Monday saw Harold Ford Jr. take one step back from active
involvement in Tennessee politics and one step forward.
The former Memphis congressman formally removed himself from the
Tennessee gubernatorial sweepstakes for 2010, urging his supporters “to
align with one of the other Democrats running.” On the same day,
Tennessee Democratic chairman Chip Forrester announced that Ford
will be the keynote speaker at the party’s annual Jackson Day Dinner on
May 30th in Franklin.
Ford’s announcement of noncandidacy ends several months of
uncertainty in Democratic ranks about his intentions and, as his
statement indicated, freed up the prospects for other potential
candidates and for the donors and supporters who had so far held back
from committing to a candidate.
The Democrats who have thus far indicated their intention to run are
state senator Roy Herron of Dresden, Nashville businessman
Ward Cammack, and former state House majority leader Kim
McMillan of Clarksville. Among those still considering their
options are businessman Mike McWherter of Jackson, the son of
former Gov. Ned McWherter; state senator Andy Berke of
Chattanooga; and state Senate Democratic leader Jim Kyle of
Memphis.
Republicans so far in the race include District Attorney General
Bill Gibbons of Memphis; Mayor Bill Haslam of Knoxville;
3rd District congressman Zach Wamp of Chattanooga; and Lt.
Governor Ron Ramsey of Blountville.
In his statement of noncandidacy, made via an e-mail to a network of
potential supporters, Ford said pointedly, “There will be another race
and time to ask for your support.” And he offered this rebuff to the
rival GOP: “Our Republican friends running for Governor will run
predictably narrow campaigns that are out of sync with the time we live
in and the challenges we face. They will ignore the economic hardship
and uncertainty confronting an overwhelming number of Tennessee
businesses and families in favor of focusing on issues like attacking
President Obama and other national Democrats.”
That drew a quick response from state GOP publicist Bill
Hobbs, who characterized Ford’s statement as “a bitter and false
attack,” took note of Republican victories in last fall’s legislative
races in Tennessee, and maintained that it was Ford and the Democrats
who were “out of touch.”
Ford’s scheduled address at the Jackson Day Dinner gives him an
opportunity to reaffirm his presence as a force in state politics. He
concluded his statement, “I will continue teaching at Vanderbilt
University, speaking and writing on major issues, and serving as
chairman of the Democratic Leadership Council.”
The former congressman made no mention of his involvement with Bank
of America, which last year bought and incorporated another Ford
employer, the Merrill Lynch brokerage, for which Ford had served as a
speaker and rainmaker, but presumably that relationship, too,
continues.
• Shelby County mayor A C Wharton, whose campaign has a
major “unity breakfast” scheduled for early next month, is still the
odds-on favorite for the 2011 city mayor’s race, but the number of his
potential opponents, declared and undeclared, seems to be growing.
In the “certain-to-run” category is former City Council member
Carol Chumney, who hasn’t really stopped running since the end
of her last mayoral race in 2007. Among the maybes are City Council
chairman Myron Lowery and city court clerk Thomas
Long.
And there’s yet another officeholder, Shelby County commissioner
James Harvey, a Democrat who insists he’s serious about running
for city mayor against Wharton in 2011. “He’s a good friend, but I’m
going to send his ass home,” joked Harvey after a commission committee
session last week.
Harvey, of course, is less interested in defeating Wharton or any
other potential candidate than in getting himself elected. But his
jesting remark is an indication that all is not necessarily hunky-dory
for the mayor on the county’s legislative body. Here and there one
picks up signs of discontent that could inconvenience Wharton in
2011.
Another commissioner, Republican Mike Ritz, explored the
matter in a conversation last week: “He [Wharton] has less in the way
of a working relationship with the commission than any mayor in
memory.”
As Ritz sees it: “Bill Morris could get people together and make
them come up with solutions, regardless of political differences. He
was hands-on. Jim Rout had been a commissioner himself, and, though he
wasn’t as apt as Morris was in shaping a consensus, he could put
together a working coalition. But A C is different. He can make
speeches, but he doesn’t do any of the behind-the-scenes work, the
one-on-one stuff that could get people to agree or come together on
policy.”
• The Shelby County Commission’s resolve to prod the General
Assembly’s Republicans into action on the county’s agenda started out
with a bang at last Wednesday’s meeting of the commission’s legislative
committee but concluded in something of a whimper.
Commission chair Deidre Malone had asked commission members
to contact members of the Shelby delegation for action to counter what
she and others, mainly Democrats but including Republican commissioner
Mike Carpenter, had termed willful obstructionism by GOP
legislators angry at the commission’s recent appointment of Democrat
Matt Kuhn to fill a vacancy for a District 4 commissom seat that
has historically been Republican.
Several commissioners, notably J.W. Gibson and Steve
Mulroy, said they had been told explicitly by Republican members of
the Shelby delegation that inaction on the county’s legislative agenda
was a direct response to the Kuhn appointment. Republican commissioner
Ritz offered the notion that in the past a Democrat-controlled
legislature had stymied the agenda of a GOP-dominated commission. “Now
the shoe is kicking the other way,” he said, proposing to “let the
situation take care of itself.”
That was a minority sentiment, however. After various commissioners
made strong statements of resolve to “go public” about the impasse in
an effort to end it (“by any means necessary,” said legislative
committee chair Henri Brooks), Malone proposed that the
commission organize a campaign of e-mails, phone calls, and other
communications by members of the public.
All that was headed off at the pass, however, by city lobbyist
Dottie Jones, who noted that one of the county’s bills had begun
to move out of committee and that, as she saw it, the situation was
improving: “It may be time for us to calm a little bit and see if what
we’ve done today is actually working.”
Jones’ testimony effectively braked further action. Malone agreed to
hold up on her proposed campaign but said the committee should continue
to monitor the situation and be prepared to step up the pressure again
if need be.
• The commission coalition which has consistently opposed a
variety of measures that would either have facilitated Bass Pro’s
takeover of the Pyramid or surrendered the county’s financial interest
in the facility to the city is still alive. Five commissioners said no
Monday to a resolution which would have accepted $3.5 million from the
city for its total control of the Pyramid and another $5 million in
previously withheld funds as the city’s share of Health Department
support.
The measure required a two-thirds majority and failed when
Commissioner Joyce Avery, expressing misgivings about the
arrangement, joined an opposition group of four other commissioners
— Mike Ritz, Steve Mulroy, Wyatt Bunker, and George
Flinn.
• U.S. senator Bob Corker is concerned about what he sees as
increasing government intervention in the economy. That was a major
theme of his in the course of an extended visit to Memphis on Monday
and Tuesday.
As Corker expressed it Tuesday to a breakfast meeting of the Shelby
County Chambers of Commerce Alliance at the Homebuilders headquarters,
the trend was evident even in the last days of the Bush administration
but had accelerated “in the last 60 to 90 days,” as the Obama
administration’s stimulus program took shape.
In a brief interview session with reporters after his remarks,
Corker remained critical of the administration’s recent series of
actions in relation to the automobile industry, including the de facto
firing of General Motors’ CEO. “It’s all politics,” he said. But he
defended his own efforts to protect the interests of the GM plant at
Spring Hill in Tennessee in preference to maintenance of the
corporation’s plants elsewhere.
“If these decisions are made based on the plants that are the best
assets for General Motors, then I’m convinced that Spring Hill will
survive,” Corker said. “So what I’ve continued to do is just try to
say, please, let the company make decisions that are in the best
interest of the company. Let’s don’t let politics enter into this
decision.”
