Local Politics

Voters are motivated by many things, but among them two principal factors drive people to the polls: anger over something someone has done or fear of something someone might do. That’s why a political candidate running against the…
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Feeling more uncomfortable by the minute, I sat in a major bank’s executive dining room with a newly-elected political officeholder. As an advisor to campaigns and candidates, I attended at the winner’s invitation. As flattery-laced praise…
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The crowd is gathered as The Walking Politically Dead conducts his funeral march across the room. When TWPD mounts the scaffold - or rather, stage - there are a few calls from the crowd, but the mood is mostly somber.  At times, there is…
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For every action there is a reaction, and in the public arena an emotional reaction often achieves a policy overreaction. Bullying in schools is just such an emotional subject. It seems an easy call to demand officials “do something” about…
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The Tennessee Democratic establishment has the potential in 2018 to “resist” its way into continuing its decades-long slow sinking. The evidence? As of this writing the TDP’s website’s home page urges visitors to “Join the Resistance,” the…
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The number of people who make decisions about who leads the city of Knoxville is getting smaller all the time, which means that the number of people who decide everything for everyone in Knoxville is getting smaller all the time as well.…
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A cardinal rule of political campaigning is to define yourself before your opponent defines you. The campaign for the Republican gubernatorial nomination offers an object lesson for political candidates and would-be candidates: Take care…
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The reaction among Republicans locally to those three words extends from, “Darn right,” to, “Can’t see it,” to the most important three words of all in a statewide campaign: “Where’s the money?” Burchett, Knox County’s mayor, is…
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Gov. Bill Haslam isn’t ruling out a U.S. Senate race somewhere down the political road. He isn’t ruling one in, either. Yet. But if he wants to stay in elected office he doesn’t have many options. As with oxygen, the political options…
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For Tennessee Democrats, it was the same old, same old result: the 2016 elections saw the state overwhelmingly vote for Donald Trump for president and increase the GOP’s margin to 74 seats in the state’s 99-member House of Representatives.…
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