Hmmmm. Seems like Lamar is pretty cozy with Democrats. I would not be bragging about an endorsement from the Marxist Tennessean. Bryant is too good of a guy and loyal party member to hit Lamar with the volumnes of "insider" deals. I doubt that I could have held back.
I will always remember this hideous picture from last year. Lamar seems to have a gleam in his eye as if saying "Al, you are the man!"
Bryant tells voters only his record can withstand attacks
By ROB JOHNSON Staff Writer
MURFREESBORO — Ed Bryant's town-square sweep through Middle Tennessee yesterday featured old-fashioned get-out-the-vote appeals, coupled with warnings that his rival may be politically vulnerable in the post-Enron age.
The U.S. congressman from Henderson faces former Tennessee Gov. Lamar Alexander in tomorrow's Republican primary. The men have drawn sharp lines between themselves, with Bryant casting himself as the conservative standard bearer of Tennessee Republicanism, while trying to paint Alexander as the candidate whose time has passed.
He repeated that theme yesterday as he trekked to Hendersonville, Mt. Juliet, Murfreesboro, Franklin, Columbia and Clarksville. Accompanying him on the trail yesterday was Arzo Carson, the man who headed the TBI when Alexander was governor.
Carson told a gathering of Murfreesboro Republicans how in the general election Democrat Bob Clement would target Alexander, who has grown wealthy serving on corporate boards.
Carson likened the Democratic congressman to a race-car driver who is sizing up the leader's weaknesses. ''They're stalking Lamar Alexander,'' said Carson, referring to Democrats. ''They're setting him up right now. They're saying, 'We're going to go after his record.' And the record is going to be the enrichment of himself.''
A Bryant-Clement campaign would be a race on the two congressmen's records. Not so if Alexander is the GOP nominee, Carson said. He specifically mentioned stock that Alexander's wife, Honey, held in a prison management company in the mid-1980s, when the state was struggling to house its prisoners.
Alexander, then governor, proposed privatizing part of Tennessee's prison industry while Honey Alexander held $5,500 in stock in the relatively new Corrections Corporation of America. CCA didn't get a contract to run a Tennessee prison until Alexander had left office. To avoid a conflict, Honey Alexander had swapped the CCA stock for a closely held insurance company. She later sold that for $142,000.
Deals like that, Carson suggested, make Alexander an easy target for the Democrats in the fall. When he heard yesterday about critique from his former TBI director, Alexander managed a chuckle. ''Well, I put him in charge of (the TBI), so I'm surprised he thinks that,'' Alexander said.
After Carson's brief talk to the Rutherford County gathering, Bryant entered the room, but he soon picked up the corporate theme.
Alexander, he said, preferred less stringent regulations against corporate executives, such as those at Enron and WorldCom, who might try to commit multimillion-dollar frauds against shareholders and employees.
''It's no longer good enough just to put these people in jail,'' Bryant said. The aim should be to prevent such frauds from taking place again, he said. He told the room that Alexander said earlier this summer that the markets and existing laws would largely take care of any wrongdoing.
That's not enough, Bryant said.
''We Republicans do believe in some regulation,'' Bryant said. Among the voters, the corporate accountability issue ''is foaming, brewing out there.''
In Chattanooga, Alexander said later yesterday, ''My view is that, number one, the Congress, through its new law, has taken some important steps to penalize corporate fraud. Two, we ought to more vigorously enforce the laws we've got. Three, our focus should be on retirement accounts, helping to make sure that people who have their life savings in 401(k)s aren't penalized by corporate managers who are raiding the treasury
''Finally, I said the marketplace itself is going to provide many of the penalties. You have CEOs testifying and accountants indicted and boards of directors reviewing their procedures. All that's already happened, and that may have the greatest effect of all on the system.''
For the most part, Bryant's stops yesterday were cordial, short visits with clusters of devoted supporters. He told them that he was confident he'd win, that he'd carry some counties in the Republicans' East Tennessee strongholds and carry those votes through to a victory in his native West Tennessee.
In Franklin, Republican Magi Gillogly acknowledged that she likes ''both Ed and Lamar personally.''
''But I'm for Ed. He's more conservative. He's very serious about the military and foreign affairs. That's the kind of candidate we need.''