Tag: republican

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Politics Politics Feature

Former Governor Dunn Meets His Fans at Bookstar Signing

CREDIT: jb

The lines were respectably long and composed for the most part of vintage campaign colleagues, who smiled and reminisced with the author as copies of From a Standing Start, Winfield Dunn’s political memoir, got signed Wednesday night at Bookstar on Poplar by the onetime Memphis dentist and ex-Tennessee governor.

A typical purchaser was Happy Jones, the well-known Memphis political activist who these days tends to back liberal candidates but back then saw the likeable Dunn, a Republican conservative, as the state’s best hope for reform. She, well, happily stood in line with old friends like retired Cordovans Roy and Sara Jane Greenlee or Dr. Shed Caffey or Harry Wellford, who was Dunn’s campaign manager for the 1970 upset win over Democrat John Jay Hooker.

When these political comrades-in-arms, most of them fellow toilers in the building of the modern Republican Party in Shelby County, finally reached the table, they got more than a signing. Almost uniformly, they got hugged by the author.

There were more youthful book-buyers, too – many of them cadres of today’s Republican Party, like Young Republican Drew Daniel or current Shelby County party chairman Bill Giannini or Fayette County state representative Dolores Gresham, who intends to take on longtime Democratic titan John Wilder in a state Senate race next year.

Gresham might well study From a Standing Start, which details how Dunn came from relative obscurity to out-point better-known Republicans in the ’70 GOP primary for governor, then overcame Nashvillian Hooker to become his party’s first elected governor since Reconstruction.

Nor is Dunn’s book the usual pro forma memoir. Opening it at random, one might find a passage in which the author, close up with Hooker at an oudoor event that summer of 1970, realizes to his horror that his Democratic opponent is wearing pancake makeup. The discovery fueled his determination in that campaign, Dunn writes.

But there is an aura of good will in the book, as there was at the Wednesday night signing. When someone mentioned the Hooker reference to Wellford, the former judge nodded and said, “But they’re good friends now,” then smiled and added, “And that’s as it should be.”

Categories
Opinion Viewpoint

Idol Fancies

Sitting on a sofa on a Sunday afternoon,

Going to the candidates’ debate.

Laugh about it, shout about it.

When you’ve got to choose,

Every way you look at it you lose.

— “Mrs. Robinson” by Paul Simon

These traveling roadshows called debates have increasingly taken on the air of a TV reality program. I watched one Republican debate, but after seeing a majority of the candidates admit, en masse, that they questioned the validity of evolution, I didn’t need to watch another.

The Republican debates are equivalent to the summer replacement show America’s Got Talent. (The Democrats shade toward American Idol.) The contestants are carefully scrutinized as to appearance and confidence levels, and expectations run high each week over who will stumble and who will rise to the challenge. They even have judges posing as questioners. They critique the candidates’ answers and attempt to build rivalries within the group. The role of the intemperate asshole judge is played by CNN’s Wolf Blitzer (alternately, Chris Matthews). The flaw in the concept is that we can’t phone in each week and get somebody booted in order to thin this herd and maybe hear something of substance.

I took an online poll in which you were asked to match your opinions with the candidate who most closely holds your views. Mine came out Dennis Kucinich, which is good and bad.

I admire the congressman’s courage to call for impeachment openly and often. (He nearly got a vote to the floor last week.) I agree with him on ending the war in Iraq and holding the planners accountable. And he has been the single most consistent liberal voice in all these dark Bush years.

But I also know Kucinich hasn’t got a chance to win the nomination. I’ll happily vote for him in the Tennessee presidential primary to make a statement. Hell, I once voted for Prince Mongo for county mayor. I also voted for LaToya London on American Idol.

But once again, machine politics and corporate cash rule over procedure, and even though Kucinich’s rousing debate performances rival the American Idol appearances of Bo Bice, he’s going to lose to the blond lady who was mistreated when she was younger.

Before Hillary gets measured for crown and scepter, however, it would be well to remember that not a single vote has yet been cast and that the American voter is a famously fickle animal who will turn on you in an instant. How else can you explain Taylor Hicks winning American Idol, or George Bush winning anything, for that matter?

I’m sure Kucinich is at least as deserving as fellow ugly duckling Clay Aiken was. But if I had to review Hillary’s debate performances thus far, I would say, à la Randy Jackson, “It was just aw’ite for me, Dog. You’re a little pitchy.”

While this lite operetta continues, President Zero is neglecting some serious issues: The Chinese are trying to date-rape our children; Wal-Mart has been discovered taking out life insurance policies on its aged workers and collecting benefits when they die; Laci Peterson has morphed into Stacy Peterson; a discovered statement left behind by the still-deceased Saddam Hussein said his flim-flammery about WMD was not to threaten the U.S. but to fool Iran.

Barack Obama has promised to take off the gloves this week. And did I fail to mention our troops are in the middle of a foreign civil war with no end in sight? Too bad we can’t just vote the troops off the island.

Al Gore may have won his Oscar and his Nobel Prize, but Carrie Underwood and Daughtry kicked major butt at the AMA’s, and Fantasia was up for an award, too. With the current television writers’ strike, the mid-January start of the new season of American Idol might have to be moved up, just like those nervy upstart states want to do with their Johnny-come-lately primaries.

Then we could have five nights of nothing but American Idol and debates. But if the debates are going to compete, they have to really want it, Dog. This is, after all, a singing competition. And there is one lonely voice singing in the corner, crying, “Impeach now. Impeach now.” Can you hear him? It’s Dennis “The Dark Horse” Kucinich, and his spouse is better looking than Hillary’s any day.

Hey, no one believed Ruben Studdard could win either. Seacrest out.

Randy Haspel is, among other things, a Memphis musician and wit. He writes at bornagainhippies.blogspot.com.

Categories
Politics Politics Feature

Looking Ahead

“The tide is turning.” That’s Jim Kyle‘s confident declaration about the forthcoming election season in state government. Kyle, the Memphis Democrat who leads his party in the Tennessee state Senate, cites a number of precedents for his belief that 2008 will be a triumphant year for long-suffering state Democrats, who have been seeing their legislative numbers recede for a decade or two.

“Democrats just took over the Virginia state Senate, for one thing. And we’ve got more Democrats running in Republican districts, even in East Tennessee, than we ever had before,” Kyle said Tuesday — the very day that his opposite number, GOP Senate Speaker Ron Ramsey, was due in Shelby County for a meeting of the East Shelby Republican Club.

Ramsey, a Blountville Republican, came with Mark Norris, a Shelby Countian who is currently serving as the Senate Republican leader and who, Kyle and most other observers believe, wants to succeed Ramsey as Speaker and lieutenant governor should the GOP regain the tenuous majority it held for most of this year’s session and should Ramsey go on to run for governor in 2010, as all the selfsame observers expect.

“Oh, he’s running. No doubt about it,” said Kyle of his GOP counterpart’s gubernatorial hopes — though Ramsey’s immediate concerns are likely to be the same as Kyle’s: to gain a majority for his party in next year’s statewide legislative races. (For what it’s worth, the Democratic majority in the state House — 53 to 46, at the moment — is unlikely to be overturned, though the Republicans will surely try.)

As things stand now, the two major parties are tied in the Senate at 16-16. There is one “independent,” former Republican Micheal Williams of Maynardville, who was a reliable ally of (and vote for) John Wilder, the venerable Democrat who was deposed as Speaker early this year when Democrat Rosalind Kurita of Clarksville cast a surprise (and decisive) vote for Ramsey during Senate reorganization for the 2007-’08 term.

Kurita thereupon became Senate Speaker pro Tem, displacing Williams, who simmered quietly for a while then announced in mid-session last spring that he was leaving the GOP. Though he didn’t join the Democrats as such, he aligned with them for procedural purposes, giving Kyle’s party a technical majority by the thinnest possible margin.

When Chattanooga’s Ward Crutchfield, a longtime Democratic pillar in the Senate, was forced to resign after copping a guilty plea as a defendant in the Tennessee Waltz scandal, the Republicans nominated Oscar Brock, son of former U.S. senator Bill Brock, to vie for Crutchfield’s seat.

But Brock was beaten by Democrat Andy Berke in this month’s special election and with a percentage of the vote, 63 percent, that Kyle contends is 10 points in excess of the normal Democratic edge in the District 10 seat.

“That’s one more reason why I think the tide is moving our way,” Kyle said.

Of course, the Republicans are not sitting idly by without mounting a strategy of their own to gain control of the state Senate. They, too, evidently intend to compete seat by seat, district by district, as Kyle says the Democrats will, and one obvious GOP target is octogenarian Wilder of Somerville, who has so far given no indication whether he will seek reelection to his District 26 seat.

“Nobody knows. He’ll just have to decide how much he wants to be in the Senate for four more years,” said Kyle, who carefully skirted the issue of whether Wilder, who served as Speaker for 36 years until the narrow January vote that cast him out, might have ambitions of regaining the position. As Kyle noted, several other Democrats — not least, himself — might decide they want to be Speaker when the time comes.

Republican state representative Dolores Grisham, also of Somerville, has signaled her desire to compete for Wilder’s seat, and she expects to be strongly funded for the effort. “I don’t have any worries about John Wilder’s seat in a race against Dolores Grisham,” Kyle said drily.

In any case, the state Senate will be technically, and actually, up for grabs next year, and the two parties will both be making serious efforts. That fact may preclude Kyle’s making waves by recruiting a primary opponent for Kurita, whom he still has not forgiven for her vote on Ramsey’s behalf.

“We don’t,” the Democrats’ Senate leader said simply when asked how he and Kurita were getting along. That’s one thing that probably won’t change in 2008.

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Politics Politics Feature

Dem, GOP Leaders Differ on Wilder, Kurita, and Who Wins State Senate in 2008

On Tuesday, the two major party leaders of the currently
deadlocked Tennessee state Senate made competing claims about whether Democrats
or Republicans would control the chamber after the 2008 statewide elections.
Upon the defection from Republican ranks last spring of Republican Micheal
Williams of Maynardville, who supports the Democrats in procedural matters,
the count became 16 Democrats, 16 Republicans, and one independent, Williams.

“The tide is turning,” said Democratic leader Jim Kyle
of Memphis in a telephone chat from Nashville on Tuesday – meaning that the attrition factor which had worn away at
his party’s dominance of the Senate for a decade or so had been reversed. As
evidence of a pervasive Democratic trend, Kyle pointed to the recent capture of
the Virginia state Senate by Democrats and to the resounding special-election
victory in Tennessee’s District 10 of Democrat Andy Berke over Republican
Oscar Brock.

The latter victory was all the sweeter, said Kyle, because
it came in the wake of the potentially debilitating resignation from the seat of
longtime Chattanooga Democrat Ward Crutchfield, who had pleaded guilty to
an extortion charge in the Tennessee Waltz scandal.

“We’re going to run in every district, and we’ll win,” Kyle
said.

“He’s dreaming,” said Republican Senate Speaker and
lieutenant governor Ron Ramsey of Kyle’s claims. Ramsey, in town to address the
East Shelby Republican Club, said in fact that Kyle’s departure from reality had
begun with the “nightmare” of his own unexpected victory for the speakership on
January 9th of this year.

Ramsey’s win in January had been thanks to a surprise vote
for him by Democrat Rosalind Kurita of Clarksville, who departed party
ranks and thereby ousted longtime Speaker/Lt. Gov. John Wilder of
Somerville, the octogenarian who had served as Senate leader for 36 years until
this year.

After the “on again, off again” transfer of party power of
the 2007 legislative session, the GOP would regain control of the Senate in
2008, Ramsey said confidently.

The two leaders also had varying viewpoints on whether
Wilder would attempt reelection – and another try at the speakership — next
year. “He’ll have to decide how badly he wants to serve in the Senate for four
more years,” was the cautiously stated estimate of Kyle, who almost certainly
will be a candidate for the speakership himself.

Ramsey was less uncertain. “If he’s living, he’s running,”
the GOP leader said bluntly of Wilder. If Wilder does run, he will likely be
opposed by Republican state Representative Dolores Gresham, also of
Somerville, who has announced her candidacy and is actively sounding out
support.

Ramsey and Wilder also had differing attitudes toward
Kurita. The Republican, who had, as virtually his first act as Speaker,
appointed Kurita Senate Speaker pro Tem (ousting Williams in the process), spoke
fondly and familiarly of “Rosalind,” while Kyle, when asked earlier in the day
how he and Kurita were getting along, said simply, “We don’t.”

Categories
Book Features Books

Winfield Dunn in Memphis for Book-signing Wednesday

Former Tennessee governor Winfield Dunn will have a book signing for his new book, From a Standing Start, at Bookstar on Wednesday at 6 p.m.

Dunn, a Memphis dentist before he got into politics, was a surprise choice for the Republican nomination for governor in 1970. He defeated John Jay Hooker in the election that year as white voters in Memphis and Tennessee abandoned the Democratic Party in large numbers. He served from 1971 until 1975. Tennessee governors were only allowed to serve one term at that time.

Dunn, a former chairman of the Shelby County Republican Party, was the first Republican elected governor of Tennessee in 50 years. He went into business in Nashville following his term.

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News

Tough Week for Millionaire Preachers

Republican Senator Charles Grassley of Iowa sent letters to six media
mogul preachers Monday asking for documentation detailing their
finances. The Senate Finance Committee targeted televangelists
including the wonderfully named Creflo Dollar, Joyce Meyer, Benny
Hinn, Eddie Long, Kenneth and Gloria Copeland, and Randy and Paula
White.

The committee says that those evangelists should spend donors’
money “as intended, and in adherence with the tax code.” The implication
being that these preachers offer donors a range of services from healing
to spiritual salvation and returned financial prosperity in exchange for
their offerings without necessarily mentioning the private jets, Rolls
Royces, and Manhattan condos these preachers sport thanks to their
earnings.

This is a particularly timely development considering this week’s Flyer cover story focusing on the money and power within the Memphis-based
Church of God in Christ, Inc. (COGIC).

Though none of the preachers
currently under Senate investigation are affiliated with COGIC, the
denomination’s most prominent leader, the late presiding bishop G.E.
Patterson built a global media ministry worth millions. Patterson’s
successor, for now at least, is Charles E. Blake, pastor of the “church of
the stars” at West Angeles COGIC in Los Angeles, California. Blake pays
himself a salary that nears a million dollars to the chagrin of one former
member who asks, “what pastor needs to be paying himself almost a
million-dollar salary, living in a mansion in Beverly Hills off the tithes
and offerings of a congregation from one of the low-income areas of Los
Angeles? The money he makes could be going back into the community.”

Meanwhile, in the wake of the Flyer‘s story, we’re told that Blake’s wife has gone
to great lengths to defame us, reportedly referring to our humble
publication as a rag.

Well, amen to that.

Categories
Politics Politics Feature

Clinton-Thompson Race Would be Close in Tennessee, Survey Says

CREDIT: FreakingNews.com

Tennesseans tend to pick Republican favorite son Fred Thompson when asked which 2008 presidential hopeful they support, but in hypothetical head-to-head contests, Democrat Hillary Clinton runs very close behind him and ties national Republican front-runner Rudy Giuliani, a new poll by Middle Tennessee State University shows.

Thirty-two percent of Tennessee adults choose Thompson when asked whom they most favor in the 2008 election. Clinton attracts 25 percent, while Giuliani and Illinois Democratic Sen. Barak Obama draw 9 percent each. Nine percent name Republican Arizona Senator John McCain, and the rest choose someone else.

In a hypothetical head-to-head contest, though, Thompson garners 50 percent to Clinton’s 42 percent, with 4 percent choosing neither and the rest unsure. Considering the poll’s error margin (plus or minus four percentage points), Thompson’s lead over Clinton is small, and the two could even be tied.

Pitted against Obama, Thompson wins more handily, drawing 55 percent compared to Obama’s 34 percent, with 7 percent choosing neither and the rest unsure. In a hypothetical race between Clinton and Giuliani, meanwhile, the two tie, drawing 43 percent each with 11 percent saying they’d vote for neither and the rest not sure.

“In sum, a Thompson-Obama contest would be the best-case scenario for Tennessee’s Republicans under present conditions,” said MTSU poll director Ken Blake.

Categories
Politics Politics Feature

The Final Four

Say this for the 2007 incarnation of the Shelby County Election Commission: Its members are trying. Right or wrong, that’s something that various critics doubted about the 2006 version of the commission, plagued by late and lost returns, ineffective software, erratic machines, incorrect election screens, and post-election printouts whose totals were entered in some kind of unintelligible Martian algebra.

“We got started on a rough, rough road,” acknowledged then chairman Greg Duckett, who has moved on since then to the state Election Commission. Another Democratic commissioner, Maura Black Sullivan, was not reappointed by her party’s General Assembly contingent. The Democratic legislators opted to fill the two vacancies with two Democrats who, coincidentally or not, had past grievances related to the commission.

One was Shep Wilbun, a defeated candidate for Juvenile Court clerk who had unsuccessfully challenged the 2006 election results. The other was former longtime commissioner Myra Styles, returning after being purged four years earlier.

Completing the cycle of reconstruction, Styles was promptly named chairman. The third Democrat on the commission was yet another vindicated retread, O.C. Pleasant, who had been replaced as chairman a term earlier by the now-departed Duckett. The two Republican members, Rich Holden and Nancye Hines, were holdovers.

Whether because of improved oversight or simple good luck, the new commission seems to have had better results than their snake-bit predecessors. Concise, easy-to-read reports have been regularly circulated to the media concerning early voting for the four City Council positions that are at stake in Thursday’s runoff elections.

Cumulatively, these reports have yielded the information that, after a sluggish start on October 19th, certain of the 27 early-voting locations had late spurts.

Leading all locations as of Saturday, when early voting ended, was Cordova’s Bert Ferguson Community Center, with 952 voters. A fair amount of voting (282) also occurred at Anointed Temple of Praise, a southeasterly suburban location, suggesting reasonably organized voting in the District 2 contest between Bill Boyd and Brian Stephens.

Heading into Thursday, Stephens, a businessman/lawyer/neighborhood activist with Republican affiliations, was getting a surprising amount of support from influential local Democrats, while longtime political figure Boyd, endorsed by the Shelby County GOP, boasted endorsements from most of the seven other candidates eliminated in general-election voting on October 4th.

Relatively stout voting at Pyramid Recovery Center (544) and Bishop Byrne School (674) indicated the level of voter interest in District 6 (riverfront, South Memphis) and District 3 (Whitehaven), respectively.

The District 6 race was between Edmund Ford Jr. and James O. Catchings, the former a beneficiary of legacy voting habits, the latter depending on support from declared reformists. The District 3 contestants were youngish governmental veteran Harold Collins, who was favored, and educator Ike Griffith.

A turnout of 453 at Raleigh United Methodist Church documented the tight race expected in District 1 between school board member Stephanie Gatewood and teacher Bill Morrison. Gatewood, the only female candidate in the runoff roster, stood to benefit if gender voting patterns, 60 percent female and 40 percent male in early voting, continued on Thursday. Participation in early voting by acknowledged African Americans was at the same level (47.1 percent) as their percentage in the available voting pool. Apparent white participation in early voting was at the level of 37.6 percent, compared to the corresponding figure of 26.3 percent in the pool of registered voters for the four districts.

What made precise demographic reckoning difficult, however, was general confusion as to just who made up the category of voters self-described as “other,” a grouping that accounts for 26.6 percent of the registered-voter pool but only 15.3 percent of early voters.

And what made predictions of any kind difficult was the fact that only 1.5 percent of available registered voters took part in early voting. As always in the case of special elections or runoffs, final victory would belong to whichever candidates mounted the most effective get-out-the-vote efforts.

Categories
Politics Politics Feature

POLITICS: The Final Four

Say this for the 2007 incarnation of the Shelby County
Election Commission. Its members are trying.

Right or wrong, that’s something that various critics
doubted about the 2006 version of the commission, plagued by late and lost
returns, ineffective software, erratic machines, incorrect election screens, and
post-election printouts whose totals were entered in some kind of unintelligible
Martian algebra.

“We got started on a rough, rough road,” acknowledged then
chairman Greg Duckett at a post-mortem following an August election cycle
that was sabotaged by all of the above gremlins and more.

Duckett has moved on since then, to the state Election
Commission. Another Democratic commissioner, Maura Black Sullivan, was
not reappointed by her party’s General Assembly contingent. The Democratic
legislators opted to fill the two vacancies with two Democrats who,
coincidentally or not, had past grievances related to the commission.

One was Shep Wilbun, a defeated candidate for
Juvenile Court clerk who had unsuccessfully challenged the 2006 election
results. The other was former longtime commissioner Myra Styles,
returning after being purged four years earlier.

Completing the cycle of reconstruction, Styles was promptly
named chairman. The third Democrat on the commission was yet another vindicated
retread, O.C. Pleasant, who had been replaced as chairman a term earlier
by the now departed Duckett.

The two Republican members – Rich Holden and
Nancye Hines – were holdovers.

Whether because of improved oversight or simple good luck,
the new commission seems to have had better results than their snake-bit
predecessors. Though Mayor Willie Herenton made a point of challenging
the accuracy of the Diebold machines being used in this year’s city elections,
he ultimately was unable to deliver convincing examples.

As for last year’s hieroglyphic-like, analysis-defying
election returns, some hope of improvement has been kindled of late by an omen
of sorts. Concise, easy-to-read reports have been regularly circulated to the
media concerning early voting for the four city-council positions that are at
stake in Thursday’s runoff elections.

Cumulatively, these reports have yielded the information
that, after a sluggish start on October 19th, certain of the 27 early-voting
locations had late spurts.

Leading all locations as of Saturday, when early voting
ended, was Cordova’s Bert Ferguson Community Center, with 952 voters. Coupled
with the fact that a fair amount of voting (282) also occurred at Anointed
Temple of Praise, a southeasterly suburban location, that suggested reasonably
organized voting in the District 2 contest between Bill Boyd and Brian
Stephens.

Heading into Thursday, Stephens, a
businessman/lawyer/neighborhood activist with Republican affiliations, was
getting a surprising amount of support from influential local Democrats, while
longtime political figure Boyd, endorsed by the Shelby County GOP, boasted
endorsements from most of the seven other candidates eliminated in
general-election voting on October 4th.

Relatively stout voting at Pyramid Recovery Center (544)
and Bishop Byrne School (674) indicated the level of voter interest in District
6 (riverfront, south Memphis) and District 3 (Whitehaven), respectively.

The District 6 race was between Edmund Ford Jr. and
James O. Catchings, the former a beneficiary of legacy voting habits, the
latter depending on support from declared reformists. The District 3 contestants
were youngish governmental veteran Harold Collins, who was favored,and educator Ike Griffith.

A turnout of 453 at Raleigh United Methodist Church
documented the tight race expected in District 1 between school board member
Stephanie Gatewood and teacher Bill Morrison. This is the only
runoff race in which demographics could have played a part, though both Gatewood,
an African American, and Morrison, who is white, made a point of pitching voters
across the board.

Gatewood, the only female candidate in the runoff roster,
stood to benefit if gender voting patterns, 60 percent female and 40 percent
male in early voting, continued on Thursday. Participation in early voting by
acknowledged African Americans was at the same level (47.1 percent) as their
percentage in the available voting pool.

Apparent white participation in early voting was at the
level of 37.6 percent, compared to the corresponding figure of 26.3 percent in
the pool of registered voters for the four districts.

What made precise demographic reckoning difficult, however,
was general confusion as to just who made up the category of voters
self-described as “other.,” a grouping that accounts for 26.6 percent of the
registered-voter pool but only 15.3 percent of early voters.

And what made
predictions of any kind difficult was the fact that only 1.5 percent of
available registered voters took part in early voting. As always in the case of
special elections or runoffs, final victory would belong to whichever candidates
mounted the most effective Get-Out-the-Vote efforts.

Categories
Politics Politics Feature

From the 2007 Campaign Annals: The Case of the Horrified Partisan

Bob Schreiber, the financial professional and environmental
activist who just finished a remote second to winner Jim Strickland in the
District 5 city council race, says that he nevertheless enjoyed the experience,
even the daily grind of going door-to-door to promote his candidacy.

He tells this story: At one house, the occupant who
answered his knock, “this lady who was 55 or 60-ish,” immediately demanded,
“What are you, a Republican or a Democrat?” Schreiber says he told her he tried
to be independent, making up his own mind about issues, regardless of party
considerations.

The woman was skeptical and responded tersely, according to
Schreiber. “She said, ‘I am a Republican, and I never in my life voted for a
Democrat! What’s more, I early-voted, and I didn’t vote for you!’ Just
like that. So I said, ‘Well, who did you vote for?'”

Schreiber says the woman immediately answered: “David
Kustoff told me who to vote for.” and that he responded, “Did you by any
chance vote for Jim Strickland?” to which the voter replied with a satisfied nod
and the firm answer, “Yes!” He waited a beat and then said, “Do you realize you
just voted for the past chairman of the Democratic Party?”

The woman, said Schreiber, responded with open-mouthed
shock, as if she’d swallowed poison unknowingly.

As it happens,
Strickland, who indeed was chairman of the Shelby County Democrats a decade or
so back, is the law partner of Kustoff, a former Republican chairman who, as a Bush
appointee, is serving these days as U.S. Attorney for the Western District of
Tennessee.

And, for the record, Strickland clearly had ample support across party lines, polling 73 percent of the District 5 vote.