign as well as the hopes of 8th District Congressman Marsha Blackburn for the U.S. Senate seat vacated by incumbent Republican Bob Corker. On Tuesday night, he appeared at a rally in Southaven. (For a report on the president’s Southaven visit, go to memphisflyer.com.)

Jackson Baker

Trump in Johnson City

On Monday, the president, professing happiness at “being back in the great state of Tennessee with thousands of hard-working American patriots,” also made a point of ladling out grace notes to every other leading Republican in sight. His beneficiaries included Congressmen Phil Roe, John Duncan, Chuck Fleischmann, and Scott Desjarlais (“my favorite name in politics”), Congressional candidates Tim Burchett and Mark Green, Governor Bill Haslam, Lt. Governor Randy McNally, and current Republican gubernatorial candidate Bill Lee.

Trump took time to brag on a new trade arrangement with Mexico and Canada, designated by the letters USMCA, an anagram that, unlike the predecessor association of NAFTA, cannot be said as a word. Though the new trade pact is considered somewhat more advantageous to American milk producers and automakers than was NAFTA, its primary advantage, as Trump sees it, may be that it’s one more replacement for a now-discarded creation of his Democratic predecessors.

The president also defended his current Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh and disparaged several Judiciary Committee Democrats who oppose Kavanaugh — notably Senators Richard Blumenthal of Connecticut, Cory Booker of New Jersey, and Dianne Feinstein of California.

But Trump reserved most of his criticism for Phil Bredesen, the former Tennessee governor who is Blackburn’s Democratic opponent for the Senate seat. The election of Bredesen, he said, could mean the loss of Tennessee gun-owner’s Second Amendment rights, the escalation of taxes “beyond your wildest imagination, the likelihood of mass unemployment, and the takeover of medical care by the government.”

The Bredesen campaign later issued a point-by-point refutation of these charges, along with the following summary: “From Day 1, Governor Bredesen has been clear — he is not running against Donald Trump. He is running for a Senate seat to represent the people of Tennessee. As he said in Chattanooga this evening — if Tennesseans are looking for someone to continue the D.C. gridlock and shouting, he’s not their candidate. Congresswoman Marsha Blackburn has gotten very good at this after 16 years in Washington. If what Tennesseans are looking for is someone who will get things done, then Phil Bredesen is applying for the job.”

That statement, consistent with the general run of Bredesen’s TV commercials, which stress his political independence and demonstrated ability to work across the political aisle, both complements and somewhat contrasts with the former governor’s action last week in announcing that, if elected, he would not support current Democratic Senate leader Chuck Schumer of New York for reelection to the Senate leadership post.    

Bredesen took that position during a debate at Cumberland University in Lebanon, and it came off then as a concession — needless, some Democrats worried — to his Republican opponent’s frequent attempts to tie him to the national Congressional leadership of Schumer and House Democratic leader Nancy Pelosi.

Jackson Baker

Mike Stewart in Germantown

• Meanwhile, there’s more politics in the offing locally. As I write this, there is to be a Tuesday night debate at the University of Memphis between the aforementioned Lee and his Democratic gubernatorial opponent, former Nashville Mayor Karl Dean. Dean is scheduled to stick around for a meet-and-greet Wednesday night at Railgarten, and Senate candidate Blackburn was advertised for a GOP luncheon at Owen Brennan’s, also on Wednesday.

Local Democrats have been getting help from elsewhere, too. State Representative Mike Stewart was in Shelby County the weekend before last, speaking at a picnic of the Germantown Democratic Club and bringing aid and comfort — some of it rhetorical and devoted to the macro level of politics.

Said Stewart: “We have got to take this country back — neighborhood by neighborhood, councilmanic district by councilmanic district, statehouse district by statehouse district.” 

Stewart scourged “this very radical Congress that would not compromise” and a national Republican regime that, he said, “stymied at every turn” progressive efforts.

He made the case that several local House districts now belonging to Republicans were in range to be captured. “These districts are changing,” he said. “We can turn these districts blue. These suburban districts are where the fight is at.”

On hand for the event was a prime exhibit of Stewart’s thesis: State Representative Dwayne Thompson of House District 96. Thompson upset then incumbent state Representative Steve McManus two years ago in the district, which includes parts of Cordova, southeast Memphis, and Germantown, and which, as Stewart had indicated, had indeed undergone significant demographic change.

Thompson had worked the district with all due diligence back in 2016, knocking on what he estimated to be “thousands of doors,” and his effort certainly was the largest reason for his victory. But another major component was the significant financial aid that the state party shifted his way, by way of targeting the district.

In 2018, the state Democratic Party is once again involved as an active principal in the legislative races of Shelby County, and Stewart’s very presence was a clear symbol of that. This year the state party seems to have identified two more districts capable of turnover — District 97, in the Bartlett-Eads-Lakeland area, now represented by the GOP’s Jim Coley; and District 83, in the East Memphis-Germantown overlap, now represented by Republican Mark White.  

The Democrats running for those seats — Allan Creasy in District 97 and Danielle Schonbaum in district 83 — have reportedly been pinpointed for accelerated financial aid from the state party’s coffers, as has the reelection effort of Thompson, who is opposed by Republican Scott McCormick in District 96.