Mark Brown, the communications/political director of the
Tennessee state Senate caucus, has responded to last week’s wrap-up in
this space concerning his party’s 2008 electoral misfortunes.
In the course of an extended e-mail conversation, Brown begins with
this assertion: “There was never a television ad that claimed
Dolores Gresham ‘had voted X number of times’ to raise her pay.
Our accusation, which was fully documented in our ads, was that Gresham
voted to increase her pension, which is pay. Also, this was a vote for
a very specific bill, which, again, was documented in the spot. This
was not a vote ‘for the same routine bookkeeping resolutions that
everyone else had.’ To the contrary, Gresham specifically voted for a
bill that increased her legislative pension. Your assertions are flatly
incorrect, and I believe you should print a correction.”
The context of my discussion of the race for the state Senate in
District 26 between Democrat Randy Camp and Republican Dolores
Gresham was the fact that, as I saw it, in race after race, the
Democrats, who lost the state House and trail the Republicans in the
Senate now by five votes, had largely invited misfortune by depending
too heavily on negative, patently misleading advertising.
Brown’s objection is well-taken in two particulars: 1) that, as he
says, mailers sent out by the Democrats did reference the party’s
candidates’ position on “the economy, jobs, and health care”; and 2)
that the indicated pay-raise ad did not claim that Gresham had voted
for an increase multiple times, only a single time.
That’s as far as I can go in crediting Brown’s objections, however.
As he acknowledges, the 2006 vote that the anti-Gresham ad references
was in two parts — a main bill that passed the House by the
nearly unanimous margin of 86-1 and an amendment to it that was so
uncontroversial as to pass by acclamation. Moreover, the
bill-cum-amendment did no more than adjust legislative pensions to
cost-of-living increases.
Given the fact that, of members present, only one member of the
House, Harry Tindall (D-Knoxville), voted against the measure
while another, Stacey Campfield (R-Knoxville), was recorded as
“present, not voting,” it is obvious that it enjoyed virtually
universal support across party lines and that it was as close to a pro
forma “routine bookkeeping resolution” as ever comes before the
legislature.
Moreover, to contend, as Brown does, that a pension is “pay” is a
stretch, and his subsequently made points that the amendment component
of the bill was introduced on the floor by a Republican and was
discussed out loud would seem to be irrelevant.
Brown also takes exception to my having noted that official
Democratic Party statements attempted misleadingly to saddle write-in
candidate Rosalind Kurita, a Democrat who had significant
Republican help, with support for a state income tax solely because she
was financially backed by former Republican governor Don
Sundquist. (For the record, Kurita was resolutely opposed to
Sundquist’s income tax proposals as a senator.)
Brown’s response to that is something of a nolo contendere. After
acknowledging that “we hit Kurita on Sundquist because Sundquist gave
her campaign contributions,” he amplifies on that later by claiming
that Republicans often have made unfairly sweeping allegations
concerning Democratic support for an income tax (a point well taken),
so that “[w]e pushed back by pointing out that Republicans were taking
campaign contributions from Don Sundquist, the father of the state
income tax; however, other than press releases and a few automated
calls, this was never a major piece of our messaging.”
I’ll let that statement speak for itself.
I appreciate Brown’s polite and responsive way of dealing with
points made both in my column and in e-mails to him. In defending his
party’s electoral strategy, ex post facto, he’s arguably doing what a
dedicated party spokesperson should be doing.
However, I stand by my original proposition that state Democrats
lost ground in the election at least partly because of reliance on
negative and misleading advertising. Granted, numerous Republican ads
were equally offending. But, if anything, Brown’s response seems to me
to confirm my original argument.
• In a ceremony on Monday, Kemp Conrad, winner of a
special election to succeed Scott McCormick, now president of the
Plough Foundation, was sworn in as the newest member of the City
Council.