Don McLeary of Jackson announced today that he will seek the Republican nomination in the race for state Senate District 27.

So the Jackson Sun is reporting that he announced his running in the republican primary.

This should be interesting.

And by interesting I mean something else entirely.

Then Lowe Finney beat him in the November 2006 elections. I’ve written about McLeary several times over the years here, here, here and here.

The story is interesting. It’s actually fair on a lot of levels but the thing I’ve said since McLeary made the jump, lost the race and then decided to run against Harris for the Madison County Mayor’s slot is that you aren’t really going to know who your friends are because are you their friend. When you do the sort of whirlwind dance that McLear has done on the local political scene, you make enemies. The story says this:

The same convictions that got him to the state Senate are also what drove him to cast a career-devastating vote against a partisan colleague.

And the convictions that led McLeary to switch parties and give his one-time allies time to groom his replacement in Nashville are the same ones that pushed him to become a surprise candidate for county mayor in the Feb. 5 Republican primary.So far, that run has been met with reluctant support and criticism from some one-time backers, who say challenging interim Madison County Mayor Jimmy Harris should not be McLeary’s battle.

Still, McLeary maintains he has the experience and eagerness to cull the best from a mostly powerless position.

But he also admits that if he loses in February, there won’t be much ability to run left in his legs.

McLeary should have let the fervor die down over his convictions (and I’m sure he has them but I still think that’s the weakest part of the story by the Sun. My first post written about him was called Actions Create Reactions. Two years later, I think I was right on this.) He should have waited before seeking another elected seat if he wanted to stay in public office. I’m not knocking his convictions, I’m knocking his decisions because they were very poorly thought out.

It was dumb politics.

Finney has the Senate seat, most likely, as long as he wants it. The Harris race is a different creature, but he is the incumbent (I admit openly I don’t know a ton about him other than what I’ve read.)

Trust is important in politics because it’s hard to discern. And in partisan politics, loyalty is everything.

The question no one is asking is McLeary loyal to his party and to those voters who put him in the Senate or is he loyal to his own objectives.  Because the voters put McLeary in Nashville as a democrat.

And they took him out.

Just saying.

I want to be the people’s mayor,” McLeary said.

Yeah, but your competition is the guy that helped you switch parties.

Harris responded in a telephone interview that he had been “a very big supporter and contributor” to McLeary’s campaign last year. McLeary had been a Democrat but switched to the Republican party during his re-election bid to the District 27 state senate seat.

He lost the election to Jackson attorney Lowe Finney, a Democrat.

He’ll start his campaign bang-shang-lang next month:

McLeary said he and his family will begin campaigning Monday with a 60- to 70-stop tour of Madison County. Harris said Lt. Gov. Ron Ramsey will headline his Christmas campaign kickoff event at 5 p.m. Dec. 11 at the Old English Inn.

Current Madison County Mayor Jimmy Harris must be growling mad.

Mr. Mcleary, you aren’t going to have a friend of the world by the end of 2008 if you keep this up.

I told you this would continue.