Posted on 01/23/2012 12:13:57 PM PST by SmithL
Gannett Newspaper - Link Only:
http://www.tennessean.com/article/20120123/NEWS02/301230034/Gingrich-win-puts-TN-play-decide-Republican-nomination?odyssey=tab|topnews|text|FRONTPAGE
pingalingalump
Well!! That means my vote might reallly matter this time around. Previously the issue was pretty much decided by our primary.
But then there is lamar, bob and bill ........ severe moderates and likely Mitt supporters.
Tennessee doesn’t actually like real conservatives.
We’ll be doing good if we get Newt in
I’ll be all over that...
When is the TN primary? ... and can someone post a synopsis of why this paper claims it might be critically important? (I don’t want to give a hit to any Gannett organization due to their policy of no excerpt at all.)
We are a primary state not a caucus and we vote on Super Tuesday [March 6 this year?].
TN people actually thought Howard Baker was a conservative. You can never be sure about them.
Howard Baker might not have ever been elected in 1966 had the Democrats not had an ugly internecine battle royale between Sen. Ross Bass (who had just won the short term in 1964) and Gov. Frank Clement. Clement prevailed, but at a great cost, as he would lose to Baker (Baker had lost to Ross in ‘64). Clement would never win office again, dying in a car accident in North Nashville in ‘69 right before he was to run for the Governorship once more in 1970.
Baker’s opponents were ostensibly to his left — although as a Congressman, his 1972 opponent, Ray Blanton, wasn’t that left-wing, even if he turned out to be a world-class felon from the corrupt West TN Democrat mafia (whose last remaining legislative members, including ex-Speaker Naifeh, we’re about to sack this year). His 1978 opponent was a liberal woman named Jane Eskind from the country-club set in Nashville (I believe she is Jewish, and had been a formerly liberal Republican Yankee carpetbagger). TN Dems had dreams for years she’d be Governor or President (never to be).
Baker’s dumbest move was quitting at the height of his power and influence in 1984 when he was Majority Leader, paving the way for Al Gore, Jr., after Baker pushed a sacrificial lamb RINO successor. Then again, like his old-time opponent Frank Clement, he really thought he could get elected President. Fortunately, we were never treated to that spectacle (nor of Gore).
If Howard Baker wanted to be elected president, why would he retire from the Senate in 1984? He had lost the nomination to Reagan in 1980, and would have to wait until 1988 to run for president, so why not just run for reelection in 1984 and run for president while a Senate incumbent (and, if he lost again, he could always run for reelection again in 1990).
My theory is that Baker retired from the Senate because he wanted to make some money.
Maybe he thought running from the Senate wasn’t a good idea (as he ran while serving as Minority Leader). I’m still not very happy with what both he and Lamar! did for TN Republicans, which left us in a terrible mess for a decade. Lamar! literally refused to run for Baker’s seat in ‘84 (which he could’ve won). With those two out (and with Bill Brock having moved to Maryland), we were left with only 3 other Republicans statewide (2 being elderly, Quillen in the 1st and John Duncan, Sr. in the 2nd, and Sundquist) and not much to speak of in the legislature (even the GOP House leader was a country-clubber liberal RINO). Baker even ran his rather liberal daughter, Cissy, in 1982 for the House (where she got clobbered by a twentysomething Jim Cooper).
The Democrats, conversely, had a potential deep bench/farm team for all the offices for years to come. Had then-Gov Lamar! run and won for the Senate in ‘84, Gore would’ve had nowhere to go. The Conservative Democrat Lt Gov John Wilder would’ve inherited the Governorship (and had there ended up a nasty battle for the full-term between him, House Spkr. Ned McWherter, and perhaps even Gore himself, it would’ve probably handed the Governorship back to ex-GOP Gov. Winfield Dunn in ‘86). Gore, as an ex-Congressman, would then never have been chosen for VP.
Hard to believe now a quarter-century later and the “elder statesman” is Jim Cooper (who will never be able to move up to a higher office) and the only other Dem remaining is the ultraleft anti-Christian bigot Steve Cohen (excluding Bredesen, despite being pushed by some Dems to run for the Senate against Corker, knows he’d probably lose and doesn’t want to waste his money — or to end up serving in the minority). TN Dems will now be about as effective as the GOP was during post-Reconstruction for many years to come (presuming the GOP doesn’t blow it, and we know how great it is at doing just that).
I think it’s great that Republicans are doing so well in Tennessee. It’s just too bad that they can’t get conservatives to win primaries more often. Both of the U.S. Senators seem mediocre to me.
You said a mouthful there. Both TN Senators, Alexander and Corker are milquetoast moderates.
They are mediocre (Corker being only marginally better than Lamar!). We really need closed primaries and a runoff to assure a better chance at getting a Conservative nominee. The other problem is that these RINO candidates are usually the most filthy rich and buy their nominations (Lamar!; Corker; Haslam). Haslam is a Willardbot, one reason I steadfastly refused to vote for him either in the primary or general. He’d like to be a LOT more liberal than he currently is, but because the GOP legislature could override any attempts to move that way (a veto pen is useless, since a simple majority can override), he has to stay more to the right of center. Lt. Gov. Ron Ramsey is probably more influential running the Senate than had he ascended to Governor. I’d prefer someone more Conservative than Beth Harwell as House Speaker (she also endorsed Willard).
Funny, I was glancing at Tennessee Senate elections on David Leip’s site the other day and noticed Lamar!’s 2002 election race. He actually lost a lot of Central and West TN counties to Clement, and only really did great in Eastern TN, Williamson County, and to my surprise, he actually won Memphis’ Shelby County. Given how close Corker’s election turned out to be, and how much better Thompson and Frist did in 1994, it really shows TN will respond better to conservatives than RINOs any day of the week.
Although one exception was the RINO Bill Haslam obliterated the son of Democrat ex-Gov. Ned McWherter in 2010 for Governor (carrying 94 out of 99 counties). I mulled casting a protest vote for McWherter, but opted for a third-party candidate.
As for Corker, there looked for a time he would lose the general election (frankly, I believed he was a RINO ringer for Junior Ford, a la McCain vs. Zero). Only after Junior’s huge gaffe of trying to crash a Corker event (where his goal was to have two big White bodyguards toss him out so he could look like the “victim” of racism, instead having Corker come out to meet him personally, shake his hand, and making Junior look like a complete idiot), did the election turn around.
Oops... should read Haslam carried 90 out of 95 counties.
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