Tag: Hillary Clinton

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Letter From The Editor Opinion

Trump vs. Sanders? It Could Happen.

Is Donald Trump trying to win my vote? I ask because the Orange One has been making some statements lately that are almost, well, progressive. Most notable was his recent attack on the most holy of Republican shibboleths, that “George W. Bush kept us safe” from terrorism during his presidency.

Trump contended, as have many Democrats and liberals since 2001, that Bush shouldn’t get a pass on the 9/11 attacks, because he was warned repeatedly about Osama bin Laden’s plans to strike the U.S. and ignored them. As Trump put it: “That’s [like saying] the other team scored 19 runs in the first inning, but after that, we played well. I don’t think so.” Zing.

In last Saturday night’s debate, Trump also defended Planned Parenthood, saying that the organization does some “good things for women’s health.” You could almost see the other GOP candidates’ heads explode. Trump is the honey badger candidate. He really doesn’t give a sh*t. And therein lies his power, as the GOP party establishment is discovering, much to its horror. A lot of folks aren’t buying the usual party lines this year.

Things aren’t much different on the Democratic side, as maverick “democratic socialist” Bernie Sanders continues to disrupt Hillary Clinton’s second preordained waltz to that party’s nomination. The feisty septuagenarian is winning votes from a coalition of old hippies, social leftists, and perhaps most surprisingly, young people.

But it really isn’t that surprising when you remember that a major plank in Bernie’s platform is free tuition at public universities. This message resonates powerfully for the millions of twenty-somethings who’ve left college with a massive tuition-loan debt hanging over their lives.

It remains to be seen whether Trump and Sanders can sustain momentum through the eight-month slog of primaries ahead, but it’s not unprecedented for a candidate from the far wings of either party to grab the nomination. Barry Goldwater carried the flag for GOP ultra-conservatives in 1964 and got trounced by Lyndon Johnson. The pendulum swung the other way in 1972, as left-wing Democrats threw the nomination to George McGovern, who got destroyed by Richard Nixon. The American electorate usually breaks to the center.

But there could be another dynamic in play. Trump flirted again this week with running as a third-party candidate if the GOP didn’t “treat him fairly.” You don’t have to go too far back in history to see how that development can alter a presidential election: See Ross Perot, circa 1992, or Ralph Nader, circa 2000. Bill Clinton and George W. Bush were the beneficiaries of those quixotic ego trips.

It’s still possible, of course, that both parties will eventually pick a “safe” candidate, which could lead to another Bush vs. Clinton race. (Please, no.) But it’s also possible that we could get a contest between Sanders and Trump, which would be equal parts mind-boggling, entertaining, and terrifying.

Super Tuesday is only two weeks away. If you want to have a say in the electoral process, please vote. The stakes have seldom been higher. Or weirder.

Categories
Editorial Opinion

America’s Messy Democracy

So what are we watching? Just what is the point of these extended quadrennial primary rituals, lasting for a year or more, that lead up to the selection of a national leader? Questions like these are often raised in a presidential

election year, usually by people who maintain that all the fuss and bother are unnecessary — that a presidential campaigns is a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury and signifying nothing.

We don’t deny that an idiot or two may be in the primary mix this year, along with a surplus of blowhard rhetoric. But that’s the point of these endurance contests. Presidential primaries are the boot camps of American democracy. Whether by conscious design or not, they go on long enough to winnow out the pretenders, to root out the unfit, and to expose and expunge fringe candidates and fuzzy philosophies.

The process usually works out that way, anyhow — although the advent of omnipresent social media have arguably taken everything to an extreme, replete with hasty judgments and complicated tangents. But in the age of Citizens United, the handheld media also offer the best — perhaps the only — corrective to outright control of things by a moneyed oligarchy. 

The difference between the American political system and most of the regimes in other countries that also call themselves democracies is rooted in the very wear and tear that critics of the process deplore. We do not — as, say, Great Britain does — allow for a change of leadership based on haphazardly scheduled and quick-running special elections or on votes by party caucuses. The Constitutionally ordained calendar of a national election every four years, and only every four years, necessitates the prolonged period of advance testing our would-be leaders are forced to go through. It also provides a means whereby outsiders have time to convert themselves into insiders.

And it works for both sides of the political dividing line. Small-town Democrat Jimmy Carter was able to break into what had been a preserve of big-state establishments and urban bosses, and his successor, Republican Ronald Reagan, came from the other direction, as a self-made man from the entertainment world into a hierarchy long controlled by corporations. This year’s candidate field has yielded even stranger prospects — of a TV celebrity on the GOP side and a bona fide (democratic) socialist on the Democratic side.

Ironically, Donald Trump’s own colossal fortune allows him, for better or worse, to circumvent the wishes of his party’s corporate elite, and Bernie Sanders has employed the simple force of ideas and the nickels and dimes of a mass following to make the special interests of his party pay heed. And, if they don’t succeed, whichever two candidates eventually become their party’s nominees will have been influenced by these two outliers.

It’s a messy process this year, to be sure, but then it always is. And, arguably,  it works as well as anything else that has so far been dreamed up.

Categories
Politics Politics Feature

Donald Trump’s No Pussy: Jackson Baker in New Hampshire

CREDIT: JB

MANCHESTER, NEW HAMPSHIRE — Give this to Donald J. Trump: Whatever his ultimate fate as a candidate for president of the United States, he can be credited with expanding the boundaries of what is publicly sayable by someone seeking that high office.

The Manhattan-bred billionaire’s previous contribution to the political vocabulary was his use some weeks ago of the participle “schlonged” to describe the defeat administered by Barack Obama to Hillary Clinton in their contest for the 2008 Democratic presidential nomination.

JB

That piece of Yiddish vernacular — long familiar to anyone who, like Trump, grew up in the environs of New York and now equally well known to the nation at large — denotes an activity of the male genital organ, of course. It was inevitable that — fair and balanced as The Donald strives to be, despite his quarrel with Fox News, the appropriators of that term — he would eventually do equal duty by the female anatomy.

And now he has — appropriately enough, at the, um, climax of his last major address of the New Hampshire presidential-primary season, before a huge audience of media and supporters in the cavernous Verizon Wireless Arena of the state’s capital.

For anyone who has not yet seen a video clip of that henceforth-to-be-memorial moment, here’s a brief transcript of what Trump had to say as his stream-of-consciousness speech moved him to recall being chided by Hillary Clinton and Jeb Bush about his “tone,” which reminded him of a moment of reticence on rival Ted Cruz’s part during this past week’s Republican presidential debate.

TRUMP: “They asked Ted Cruz a serious question: ‘What do you think about waterboarding, and, I said, Okay, honestly, I thought he would say, ‘Absolutely.’ And he didn’t. He said, ‘Well …’ You know he was concerned about the answer because some people …”
Distracted by a woman supporter in one of the front rows, Trump interrupted himself. Pointing to the woman, he said, “She just said a terrible thing. You know what she said? Shout it out, because I don’t want to say …”
WOMAN: “He’s a pussy!”
TRUMP (chuckling): “OK. You’re not allowed to say … and I never expect to hear that from you again. She said … (mock scolding )… I never expect to hear that from you again…” (crowd now chuckling along with him) :She said, ‘He’s a pussy!’”

What ensued from the crowd, not all of whom had heard the interloper distinctly but all of whom now heard Trump loud and clear, was first shock, then awe, then delight, then pandemonium and chants of “TRUMP! TRUMP! TRUMP!”” It was Donald Trump’s latest Gettysburg moment in his campaign to Make America Great Again.

Granted, Trump was only repeating what his supporter had said, and he went through a tongue-in-cheek moment of propitiating potential critics with a mock “reprimand,” but when he playfully asked, “Can she stay?” and the crowd bellowed its approval, he smiled broadly in satisfaction.

So, okay, the battle lines are now clear on an issue, perhaps the defining one, of Trump’s campaign — that of political correctness. Oh, go ahead and heap some other adjectives on: social correctness. verbal correctness. philosophical correctness. What you will. The man is come not to uphold the law but to abolish it.

In a campaign based on the most broad-brush attitude imaginable toward political issues, it is Trump’s fundamental iconoclasm that stands out. Be it ethnic groups, war heroes, disabled persons, gender equities, or linguistic norms, Trump is simply dismissive of all protocols.

He had arrived late for Monday night’s address, marveling at the sight of thousands crammed into the Verizon arena on the night of what he, more or less accurately, had called a blizzard, one which, he said, had caused at least seven accidents outside. He boasted of his up-scale, successful friends and of what he, and they, along with his supportive hordes of ordinary folks, could do to change the country.

He had his wife Melania, a former pin-up model from Slovenia, say to the crowd, in her heavily accented voice, “We love you in New Hampshire. We together will make America great again.”

And then, at the close of his remarks, mindful again of the weather on this primary eve, “I want to finish up, because you’ve got a bad evening out there. You have to do me a favor. I don’t really care if you get hurt or not, but I want you to last ’til tomorrow. So don’t get hurt!”

The crowd cheered.

Up until Saturday night’s debate, I had thought there was a fair chance of Trump’s being overtaken on the Republican side in New Hampshire by Florida Senator Marco Rubio, who entered this last week of the primary on a roll after finishing third in the Iowa caucuses (won by right-wing poster boy Cruz) and coming close there to catching Trump for the silver.

But that was before Rubio and New Jersey Governor Chris Christie did their impromptu version, at the weekend debate, of a well-known Washington Irving short story, the one in which schoolmaster Ichabod Crane has been dazzling everybody as a fine young dandy until village bully Brom Bones, played in this case by Chris Christie, runs him right off the reservation.

Maybe that’s overstated as a comparison to the verbal pummeling Christie, obviously desperate to keep his own diminishing hopes as a suitor alive, gave to Rubio on the score of the latter’s talking points, rote-sounding to the point of self-parody, but it was pretty brutal. A thought: Anybody who went to high school in New Jersey with Christie and fancied the same girl that he did was ipso facto risking a serious ass-kicking.

But there was a serious point to the mayhem, which Christie duly made. And that was that the GOP field’s three governors — Christie, John Kasich of Ohio, and Bush of Florida — were all seasoned in actual administration rather than in the kind of parliamentary fencing that both Rubio and Cruz were skillful at.

Up to now the gubernatorial types have been puffing hard trying to stay within hailing distance, not only of the two clever young senators, but also of such untutored originals as Trump and Dr. Ben Carson.

Kasich inevitably talks a good civics-class game in public, and, after attending a Bush town hall on Sunday morning, I found myself more impressed with his comprehensiveness than I had expected to be. (He even acknowledged the reality of man-made climate change, albeit somewhat left-handedly, in response to an attendee’s question.)

As for the Democrats, they should really take heart that they have two candidates with significant followings, Clinton and Bernie Sanders, and that Thursday night’s debate between the two of them, beginning with such blazing dissonance, should end on a note of genuine respect.

When I saw Bernie at a rally at Great Bay Community College at Portsmouth on Sunday, it was precisely what I expected — an overflow crowd not only composed of today’s youth (lots of them) but one significantly leavened by graying ex-hippies from another time.

Pundits keep comparing Sanders to the charismatic Obama of 2008 or even, in his populist appeal, to Trump. But he is neither an inspiring New Thing like the former nor an exciting celebrity scofflaw like the latter. He is a bona fide revolutionary with a program that is authentically socialist — free college, state-supported medical care for everybody, guaranteed living wage for all workers, sticking it to the too-big-to-fail corporations.

A program of reform that attacks economic inequality directly and isn’t, like so much liberalism of the present, siphoned off into purely social issues, a la what Marcuse called repressive desublimation. (Although Bernie endorses the social issues, too.)

Still, Hillary, the former first lady, senator, and secretary of state, has IOUs and a skill-set that shines through in extended give-and-take sessions like one I witnessed at New England College in Henniker and are built for the long haul. We’ll see.

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Politics Politics Beat Blog

New Hampshire: Some Impressions

CREDIT: JB

SALEM, N.H. —

JB

A New Hampshire snowplow tries to make the world safe for democracy.

The Republicans

Yes, before it’s all over on Tuesday night, Donald J. Trump will no doubt play a significant character role in my soon-to-be-published chronicle of the New Hampshire primary (scheduled for the Flyer issue of February 18), just as he has in so much national media coverage of the presidential-election season to date.

I plan to check out his last major rally in Manchester on Monday night, primary eve, and that should allow me to hazard some sort of serious eyewitness take on The Donald.
JB

New Jersy Governor Christie (aka Brom Bones) loomed menadingly over media onlookers (and Marco Rubio) at Saturday’s debate.

But for all the polls that still have Trump way ahead of his GOP rivals — by something like 20 points, at last reckoning — I wouldn’t be surprised if he ends up suffering another major embarrassment like that which befell him in his second-place finish to Ted Cruz in Iowa last week.

So far I’ve only seen him in action in Saturday night’s debate of the remaining Republican contenders in Bedford, and, in all honesty, it was difficult to see Trump as a major figure in that event, or , for that matter, retrospectively over the course of the debates and cattle-call forums to date. More about that in the aforesaid February 18 issue.

Front-runner Trump may still be (at least in New Hampshire and possibly, tenuously elsewhere), but, up until Saturday night’s debate, I thought there was a fair chance of his being overtaken in New Hampshire by Florida Senator Marco Rubio, who entered this last week of the primary on a roll, after finishing third in the Iowa caucuses and coming close there to catching Trump for the silver.
JB

Jeb Bush (like all the governors) is trying to make a point of his administrative know-how while he still can.

But that was before Rubio and New Jersey Governor Chris Christie did their impromptu version, at the weekend debate, of a well-known Washington Irving short story, the one in which schoolmaster Ichabod Crane has been dazzling everybody as a fine young dandy until village bully Brom Bones, played in this case by Chris Christie, runs him right off the reservation.

Maybe that’s overstated as a comparison to the verbal pummeling Christie, obviously desperate to keep his own diminishing hopes as a suitor alive, gave to Rubio on the score of the latter’s talking points, rote-sounding to the point of self-parody, but it was pretty brutal. A thought: anybody who went to high school in New Jersey with Christie and fancied the same girl that he did was ipso facto risking a serious ass-kicking.

But there was a serious point to the mayhem, which Christie duly made. And that was that the GOP field’s three governors — Christie, John Kasich of Ohio, and Jeb Bush of Florida — were all seasoned in actual administration rather than in the kind of parliamentary fencing that both Rubio and Cruz were skillful at.
JB

Marco Rubio threw a Super Bowl Party for his voters.

It remains to be seen, in fact, whether New Hampshire becomes a turning point in how actual voters see the matter. Up to now the gubernatorial types have been puffing hard trying to stay within hailing distance, not only of the two 
clever young Senators, but also of such untutored originals as Trump and Dr.Ben Carson.

Kasich inevitably talks a good civics-class game in public, and, after attending a Bush town hall on Sunday morning, I found myself more impressed with his comprehensiveness than I had expected to be (hey, he even acknowledged the reality of man-made climate change, albeit somewhat left-handedly in response to an attendee’s question).

The guvs are running out of time, however, and should probably all step it up, a la Christie. It should be said that Bush’s SuperPac, Right to Rise, has been running expensive and vigorous ad campaigns against Rubio and anyone else perceived as standing between Bush and the voters he wants —but who so far haven’t wanted him.

The Democrats

Now, this one’s a real doozy — a bona fide one-on-one contest between a crafty and experienced pragmatist, Hillary Clinton, and an inspiring ideologue…nay, a revolutionary, Bernie Sanders. There is little  JB

In give-and-take sessions, Hillary Clinton can be persuasive, even charming.

doubt that New Hampshire is Bernie’s, but real (if somewhat diminishing) doubt that the energies he has tapped are enough to be a concern to Hillary elsewhere as the primary season wears on.

The Democrats should really take heart that they have two candidates with significant followings, and that Thursday night’s debate between the two of them, beginning with such blazing dissonance, should have ended on a note of genuine mutual respect.

When I saw Bernie at a rally at Great Bay Community College at Portsmouth on Sunday, it was precisely what I expected — an overflow crowd not only composed of today’s youth (lots of them) but one significantly leavened by graying ex-hippies from another time.

Pundits keep comparing Vermont Senator Sanders to the charismatic Obama of 2008 or even, in his populist appeal, to Trump. But he is neither an inspiring New Thing like the former nor an exciting celebrity scofflaw like the latter. He is a bona fide revolutionary with 
JB

Bernie and friends at Portsmouth: This about says it.

a program that is authentically Socialist — free college, state-supported medical care for everybody, guaranteed living wage for all workers, sticking it to the too-big-to-fail corporations.

A program of reform that attacks economic inequality directly and isn’t, like so much liberalism of the present, siphoned off into purely social issues, a la what Marcuse called repressive desublimation. (Although Bernie endorses the social issues, too.)

Still, Hillary’s IOUs and a skill-set that shines through in extended give-and-take sessions like one I witnessed at New England College in Henniker are built for the long haul. We’ll see.

The Weather Factor

JB

Ted Cruz drew big in a blizzard. Here he’s either being stroked or being hectored. (Both things happen to him.)

Like Iowans, the residents of New Hampshire understand their importance in the quadrennial screening process for would-be American presidents — a task which culminates in mid-winter — and they are downright intrepid in dealing with the elements.

Take the massive turn-out for right-wing poster boy Cruz in Salem on Friday night — a moonless sub-freezing night with iced-over streets and several feet of freshly fallen snow for the town’s fleet of snowplows to contend against. Parking at this and all other events was hard to come by.

Monday is everybody’s last shot at making good here, and some of the Republicans may not go any further. More about that later. And, btw, this visit to the New Hampshire primary is my seventh rodeo (1992 was my first.) It never gets old.

Categories
Opinion The Last Word

New Year’s Revolution

CREDIT: Jhansen2 | Dreamstime.com

Jhansen2 | Dreamstime.com

The Bern

If Bernie Sanders can somehow win the Democratic nomination, and Donald Trump is chosen as the GOP presidentialApprentice reality show contestant, it will be interesting to see an election between a socialist and a fascist.

Of course, most voters don’t know the difference between a Social Democrat and a Marxist, but I give extra points to anyone who knows who Marx is, and I don’t mean Groucho. Since the term “socialism” is often associated with the Soviet Union, or those evil European countries where they just give away their health care like that, any candidate running under that label already has two strikes against them right away. Sort of like being born with a name like Barack Hussein Obama. Socialism means major industries are owned by the government rather than by corporations or individuals. Social Democrat means someone really liberal who may soon be the front-runner of a major political party that is scared guano-less to use that term.

Discerning readers know that the United States began using socialism as soon as they set up the Pony Express. All governmental functions used for the public good are socialistic, except for all that free stuff the Democrats give away at election time like Obamaphones and abortions.

I guess nothing’s ironic any longer, but on the Republican side, Marco Rubio is giving away calculators, and Jeb Bush is sending out to a “select universe of influencers, donors, and core supporters,” digital video players with a 15-minute film called, The Jeb Story. Actually, the slickly produced videos were shipped out by Bush’s Super-Pac, Right to Rise USA, which sounds more like a Cialis commercial than the name of a slush fund. But that’s not socialistic. That’s just tiny bribes to the billionaire seraphim of the GOP.

Every time I hear an update on the gangsta cowboy vigilantes up in Oregon, I’m reminded of socialism. These armed protectors of the Constitution and their nitwit anti-bird militia don’t like government? Cut the power, the water, and WiFi, so they can’t upload any more pleas for Mountain Dew, then block the access roads and wait for the next blizzard. They even have the gall to ask that snacks and underwear be sent through the U.S. mail. Let them sit there through February, and they’ll be begging for a little socialism.

Fascism is defined as an authoritarian, right-wing system of government, led by a despot, an autocracy, or a “strong man,” and characterized by racism, xenophobia, and ultra nationalism. Speaking of Donald Trump, he trotted out the Vampira of the tea party, Sarah Palin, to endorse his candidacy during a campaign rally. She gave a long, incoherent soliloquy that was so bizarre, it inspired Tina Fey to come back for an SNL encore.

After listening to 20 minutes of Palin’s brain droppings, Trump’s expression said, “Wrap that shit up, G,” but his mouth said, “She’s really a special person.” After the Vaudeville show concluded, Trump said he would “love” to put Palin in his cabinet if elected. That should disqualify him on the spot, but nothing slows the Trump Blitzkrieg — not even the shrieking witch from Wasilla. The unemployed, half-term governor is like herpes. It’s always there just under the surface, and just when you think it’s gone, it comes back with a vengeance. In this case, her vengeance was directed at the GOP “establishment” who mocked her last time around.

Trump then announced to another rabid mob that his minions were so loyal, “I could stand in the middle of 5th Avenue and shoot somebody, and I wouldn’t lose voters.” For a second, I thought this might be the equivalent of John Lennon’s “We’re more popular than Jesus” quote. It could have been worse. He might have said, “If Ivanka weren’t my daughter, perhaps I’d be dating her.”

I’m having a heart vs. head dilemma this election. I agree with most of Bernie Sanders’ positions, but I know in advance that he’ll be compared to Mao Zedong. I think Hillary is electable, but I’ve come down with a severe relapse of Clinton Fatigue. I knew it when she was slipping in the polls and brought out the Clinton attack machine. Even Chelsea was schlepped out of her new $10.4 million Manhattan apartment to tell lies about Sanders’ proposals and explain how he would be horrible for the working man. Suddenly, I remembered Bob Dylan’s lyrics, “What price do you have to pay to get out of going through all these things twice?”

I want my country back, too — the one promised by LBJ, Martin Luther King, and the Great Society. The country that once declared war on poverty instead of drugs. I want a country that passes legislation like the Civil Rights Act and the Voting Rights Act, where voting is encouraged rather than suppressed. We’re just one election and two Supreme Court Justices away, and I’m beginning to “feel the Bern.” Call him whatever you want, Sanders would be the most revolutionary president since FDR. If you really wanted to shake up our broken political system, who better than an elderly, Jewish Socialist? You could do worse.

Categories
Editorial Opinion

Two Parties in Tennessee?

There is a general recognition that the transition of Tennessee from a state whose politics were long balanced between Democrats and Republicans into yet another Southern Republican monolith dates from 2008. That was the year when a once obscure state senator from Illinois named Barack Obama completed a zenith-like rise to power, which took him through a brief U.S. Senate career into the presidency in the space of a very few years.

That was the year, too, when the state’s established network of Democratic activists and officials had largely coalesced around the rival presidential candidacy of former First Lady and then-Senator Hillary Clinton. Though she came out ahead in Tennessee on the “Super Tuesday” primary of 2008, her loss to Obama in the final analysis may have led directly to the unraveling of the Tennessee Democratic Party, which proceeded with geometric speed, beginning with Obama’s disinclination to campaign seriously in Tennessee and continuing with the rapid attrition of Democratic officials in every subsequent statewide election.

It remains to be seen whether any help for Democrats is to be had from this year’s version of “Super Tuesday,” coming in March, and featuring in the Democratic primary both Hillary Clinton and what could well be a viable effort from the latest upstart from the grass roots, Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders. We welcome their effort, in any case, and hope whichever of them becomes their party’s nominee will not forsake Tennessee in the 2016 general election.

Meanwhile, the Republican primary will be attracting its share of statewide attention with several GOP candidates likely to put in appearances in our neck of the woods between now and March. All in all, the idea of a two-party system, dormant in these parts for some time, will be at least temporarily alive and well in Tennessee, and we welcome that, too — even if it just turns out to be an interlude.

Frances Hooks 

We are long past the time when the wives of prominent men were identified by the public (and even by themselves) via the prefix “Mrs.” followed by the husband’s name. That tradition, once commonplace, disappeared decades ago with the acceptance (still ongoing) of gender equality and with recognition of the obvious —and increasing — reality that women have distinguished lives and careers of their own.

Frances Hooks, who passed away last week, was a perfect bridge between the former and current ways of perceiving spousal identities. There was never any doubt that she was a continuing and invaluable pillar of support for her late husband, Dr. Benjamin Hooks, during his own meritorious lifetime as minister, lawyer, judge, federal commissioner, and NAACP national director. But she was, both during and after her husband’s lifetime, prominent in her own right as an educator, guidance counselor, church and civil rights leader, and original member of the Women’s Foundation for a Greater Memphis. 

Beyond all that, Frances Hooks was a paragon of graciousness and a source of constant joy, encouragement, and a relief from the daily rough-and-tumble of life to all who knew her. May she rest in peace.

Categories
Cover Feature News

The Year Ahead in Memphis

CREDIT: Brandon Dill

Business

Bass Pro Shops: Last year, right here in this very same spot in this very same issue, we said the opening for the Bass Pro store in the Pyramid was delayed until May 2015. (We apologized because in 2013, right here in this very same spot in this very same issue, we said you’d be doing your 2014 holiday shopping there. Remember? No? Well…)

It’s not big news that the wait is over. Bass Pro Shops in the Pyramid opened April 29th with a line of customers that stretched into the parking lot. More than 35,000 visitors cranked the turnstiles that day.

Brandon Dill

Bass Pro: now open.

By August 4th, more than one million people had visited Bass Pro Shops in the Pyramid. In mid-December, store officials said Bass Pro had seen more than two million visitors. Also, the store sold more than 27 tons of fudge in about eight months.

Ikea: Memphis rode high on the 2014 news that Ikea, the Swedish retailer with a cult following, announced it was building a store in Memphis, not “It-City” Nashville. And, boy, did we rub Nashville’s nose in it (on social media). Nashville, ya burnt! Ha!

Then, we noticed that no work — nothing — was being done on the Ikea site behind Costco on Germantown Parkway. The store, the source of our cool cachet, was held up by a tax dispute. The city breathed a sigh of relief when, in late November, locals came up with a tax-payment workaround and Ikea said it would go ahead with the Memphis store, with a late 2016 opening date.

Brandon Dill

What’s in store for the Mid-South Coliseum?

Mid-South Coliseum: Can rape allegations save a building? Maybe. Last January, the Mid-South Coliseum seemed destined for the wrecking ball. Locals were considering the Tourist Development Zone deal, which would fund a huge plan to reinvent the Mid-South Fairgrounds into a youth sports destination. That plan had no place for the Coliseum.

A grassroots group, the Coliseum Coalition, started organizing. They hosted two events, called Roundhouse Revivals, to get people to the Coliseum and to get them to share their thoughts as to what it could be. The Urban Land Institute even said part of the Coliseum should be saved.

Then this summer, Robert Lipscomb, the city’s former director of Housing and Community Development and the major backer of the youth sports plan, was accused of raping a Memphis teenager, years ago. Lipscomb was fired, and the entire Fairgrounds deal, which includes the Coliseum’s future, was left up in the air, where it remains.

Tennessee Brewery: The only bad news about the Tennessee Brewery this year was for the thousands who loved drinking beer in its makeshift annual beer garden. Developer Billy Orgel bought the brewery building in 2014, a big win for preservationists, as the building was slated for demolition. In January, Orgel and his team unveiled a plan that included apartments, a parking garage, retail shops, and more, in a $25 million project called the Brewery District. Orgel promises a restoration of the historic building and a renewed vibrancy to South Main. He’s said the buildings could be complete and occupied in 2016.

The Pinch District: Not much is yet known about the future of The Pinch, except local leaders are making plans for changes.

In January, the district was in the crosshairs of the Tennessee Historical Commission, slated to be removed from the National Register of Historic Places. The plan was thwarted, then a MEMFix event in April brought in thousands.

In October, Memphis City Council member, Berlin Boyd, assembled government and business leaders to announce they were moving forward with plans in the Pinch. Though Boyd didn’t share many details, he did say that the area’s two largest tenants — St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital and Bass Pro — would likely drive much of the direction of the plan. That meeting came right before St. Jude announced an expansion plan for its Memphis campus worth about $9 billion (yes, billion with a “B”).

The Commercial Appeal: Until this year, the city’s daily paper had had one owner — Scripps — since Franklin D. Roosevelt was president. But it got a new owner in the spring of 2015 — Journal Media Group — and will likely have another by March.

Gannett Co., the largest newspaper company in the U.S., agreed in October to buy JMG for about $280 million. If the deal is approved by stakeholders and the government, it is expected to close in the first three months of 2016.

The move could possibly bring more layoffs in the CA newsroom. Some analysts are concerned the move could mean less emphasis on local reporting and bring a homogenous USA Today format to the paper’s look and writing. The deal also worries some media watchers, as it would mean Gannett would own all but one of the state’s major dailies.

Midtown Market: Those blighted buildings on the southwest corner of Union and McLean could be gone by June. That was developer Ron Belz’s prediction earlier this month to Memphis City Council members.

Later that day, the council agreed the city would take out a loan for $4 million to help Belz build “Midtown Market,” a mix of apartments, retail shops, and, perhaps, an “upscale” or “boutique” grocery store.

The city’s part of the funding was one of the last (and most critical) pieces of funding Belz said he needed to make the project work. City officials are still working on a plan to control traffic around the site, which will also soon have a new, expanded Kroger nearby.

Central Station: Want to watch a movie downtown next year? Well, it’s likely that you’ll be able to. Developers want to transform the 101-year-old Central Station building and the area around it at the corner of G.E. Patterson and Main into a residential and entertainment campus.

Henry Turley Co. and Community Capital LLC plan to transform the station building into a hotel, with a restaurant and some retail shops. Around the corner, they hope to build a Malco movie theater, apartment buildings, and, possibly, a grocery store.

The city council approved $600,000 for the project this month, which developers said they needed to begin construction. Expect dirt to move on the project soon.

One Beale: Scrapped during the recession, One Beale is expected to rise at the western end of Beale in 2016. If built, the $150 million project will change the city’s skyline with two — possibly three — new towers right on the Mississippi River: a 12-story office building, a 22-story hotel, and a 30-story apartment tower. Construction could take more than two years, pushing the grand opening to sometime in 2018. — Toby Sells

Food & Drink

The Green Room: The latest project from Jeff Johnson of Local/Oshi Burger Bar/Agave Maria, will be an event space and restaurant with a pop-up concept. Johnson is hoping to start holding events in the Green Room, located in the old Evergreen Grill space on Overton Park, as soon as January. He’s also planning to launch the restaurant that same month.

The pop-up aspect is ambitious. Fare and chefs will change on a regular basis. One idea Johnson is currently contemplating is a French brasserie. Johnson says he’s been in contact with chefs from Memphis and around the country to work in the Green Room. As for the name, he says it’s a nod to the location, the Evergreen neighborhood, as well as to green rooms, a space for celebrities and VIPs at TV shows and concerts. Johnson says he wants customers to feel like they’re the star of the show.

Justin Fox Burks

Lyfe Kitchen

LYFE Kitchen and Catherine & Mary’s in the Chisca: The opening date is unknown at this point for these two restaurants set for the old Chisca Hotel, though it should be sometime in the coming year. The Carlisle Corporation, which has been renovating the Chisca, bought a minority share of LYFE in 2015 and moved its headquarters to Memphis. Carlisle opened the first Memphis LYFE, offering healthier meals in a fast-casual setting, in East Memphis.

In regards to Catherine & Mary’s, the partnership with Andrew Ticer and Michael Hudman of Andrew Michael Italian Kitchen, Hog & Hominy, and Porcellino’s was a bit of a surprise, as Ticer and Hudman seemed dedicated to building something of a restaurant commune on Brookhaven Circle. Catherine & Mary’s, according to a press release that announced the deal, will serve “traditional Italian cooking through the lens of the American South.”  

The Curb Market: The Curb Market is a hyper-local market set to open in the old Easy Way space on Cooper in late January. It’s owned by Peter Schutt, who is also owner of two farms as well as The Daily News Publishing Co. Ben Fant of Farmhouse is working with Curb on its marketing. Fant says in an email: “Completely LOCALLY sourced produce, meats, and groceries. The goal of the market is to support local farmers and source their goods first. Depending on seasons, they will source regionally and on occasion, nationally, but always U.S.A. All meats will be grass-fed and free-range. Everything in the market will be economically viable and sustainable … The focus is on agriculture not agribusiness.”

Wine in Grocery Stores: It’s happening. Area grocery stores can start carrying wine in July. — Susan Ellis

Crime & Public Safety

Despite a shortage of Memphis Police officers, crime steadily decreased in 2015. Comparing statistics from January to November, crime was down 1.5 percent countywide and .6 percent in the city.

But the drop since 2006 has been phenomenal — 17.8 percent countywide and 13.6 percent in the city. That’s when the Memphis Police Department (MPD) first started using data-driven policing via its Blue Crush model. It was also the first year of Operation: Safe Community (OSC), a massive, multi-agency, crime-fighting initiative from the Memphis Shelby Crime Commission that addresses everything from offender recidivism to truancy.

“We’re down significantly from 2006, and if you go back to what some might say are the good old days of the late 1980s, we’re considerably down from those numbers as well,” said Crime Commission interim director Rick Masson.

It’s impossible to predict crime rates for 2016, but Masson said he believes we’re on track to continue the crime decrease. Next year will be the last year for the current version of OSC, and various law enforcement agencies will be coming together to work on another five-year OSC plan to launch in 2017.

The MPD will gain a new police director in 2016. Current Director Toney Armstrong announced in October that’d step down once Mayor-elect Jim Strickland found a replacement. One challenge for Strickland and the new police director will be hiring and retaining officers.

“There’s a shortage of police officers, so that’s something that will have to be addressed by the new administration,” Masson said.

At a public forum this month, Strickland’s transition team threw out a few ideas to reduce crime. They set a goal of decreasing police resignations by 20 percent in his first year and 30 percent each year during the rest of his term. They also want to reduce police response time to an average of three minutes, educate the public on the proper use of 911, and fully staff the 911 call center, and seek public/private partnerships to offset the costs of police recruitment classes.

The city’s rape kit testing backlog should be cleared in 2016, according to Memphis Sexual Assault Kit Task Force coordinator Doug McGowen. “We hope to have the vast majority of the kits tested in 2016. We ship about 300 a month out, and we have about 3,900 that need additional analysis, so we’ll be very close to meeting that goal,” McGowen said.

McGowen, who has been tapped by Strickland as the city’s new chief operating officer, said he’d continue to run the task force for the foreseeable future.

— Bianca Phillips

Music

The New Daisy: After signing an exclusive booking deal with Live Nation, the New Daisy went through major renovations and became one of the best places to see live music in Memphis. The “new” New Daisy features a state-of-the-art sound system and stage lighting, and even a VIP area known as the Big Star Room.

After years of being the bookend on the dark side of Beale Street, the New Daisy is alive and well, and bringing big names like Dropkick Murphys and Disturbed to Memphis in 2016.

FedExForum: The Forum has a stacked calendar early in 2016, with Barry Manilow, The Doobie Brothers, and Billy Joel (the Piano Man’s only Tennessee appearance) coming to town.

The Hi-Tone: The club changed hands just over a year ago, but the Crosstown venue is still going strong under the direction of Brian “Skinny” McCabe, hosting festivals such as Gonerfest and Rock For Love, in addition to specializing in metal, punk, and garage rock shows.

Bar DKDC: This small Cooper-Young restaurant/bar has become a full-fledged venue, with local and touring talent playing the room on a weekly basis. Don’t expect that to stop anytime soon.

Rocket Science Audio: RSA continues to be one of the most intriguing venues/recording studios in Memphis, and their monthly Variety Show has come a long way since its inception. Expect big things from them in 2016.

Found: Another new venue worth a mention is the vintage clothing/furniture store on Broad Avenue that every so often hosts musical up-and-comers of all kinds in its back room.

Lafayette’s: The signature music club in Overton Square continues to make the Square a hot destination for tourists and locals alike by booking bands every night of the week. Expect that to continue in 2016.

Levitt Shell: It was recently announced that the Shell will undergo $4 million dollars in renovations. The Overton Park outdoor venue will receive upgrades to its sound system, bathrooms, and musician load-in area. In addition, a bigger, permanent area for vendors will be constructed. All those improvements should make for an exciting (and packed) Concert Series.

The Bands: Plenty of Memphis acts had strong years in 2015, including NOTS, Cities Aviv, Julien Baker, and Lucero, to name but a few.

NOTS released their debut We Are Nots late last November, then did lots of touring before impressing the U.K. label Heavenly Recordings at South by Southwest. The label brought NOTS to Europe last month for a slew of shows. NOTS begin working on their sophomore LP in January.

Cities Aviv also continued to be one of the most intriguing figures in the Memphis rap community, even if he spent most of the year in New York City. He’s back in Memphis now, and his new album Your Discretion is Trust, is some of his best work.

After conquering Europe with his sidekick Quinton-JeVon Lee, aka RPLD GHSTS, expect to see plenty of Cities Aviv in 2016, starting with a Hi-Tone show in early January.

Andrea Morales

Julien Baker

Julien Baker is another Memphian who had to leave the city to get national recognition (she currently attends MTSU). Her debut album Sprained Ankle, released this fall, has been championed by NPR, Pitchfork, and every other music media outlet that has good taste.

Other local bands to watch out for in 2016 include Deering and Down (who have a new album coming in early 2016 from BAA), HEELS, Aquarian Blood, Evil Army, RPLD GHSTS, and the Sheiks, who are already headed back to Europe in 2016 with Jack Oblivian.

Hometown champs, Lucero, dropped a great new record that they recorded at Ardent with Ted Hutt, and they also join the ranks of Memphis bands crossing the pond in early 2016.

Deck the Halls: The 2015 openings of the Blues Hall of Fame and the Memphis Music Hall of Fame were notable events, creating two worthwhile institutions that will honor Memphis music for years to come, in addition to bringing in tourism revenue. The opening ceremony of the Memphis Music Hall of Fame brought Jimmy Fallon, Justin Timberlake, and Keith Richards to town, making for one of the most star-studded events of the year.

Vinyl Thoughts: The Memphis Record Pressing plant is up and running, cranking out records for Sony, Fat Possum and Goner, and bringing the vinyl business back to the birthplace of rock-and-roll. It’s an amazing addition to our music resume to be one of the few cities in the United States to have a vinyl pressing plant. Take that, Nashville! — Chris Shaw

Politics

Hillary’s Boast and Red-state Reality: The most obvious political fact about 2016 is that it’s a presidential-election year, and that fact would ordinarily not be expected to ruffle Tennessee’s red-state Republican feathers, except that presumptive Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton has already barnstormed the state once, declaring that she intends to “turn Tennessee blue” again by dint of hard and purposeful campaigning here — something that Barack Obama conspicuously did not do in either 2008 or 2012.

Of course, presidential elections still call out Democrats in disproportionate numbers to the polls, and if Donald Trump should keep on keeping on and succeed in telling the Republican establishment, “You’re fired,” then really weird things could happen here.

But, as things stand now, Clinton would have to recreate a state party infrastructure, more or less Phoenix-like, from the ashes.

City Council and County Commission: Memphis’ newly configured city council seems well-stocked with youthful, business-friendly members, a good match-up with the city’s new mayor, Jim Strickland, who made his name as a council advocate of fiscal solvency above all. (Which means that the core issue of how to retain a stable police force in the absence of restored benefits will continue to be a vexation.) And, while Democrats are nominally a majority-of-one on the Shelby County Commission, the chairman, Terry Roland, is a Republican, and, on key votes, Democrats Justin Ford and Eddie Jones fairly persistently go with the GOP, more than canceling out Republican Steve Basar’s working relationship with the Democrats.

Beyond matters of partisanship, the unresolved issue in county government is whether the current commission power struggle with county Mayor Mark Luttrell succeeds, and to what extent.

Electoral Matters: It wouldn’t be an even-numbered election year without somebody venturing once again to do that which so far nobody has succeeded in doing — namely, mounting a serious challenge against 9th District Congressman Steve Cohen.

Among those who have been talked up — by themselves or by others — as itching to take a shot are attorney Ricky Wilkins (a redux case from 2014), state Representative G.A. Hardaway, and, most recently, state Senator Lee Harris.

And, though Harris’ seat wouldn’t be the right location geographically, current Shelby County Commissioner Heidi Shafer, an East Memphis Republican, is looking hard at making a run, ASAP, for the state legislature. That’s why Shafer, the commission’s budget chair for three years running, opted to chair the legislative affairs committee this time around.

Haslam’s Task: The 2016 session of the General Assembly is just around the corner, convening on January 12th. And that aforesaid GOP legislative majority has seemingly peaked out at a hyper-conservative level too daunting for either of moderate GOP governor Bill Haslam’s two major wish-list items — his Insure Tennessee proposal for Medicaid (TennCare) expansion, which was blocked in the General Assembly last year, or any form of a gasoline tax to fund overdue attention to the state’s increasingly obsolete infrastructure.

State Senator Ron Ramsey, the state’s lieutenant governor and presiding officer of the Senate, usually calls the shots on such things, and he has basically declared that the Medicaid-expansion matter will not be considered until and unless an elected Republican president, post-2016, proposes the additional funding via block grants to the states.

As for the question of infrastructure improvements, a little bit of good news — a modest windfall in unexpectedly good state revenue collections — may extend the bad news of inaction on creating new funding sources for roads, bridges, and the like. Current thinking within the legislature is apparently to sprinkle the bonus funds where they are most needed but to eschew any major upgrades. — Jackson Baker

LGBT Rights

The U.S. Supreme Court’s ruling in favor of marriage equality nationwide will ensure that 2015 goes down as perhaps the most important year in the fight for LGBT rights.

But, in Tennessee (and a handful of other conservative states), the battle might not be over. The Tennessee Natural Marriage Defense Act was filed in September, and if passed, it would revert the state definition of marriage back to one man and one woman, and it would require the state attorney general to defend local government officials who refuse to recognize the Supreme Court’s marriage ruling.

Justin Fox Burks

Cole Bradley

“The federal government doesn’t preempt the action of legislatures. In other words, if the federal government gets wind of an unconstitutional bill being filed, they don’t send a note to the legislature saying, by the way, you can’t do that,” said Tennessee Equality Project (TEP) Executive Director Chris Sanders.

“What happens is the legislature passes its law, and it goes into effect. It harms someone, and then someone has the basis to sue the state. If passed, it could temporarily interrupt marriage equality,” he said.

Sanders believes the bill would eventually be struck down, once lawsuits make their way to the Supreme Court.

“I think they’ll lose at every turn. That’s why we all pray for [Supreme Court Justice] Ruth Bader Ginsberg every night,” Sanders said.

Sanders said TEP is also watching a state Pastor Protection Act, which would “protect religious clergy” from having to perform same-sex weddings. But he points out that such a bill would be redundant since pastors are already protected by the First Amendment.

“There could also be bills that ‘protect’ businesses from having to do business with our community, particularly wedding vendors,” Sanders said. “And another possible bill would exempt local government officials, like a county clerk, from having to serve our community. That’s a Kim Davis-style bill.”

Transgender rights also may be on the line in Tennessee in 2016. Tennessee Representative Bud Hulsey announced his intention to file a bill that would prevent transgender students from using the bathroom that corresponds with their gender identity.

Some possible bills may have a direct impact on LGBT equality in Memphis.

“We’ve heard some rumors that there could be a bill to try and undo existing local nondiscrimination ordinances, like the one in Memphis,” Sanders said.

On a more positive note, the Memphis Gay & Lesbian Community Center (MGLCC) has announced that they will launch a new program in 2016 to house homeless LGBT youth. Dubbed the Metamorphosis Project, it will employ refurbished shipping containers as transitional housing structures, and it will be the first housing project for LGBT young adults in the city. The shipping containers will be set up on property the MGLCC has purchased in Orange Mound from the Shelby County Land Bank.

“We’re going to alter the containers by adding windows and doors and making them into individual living spaces with a bedroom and a bathroom,” said MGLCC Youth Services Manager Stephanie Reyes. “And we’ll have an administration building there with a classroom, where we’ll teach classes on writing a resume, nutrition, and life skills.”

— Bianca Phillips

Film

The new year will kick off with Ocsar hopefuls like The Revenant hitting Memphis screens, and the Sundance Film Festival debuting the year’s crop of indie and arthouse pictures. We’ll get to see if the long-delayed Western Jane Got a Gun starring Natalie Portman was salvaged after a troubled production. February looks livelier than usual with the Coen Brothers’ Hail, Caesar!, the Marvel comedy superhero Deadpool, and Zoolander 2, which heralds the return of Ben Stiller’s beloved male model. March gets us the Iraq War comedy/drama Whiskey Tango Foxtrot, and the long awaited Batman v Superman: The Dawn of Justice which, if the trailers are any indication, could be a historic debacle. More intriguing is the biopic I Saw the Light where Tom Hiddleston (aka Loki) plays Hank Williams.

Richard Linklater’s new film Everybody Wants Some debuts in April, as does Iron Man director Jon Favreau’s live action adaptation of The Jungle Book, which presumably has some reason to exist. Summer blockbuster season starts in earnest with the new Marvel epic Captain America: Civil War and X-Men: Apocalyspe. For the more serious-minded, there’s Snowden, the tale of the NSA whistleblower. June brings us the big-budget video game adaptation Warcraft, helmed by Moon director Duncan Jones, and the sequel to Finding Nemo, Finding Dory.

July sees Steven Spielberg’s Roald Dahl adaptation The BFG and The Legend of Tarzan, directed by Harry Potter‘s David Yates from a script penned by Memphis’ own Craig Brewer. Then the all-female Ghostbusters remake will do battle with Star Trek Beyond. In August we get the all-villain comic book oddity Suicide Squad and the story of the gulf oil spill in Deepwater Horizon.

The theme for November will be magic, with Marvel’s sorcerer supreme Doctor Strange squaring off against J.K. Rowling’s Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them, while Indie Memphis brings the scrappy underdogs to Memphis screens. December will be once again dominated by Star Wars with Rogue One telling the story of how Princess Leia got the plans to the Death Star.

Categories
Politics Politics Feature

2015: A Year of Change in Memphis Politics

Sitting uneasily at the same table for the annual Myron Lowery prayer breakfast on January 1, 2015 were future antagonists Mayor A C Wharton (left) and Jim Strickland (in center). At far right is Council candidate Mickell Lowery, who would be upset in a Council race by underdog Martavius Jones.

The year 2015 began with a bizarre New Year’s Day event in which Memphis City Councilman Jim Strickland was asked to stand up by a reigning figure in city politics, whereupon said official, council chairman Myron Lowery, basically called Strickland out for his presumption in considering a race against incumbent Mayor A C Wharton.

The year will end with the selfsame Strickland preparing to stand on a stage on New Year’s Day 2016 and take the oath as mayor, while both Wharton and Lowery exit city government, and Mickell Lowery, the latter’s son, wonders what went wrong with his own failed bid to succeed his father on the council.

On the national stage, similar head-scratching must be going on at the Bush family compound in Kennebunkport and in other establishmentarian councils where the old reliable form sheets seem to have gone suddenly and sadly out of date.

Everywhere, it would seem, the representatives and figureheads of things-as-usual are hearing variations on “You’re fired,” which is how it might be put by Donald Trump, the real estate billionaire and political eccentric whose out-of-nowhere surge to the top of the pack among Republican presidential contenders is one of the obvious indicators of the new mood.

One of the most trusted end-of-year polls of the GOP race had Trump at 42 percent and Jeb Bush at 3 percent. Less extremely, back in our own bailiwick, the formerly invincible Wharton, whose two earlier mayoral races netted him victory totals of 70 percent and 60 percent, finished his 2015 reelection effort with a woeful 22 percent of the vote, a full 20 points behind the victorious Strickland, in what was essentially a four-person race.

It takes no crystal ball or soothsaying skill to see that there was discontent against traditional management — again, what we call the establishment — in all the public places: locally, nationally, and even statewide. Governor Bill Haslam, a pleasant, well-intentioned man with a little sense and sensibility, was spurned by the leadership and rank-and-file of his own Republican Party in the General Assembly in Nashville. 

His prize proposal, a home-grown version of Medicaid (TennCare) expansion called Insure Tennessee, was just different enough from the semantically vulnerable Obamacare to pass muster with the state’s hospitals, medical professionals, and — according to polls — the Tennessee public at large. It was opposed by the GOP speakers of the two legislative chambers in both a special session in February and the regular session later on and kept thereby from ever getting a vote on the floor of either the House or the Senate.

As Haslam noted in a barnstorming expedition across the state later in the year, the state also had a serious need for upgrading of its roads, bridges, and infrastructure in general, but — once burned and twice shy from the rejection of Insure Tennessee — he dared not advocate a gasoline tax or any other specific plan to raise revenue for infrastructure purposes. He was reduced instead to voicing a hope at each of his stops that an aroused public itself would clamor for such remedies. No such luck.

Meanwhile, the once-dominant Democratic Party had become such a shell of its former self that it was powerless to suggest anything of its own legislatively or to oppose any initiative of the Republicans, who owned a super-majority — and a Tea Party-dominated one — in both houses.

What the Democrats could do, in Shelby County and statewide, was outfit themselves with new leaders. Mary Mancini, a veteran activist from Nashville, became the new state party chairman, while Randa Spears was elected in Memphis to head Shelby County Democratic Party and to impose overdue reform on what had been some serious mismanagement of the party’s finances.

The local Republican Party elected a female chair, too,  Mary Wagner, suggesting the existence of a trend and the possibility that, as confidence in the old order continued to erode, political folks were increasingly looking to the women in their ranks as a source of new leadership.

• City and county politics were crucially affected by budgetary matters during 2015. 

In the case of the city, austerity measures approved by both Mayor Wharton and a council majority — specifically pension reform and reduction of health benefits for city employees — would taint public confidence in city government and shape the resultant four-way mayoral race to the incumbent’s disadvantage.

Even such seeming talking points for the mayor as the new Electrolux and Mitsubishi plants failed to diminish local unemployment to the degree that had been expected.

Mayoral candidate Harold Collins was telling with his mockery of the $10-an-hour jobs for temps he said prevailed at both locations. Memphis Police Association president Mike Williams embodied resentment of lost benefits for first responders in his mayoral bid. 

And, most effectively, the aforementioned Strickland hammered away at a triad of issues — public safety, blight, and a need for more accountability on the part of public officials — that his polling suggested were winning themes among voters of all ethnicities and economic classes.

Some considered these mere housekeeping issues, but as poll-derived distillations of the Memphis electorate’s concerns about the here and now, they were evidently on point — enough so that Strickland, in many ways a generic white man, would eventually capture 25 percent of the city’s black vote, pulling his mathematical share against African-American candidates Wharton, Collins, and Williams.

On the council front, six new members were chosen in open races, and in each case it was the most business-friendly candidate who won. This was undeniably the case with candidates such as Philip Spinosa, a young FedEx executive who raised a prohibitive $200,000 in an at-large race, avoiding public forums with his five opponents or much public contact of any kind except for a forest of yard signs bearing his name along the major traffic arteries of central and East Memphis.

Another financially well-endowed council newcomer, Worth Morgan, advertised himself similarly, but was willing to confront the rest of his field — and in the runoff a well-regarded Republican activist — in open debate, where he held his own.

Along with Strickland’s nonstop emphasis on public safety, there was an abundance of pro-police rhetoric among the winners of city races. The question — one that achieved the level of irony — was how all this public empathy, short of restoring lost benefits, could arrest the ongoing fallout from the ranks. Some 200 to 300 cops had already responded to benefit cuts by going elsewhere.

The general sense of rebellion that, in one way or another, seemed to characterize the political scene in 2015 may have found its fullest fruition in Shelby County government, where, after enacting various expected rituals of partisan rivalry amongst themselves, the county comissioners began to mount a coordinated campaign as a body against the administration of county Mayor Mark Luttrell. This development was a direct outgrowth of the budget season, during which commissioners on both sides of the party line convinced themselves that they were being spoon-fed half-truths about money available for public purposes and at year’s end were attempting to assert their own authority as superceding that of the mayor.

As with so much else on the political landscape in 2015, the accustomed way was under challenge. The new year of 2016 will presumably have to come up with some answers.

Categories
Opinion Viewpoint

The Buck Passes on Obama’s Economy

Senator Bernie Sanders

In the GOP primary race, the economy is the dog that has not barked. Given low unemployment, low gas prices, and low inflation, it is easy to understand the GOP’s silence. The current unemployment rate is 5.1 percent, the lowest since April 2008.

Under President Obama’s stewardship, the economy has added over 7 million private sector jobs. The Dow Jones has more than doubled, and the NASDAQ has more than tripled. The president has exceeded every promise for speedy economic recovery made by his Republican opponent, Mitt Romney, in the 2012 campaign.

But now Democratic presidential candidate Senator Bernie Sanders is drawing crowds with harsh indictments of the American economic system as unfair to the poor, the working class, and the middle class. Sanders recently described the nation as having a “rigged economy, designed by the wealthiest people in this country to benefit the wealthiest people in this country at the expense of everybody else.”

His criticism echoes that of Senator Elizabeth Warren who has blasted erstwhile Obama economic officials such as Larry Summers and Tim Geithner for being too cozy with the Wall Street banks they were supposed to be regulating.

Unions have for decades been suffering from declining membership and declining leverage at the bargaining table. That was before the president beat them and their Democratic supporters in Congress on the trade deal in question, the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP). He stood with the Chamber of Commerce and the GOP majority in Congress to win approval for fast-track authority pertaining to TPP.

Former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, Sanders, and other top Democrats give Obama credit for leading the nation’s steady economic growth after the 2008 recession. But, as with the unions, their current focus is on income inequality and stagnant wages.

“The defining economic challenge of our time is clear,” Clinton, the Democratic front-runner, said in July. “We must raise incomes for hard-working Americans so they can afford a middle-class life.”

The president, however, prefers to emphasize how the nation has recovered from an extraordinarily deep recession, pointing out the errors of his past Republican critics. In a recent speech to the Business Roundtable, the president focused on those Republican criticisms, not the new carping from Democrats.

‘”Seven years ago today was one of the worst days in the history of our economy,” he said, going on to note that in September 2008 “stocks had suffered their worst loss since 9/11, businesses would go bankrupt, millions of Americans would lose their jobs and their homes, and our economy would reach the brink of collapse.”

Obama then offered a contrasting picture of the current economy:

“Here’s where we are today,” the president said. “Businesses have created more than 13 million new jobs over the past 66 months — the longest streak of job growth on record. The unemployment rate is lower than it’s been in over seven years. There are more job openings right now than at any time in our history. Housing has bounced back. Household wealth is higher than it was before the recession.”

Obama’s victory lap might also include a mention that this year’s Republican candidates have no answer for income inequality. In fact, with the exception of Donald Trump, the current Republican candidates consistently call for tax cuts for the rich that would worsen inequality by widening the wealth gap.

These are facts. They are powerful ammunition for any Democrat who wants to run on the strength of the Obama economic record in 2016. But as debates begin next month among the Democrats, you can expect that consultants will be advising the candidates that they need to distance themselves from Obama because of stagnant wages and income inequality.

In light of the actual economic facts, perhaps a winning message for Democrats would be to promise to continue and improve on the president’s record by dealing with stagnant wages as they seek “Obama’s third term.” Yet, even among Democratic candidates, that seems to be too much to ask.

My advice for President Obama? Just bite your tongue, and let it go. A fair reading of history will show the economy came back to life on your watch.

Juan Williams is an author and political analyst for Fox News Channel.

Categories
Letter From The Editor Opinion

Bacon, Cheese Dip, and Rocket Scientists

A couple weeks ago, I was sitting at the bar in my neighborhood bistro eating a Lyonnaise salad. They use Benton’s smoked bacon in their salad, and it’s delicious. I raved about it to the bartender, and the restaurant owner, who happened to be sitting nearby, overheard me. He told me I could order it online.

I’d had just enough wine to decide that ordering some bacon sounded like something I needed to do. I Googled Benton smoked bacon, found the website, and began trying to order it on my phone. After a couple false starts, I managed to type in my address, phone number, and credit card number. It took a while, I admit, but it was dark in there. I ordered a couple of pounds, or so I thought. Three days later, 12 pounds of bacon showed up in a savory smelling box on my front porch. Oops.

When I went back to the restaurant a week or so later, a cook came out and gave me a five-pound bag of bacon. She said it was from Glen, the owner, because he was pretty sure I’d never gotten through to Benton Farms on my phone that night.

Wrongo, mon ami! Thanks to his generous gesture, I’d pretty much cornered the local market on Benton Smoked Bacon.

A couple days later, the Internet was filled with news of a World Health Organization story that eating bacon and other processed meats increases the risk of cancer. So I got that goin’ for me.

But at least I didn’t steal 50,000 empty Pancho’s Cheese Dip containers, like that schmo over in West Memphis. It’s hard to imagine a more stupid thing to steal. What was he going to do with 50,000 empty plastic cups that say “Pancho’s Cheese Dip”? Sell them in the want ads? How does that work?

For Sale: 50,000 empty Pancho’s dip cups, valued at $70,000. Will take $6.00, OBO.

Less than 24 hours after stealing the cups, the thief returned the booty, claiming it was a “mistake.” No kidding.

And at least I didn’t decide that slow-talkin’ brain surgeon Ben Carson would be the best candidate for president, like Iowa GOP voters did. It’s true. Carson moved into the lead, ahead of Donald Trump, in the Iowa polls, proving that Iowa Republicans are not rocket scientists. Not that they have much to choose from.

All this came on the heels of the 11-hour campaign ad that the GOP House Select Committee on Benghazi gave to Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton by ineptly “grilling” her on national television. It got so bad that even Fox News switched over to other programming.

It’s been a tough week for bacon lovers, dumb thieves, and the GOP. But there’s another Republican debate coming up in a couple days, and I can’t wait. I just need to find some cheese dip.