Newscoma

Tennessee politics can be a very interesting thing. This year we have seen the Jason Mumpower/Kent Williams hootenanny, a crowded race for governor on both sides of the spectrum (I’m not talking about that one) and this week’s hokey pokey with the announcement of John Tanner citing he wasn’t going to run for another term, thus ending two decades in Washington.

Freddy Freddie O’Connell wrote today about Roy Herron throwing his hat into the congressional race and I do think it’s because he always wanted to run for the 8th. It’s been pretty much common knowledge around “these parts” for a long time as I wrote about earlier this week. I sat at a middle school basketball game last night and even folks who could care less about politics where talking about this. (Always remember, you will meet real voters at things like this. Nine times out of 10, if you are at a community event, a coffee shop or even a bar, you are going to hear what people are really thinking and they honestly only care about the election when it gets into the meat of it.)  The overall theme was that Roy has wanted to run for that seat for a long time. No one was really surprised that he went for it within hours of John Tanner’s retirement presser.

Now onto the primary as I’ve been thinking about it and talking to other political junkies here in Hoots where we’ve discussed this. You know, this race is going to have four primary television markets and I do believe that the national GOP is watching this carefully. You are going to have Nashville, Memphis, Jackson and add into the mix a bit of WPSD in Paducah which is a huge source in the upper corner here in northwest Tennessee. Two small markets and two huge television markets which are going to add up to some big dough-re-mi. That is most likely going to be on the mind of anyone even thinking about getting into the primary race.

One thing that John Tanner did very selflessly is give a one-year’s notice because whoever runs in this primary is going to have to have some jack. Already there is talk of a Dr. Ron Kirkland seeking the GOP slot out of Jackson. Other candidates names being tossed around for the Dems are Philip Pinion, Doug Jackson, Judy Barker and Mary Kate Ridgeway (and in the spirit of disclosure, I used to work for her husband, Don, when I was a program coordinator at NWTEDC.) More names will pop up in the next few days, I’m sure. The domino effect will also be into play regarding the 24th state senate seat. Who will seek the 24th if Roy were to win? If that person is already in office, and as an example of Barker/Jackson who haven’t decided yet to run or Mark Maddox who says he won’t seek John’s seat, who will seek their office if that scenario were to come to fruition? I’m thinking long term here, of course. And I’m not really talking about Jimmy Naifeh because I just don’t know if seeking this seat at 70 years-old is going to happen. Who knows? Willie Herenton says he will run against Steve Cohen, so one never knows a definitive answer with those two guys.

No one wants to talk about money for campaign races during economic times like these. And with this one getting national attention, you can bet the  parties in Washington are observing carefully what what is being said around the state. I also believe, because of the 8th’s high visibility, that we are going to see Mainstream Media more involved in this race. Sometimes they get involved, other times they don’t. As of this morning and since Tuesday, there were more than 300 news stories on Google talking about Tanner. He is a co-creator of the Blue Dog Democrats. He has the NATO thing going on. This time, I think you are going to hear a lot of traditional press.

The bottom line in this early time in the game is that this race is going to take a great deal of funding, it’s going to get a lot of attention and those Republicrats that tended to vote for Tanner (and they did) are going to be weighing their vote more heavily because this area has suffered huge job losses in recent history which is much of what I’m hearing being discussed. Tanner is what they knew and although not everyone adored him, he was well liked creating almost a new brand of voters for those in the middle who weren’t tied to a party line all the time for the past 20 years.

With what appears might be a crowded field on both sides, it’s going to take a lot of cash to get attention to win that seat.

It sounds like John Tanner is pissed.

In trying to woo wavering Republicans with a revised version of the bill, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and her Senate counterparts risked souring the moderate Democrats she can’t afford to lose. The bill the Senate passed included a $100 billion extension of unrelated tax benefits — provisions like tax breaks for business R&D and alternative energy and money to prevent more Americans from being hit by the Alternative Minimum Tax — that the Blue Dogs have fought for years. This increasingly powerful bunch of Democrats isn’t opposed to tax cuts, but they are against passing them without offsetting the costs with spending cuts.

Not surprisingly, the Blue Dogs aren’t too happy about being put in such an awkward position. “I am so thoroughly disgusted with the Senate this morning,” said Rep. John Tanner, chairman of the Blue Dogs, who originally voted for the bailout but now is undecided on the package. “It is just breathtakingly hypocritical for them, particularly the minority leader in the Senate, to claim that this is their finest hour and they’re sending us the bill here and we’ve got to make some tough decisions.”

When Tanner talks about financial crises, he means not just the credit crunch on Wall Street but the massive deficits breaking the back of the federal government. For Blue Dogs, if there’s a silver lining to the crisis that has shaken the financial markets, it’s that it has highlighted problems they have been warning about for several years; their gripe is that the supposed solution now includes the same out-of-control pork barrel spending that they have been decrying. “The way I see it, the bailout forced us to go into the flooded basement and pump out the water,” says Rep. Jim Cooper, a Tennessee Blue Dog, “and while we’re down there we see there’s termites everywhere.”

He voted for it. Now he’s undecided.

Let’s see how this is going to play out.

Let’s start with this:

In a letter that will be sent to Pelosi and Boehner, the Blue Dogs, led in this case by Rep. John Tanner (D-Tenn.), are calling for a future tax to be imposed on financial services companies if taxpayers lose money on the bailout package.

Tanner pitched the idea at a Blue Dog meeting on Wednesday, and again at a House Democrat Caucus on Thursday. Tanner is circulating a draft letter to Pelosi, Boehner, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) and Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.). The proposal will only become an official Blue Dog policy position if two-thirds of the group supports it, a threshold that hasn’t been reached yet.

Tanner and other Blue Dogs see this provision as an “insurance policy” for taxpayers, and it would amount to a 2 percent “fee” on taxable income of financial services firms.

“Prudent investors protect themselves when making high-risk investments. The taxpayer is essentially being asked to make a high-risk investment to provide much needed liquidity to the financial markets. As stewards of the taxpayer’s money, we should insure against any potential losses that might result from this action. For these reasons, we feel it is imperative Congress include a recoupment clause in TARP [Troubled Assets Relief Policy],” the Blue Dogs said in a draft letter to Pelosi, Boehner and Senate leaders. TARP is the formal name of the Wall Street bailout package.

I have to give a hat tip to Jon for this one, who writes this:

The Blue Dogs are really good to have around on an issue like this, and I might even say they’re the ideal people to look to here for leadership — representatives of the conservative taxpayer who nonetheless recognize that doing nothing isn’t an option, and aren’t inflexibly bound by a rigid dogma that retards their ideas.

Jon and I agree that this really is the only time we agree with the Blue Dogs philosophy because on how they vote on other issues.

We are going to bail out Wall Street. There isn’t any getting around it although the thought that this is happening on my version of Main Street, we will be doing it anyway. People are hurting everywhere and if one, and I mean, ONE, Wall Street exec gets a bonus for bad behavior, the local sheriff is just going to have to come and get me as I will be stopping traffic in the road.

With that said, I want oversights. I don’t want blank checks. And I want the little guys to be recognized.

I have to be accountable with the bank. So should the government and Wall Street.

Oh, no.

I wish my congressman hadn’t voted this way.

I need to think about this.

Vibinc also wrote this:

In the spring of 2007 MTSU conducted a poll that showed that only 29% of Tennesseans support the current policy on Iraq. Since that time (John) Tanner and (Jim) Cooper have consistently voted against any funding bill that would call for troop withdrawal. I hope that Tanner and Cooper will reconsider their votes, or at least explain them so we might better understand, or elect someone who is more willing to represent the will of the people in their districts.

I’m honestly saddened by Tanner’s vote here.  I would also like to have Tanner explain to us why he voted the way he voted.

So it would make sense to me and other people who live in his district.