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.