Newscoma

I’m noticing a lot of shuffling and information going statewide regarding the race in District 8. That’s all fine and good. We have John Farmer seeking the seat again, and being that he really had no money in the last race, he didn’t do too shabby. There is another farmer apparently anointed by the NRCC, according to reports, from Frog Jump hitting the campaign trail.

Of course, we also have Dr. Ron Kirkland, Roy Herron and possibly Philip Pinion.

I’m finding the Fighting 8th is getting a lot of scrutiny, not only statewide but nationally. It’s a big deal. There is going to lot of money spent this year because you are looking at major markets that will get a lot of ad revenue. From the outskirts of Memphis to Clarksville, that’s a lot of doors to knock on and a lot of ground to cover.

Here is my hope though when it comes to this race. Just a quick message to those in the race if you will. I live here, so one of those votes is mine.

Remember what the 8th District needs right now. We are in a recession, job creation is a biggie and it’s important that a lot of grandstanding not take place, but an honest discussion on bringing industry to the area. People have gone from decent salaries in the last few years to part-time jobs they are damned glad to have because the manufacturing age for this district is over. Part-time doesn’t necessarily mean you are going to be financially able to keep your house, if you know what I mean and I think you do.

Times are hard. They are. It’s a fact. And for some, options of changing this economic landscape are limited. So, accuracy is crucial, especially when so many nationally are looking for some kind of political drama here.

And they are. We know that.

I realize this is going to be a political battlefield in the coming months, but there are real people living here with real problems. Be mindful of that, have a plan and remember that there is a human being behind each vote that each of you are seeking.

That is my wish. So bring it, and the Fighting 8th, which has turned into an unknown factor at this point, is watching. Most folks could care less who gets the slot, they just need solutions.

And they needed them yesterday.

We entered the house for our last Christmas luncheon of 2009 yesterday and was greeted with a man holding some sort of gun. I don’t know much about guns but I do know that my eyes opened ever so slightly. It was a fancy one and the first words out of his mouth were “Do you like it?”

I nodded. What are going to say to a guy holding some sort of semi-automatic weapon in his own living room?

A black Lab puppy came out to greet me by immediately nibbling on my ankle. I was fine with that. He was a fine young canine and it made me laugh later when he decided that he would pee as his human trying to get him out the door leaving a tiny trail of urine that spanned about 10 feet. Puppies can get away with stuff like this and there is nothing cuter than a rowdy Lab pup.

The television was set on a show about Sturgis and the guy being highlighted was originally from Trimble which is roughly a town the size of a napkin here in the west of the state who currently lives in Dyersburg the rest of the year. Our hosts were fascinated with his dreadlocks, which didn’t really translate favorably on a middle-aged white guy.  I liked them anyway on Michael Ballard who had made Harleys and the subculture of that particular pastime his business in a state thousands of miles away. (When my hair gets particularly wind-blown, I’m a middle-aged chick with dreads, so I understand completely.) He owns the world’s largest biker bar called Full Throttle and has a reality show on TruTv right now.

Who knew? Not I although I did find it to be fascinating. Apparently our hosts knew of the family of Ballard. The world is a little place, campers and this was entrepreneurship at its finest.

In this small farm located in an unincorporated community called Mason Hall, which is a name that has a lot of charm quite frankly, we discussed the Fightin’ 8th for awhile. Less than 30 minutes up the road from Hoots, you will find you enter cotton country, although the harvest is gone although small bits of white can be seen lying abandoned on the side of the road.

When folks find out what I do, and the fact that the lady who is a schoolteacher and Squirrely’s aunt has been to this blog, they asked a fair question.

“Was John (we call our politicians by our first names here) just tired or did he just not want to run a hard race?”

I told her I didn’t know.

“Political spin is an odd beast. He has a sick grandchild. He’s a blue dog in a world where politics are changing. No one truly knows the real reason why he said he was done although people keep speculating about it,” I said. “And no one knows what’s going to happen in 2010. People can pontificate about it all day long, but next year is going to be like something we’ve never seen before. And it depends because it’s us voting on who we think is going to represent us the best in Washington. It’s new ground.”

My hosts agreed and of course the thing on their minds was jobs as it tends to be the case when you talk to regular folks. Their memories are long when it comes to their own backyard’s political history.

“I just want them to remember us,” she said. “I don’t think that’s happening very much lately.”

“We don’t have a four-lane between Kenton and Union City,” her husband added. “I think that was a Don Sundquist punishment because our area didn’t vote for him. I guess I’m speculating too just like those pundits you mentioned, but roads are the only way we get business. Ned knew that. Sundquist didn’t care.”

And with that, I agreed. Ned gets first name status because folks liked him. Sundquist doesn’t. It’s a part of the Hoots culture, as I’ve said before. There usually aren’t kind words for former governor Sundquist from moderates in northwest Tennessee. Happens more than it doesn’t. He was sort of a blip in the road when it comes to his political legacy here which got me thinking about the Fightin’ 8th.

We don’t want who is elected here to treat any of us like we are disposable. And that’s the key to winning the Fightin’ 8th.

You see, there are church-going folks here, there are bikers and farmers, students, small business owners and much more. Hell, there are folks like me and I’m hella hard to label. The stereotypes are so false that sometimes they make my teeth hurt. This day, I was met with a Harley-riding, pecan farmer, former charter pilot, who owns a Winnebago who is traveling during his retirement and loves Labradors like you would a child. Last week, I was with hippie students, a contractor, real estate agents, a history prof, an entomologist who was telling me how cool bugs are, a gently rabid, yet thoughtful, Republican and a man that runs a country ham place all in the same room.

You can’t pin us down. If you do, we roll our eyes at you.

The farm was located in a place here outside of Kenton, the White Squirrel Capital of the World, although I saw no white squirrels that day. I have to say I know that they exist but I have never seen one in that particular location. The grain bins, however, were huge and I thought about stopping and taking pictures as I think grain bins have an elegant, practical sort of beauty. The wind, however, was cold and unforgiving so we opted to just head home.

There are different people who live outside the cities of this state. I told my friend Leslie not too long ago that it’s the subcultures that fascinate me. Not everyone is the same and that’s what makes these things sort of incredible.

As for our host with the gun and the black Lab, he gave us a huge bag of pecans as we headed out the door harvested from the grove on his farm.

You never know what to expect.

Well, the Nashville Post has deemed it timely to write an obituary for the Tennessee Democratic Party. I find this highly amusing because there are so many times I’ve seen obituaries for these sort of things before.

Let’s remember that Abe Vigoda is still alive and kicking and I’ve read his obit dozens of times. I do like the fact that what I read of Ken Whitehouse’s article seemed to be tongue and cheek, but it did get me thinking.

I talked to Vibinc earlier today where we extolled our horror for the holidays and how we are trying our best not to be Grinch/Scrooges, or what Dan Lehr aptly named Grooges yesterday on Twitter. We talked about the party and how that change always scares the bejeezus out of folks.  John Tanner and Bart Gordon have been in office a very long time. Politics can sometimes be habit-forming. We get used to the same old dish because it’s easy to make so that’s what we eat. The idea that there might be new ideas out there isn’t that scary and, dare I say it, invigorating if you look at the glass being half-full. It just means that people are going to have to get organized, decide what they want in the TNDP and start working toward that goal.

And the TNDP needs to get it together quickly. There, I said it.

Blue Dogs, which surround me here in Hoots, are an odd breed, but those politics are what a lot of folks like here. Even the name Blue Dog has lost its initial first meanings and just fell to the wayside of being a meaningless label in recent years. But there is something that a lot of people have forgotten. At one time, they weren’t so bad. I’m a liberal, campers, but I do know that it is important to have a moderate voice.

Where the Blue Dogs messed up, in my opinion, is when they started using GOP talking points nonstop, which Vibinc and I talked about this morning. Instead of having their own message, they relayed their opponents message to either get re-elected or maybe they were weighing the winds in Washington instead of looking into their own state. When you forget to hear the voice of average Americans, that’s when the trouble starts. This is far too common.

Times are tough right now. Wedge issues are effective in avoiding other more pressing issues and that’s why they are used in politics. Avoid the facts by going after powerful emotions in our society. We weigh issues like creating jobs and industrial revitalization down with talking about things that are distractions.

There are a lot of independent voters in this state of diverse backgrounds and beliefs. Many times, people vote for the person and not the party. So the obvious answer to me is to make them WANT to vote for the party. Be it a Republicrat or a Blue Dog, who is going to be those people that enforce good will, that listen to the heartbeat of the state and who understand the average bear just wants to feed their families at night without worrying if there will be food, utilities and shelter the next day. We are in a recession folks.  These issues may not be effecting you personally, but they are there, they are real and they are frightening.

So, who’s got a plan? I bet there are plans out there, but is anybody listening?

As for the death of the democrats, I’m just not buying it today. I think we are reinventing ourselves. The best thing a democrat can do right now is act/vote like a democrat.

As for those in politics, listen to the people, don’t assume and think for them. You might learn what is really on their minds.

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.

How ’bout those Yankees?

Obviously Hoots has been a hotbed of what I like to call political “doings” the past couple of days. Since Tuesday night, I probably have talked to dozens of people talking about the domino effect of Tanner giving his one year notice. Most folks around here know Tanner so they were extremely interested in what our local blue dog was up to and the aftermath of his announcement.

I believe we are still looking at a domino effect.

Roy is out of the governor’s race which doesn’t surprise me as this action of seeking C8 has been talked about for awhile in connection with him and there are a plethora of people also making considerations which I’m sure you’ve heard about over at the Daily Kleinheider. I was watching the President speak about Afghanistan with a member of the National Guard and my friend Maxey when the news broke.

I won’t lie. We were floored as much by the timing as anything.

Other than a brief interlude when SkyhawkGirl played the accordion to cheer us up at lunch yesterday (which was awesome and much needed as I had the holiday blues the past week. Nothing will cheer you up quicker than seeing your buddy that you’ve known since high school play a polka for you) the conversation around Hoots continued all day. Here in Weakley County, we take our politics pretty seriously. It might be because we know the players and many of us are just political junkies.

I do know that this was pretty much the only conversation here which moved fast and furious.

There were questions such as “Why is John doing this?” Another one was “Why did Roy announce this so fast?” (Yes we call people by their first names here.) Both are good questions which I have no real answer to. Other questions that came to light were “What about I-69?” or “Will the next year give John time to get some things done he was working for in our area?” There was also quite a bit mentioned about the port authority project.

But the main thing was that we are looking at change here in northwest Tennessee and everyone knows it no matter what side of the political aisle they might sit on. Think about it, only three people have held that seat in half of a century. Fats Everett took the seat in 1958 after Jere Cooper died. Then Ed Jones had it from 1968 up until his retirement in 1988 when Tanner when into the office.

For 51 years, there have only been three men in that seat.

So change it will be. I’m interested to see what will happen next.

Well, maybe Chuck Norris, but that’s beside the point.

I have sat on the outskirts this weekend watching the health care debate across the nation. What I say about this will make very little impact but I can’t help but wonder why the shoutdowns keeping going on. I mean I know it’s fear of the unknown and long-term ramifications, but then again, finding out information about the particulars when there is so much derision is pretty hard to do. We are getting to the happenings of the meeting, but not the content of what is going to happen.

My niece said to my sister Homer last week, “no one wins in a headbutting contest.” She was talking about something entirely different mind you, but you can find great wisdom in the words that kids say.

For the first time in my life, I have no health insurance. Last week, my dog Duff tripped me as I was going downstairs to answer the doorbell. I fell about three steps on a very steep staircase but caught myself just in time. If, God forbid, I had broken something, let’s just say I would have been screwed. Needless to say, I’m interested in the ongoing conversation about this particular issue.

So, I watched several folks from Memphis tweeting the event live (I would have loved to have seen a live stream but apparently they didn’t have one for the event) and then read several accounts on the right and the left of what happened.

I think town hall meetings are an odd bird but necessary. Here in Hoots, after covering what seems like thousands of commission, city board and other meetings over the years, I can tell you that they can be somewhat difficult when the crowd is angry. Over the years, I learned that 90 percent of meetings will be about the most boring, inane crap that any person can stomach.

But the other 10 percent is when folks get mad. No one ever goes to a board meeting/town hall meeting when everything is rosy. They only show up when they’re pissed.

During consolidation of the high schools here in Hoots back in the early 90s, townsfolk from six schools showed up at every meeting. They wanted to know which high schools would close. And, in retrospect, they didn’t care if the other one’s closed as long at wasn’t theirs. The main weapon during that period of time here was the use of fear.

I see the same tactics, new issue, being used in the health care debate. And the bottom line is that even with folks I talk to here, many agree that changes need to be made. More people are filing bankruptcy due to paying health costs and with the combined loss of many jobs here, there is fear put into another category. The one consistent argument I’ve heard in the health care conversation is that folks are afraid they are going to lose what they are struggling for now.

Fair enough.

So, I have asked what they are afraid they are going to lose. Many of these people, actually all of them, didn’t have an answer to that question.

When I see elected officials at least trying to answer some very important questions and being shouted over when there were people who were undecided and wanted to learn, it’s disheartening.

No one can hear when people are shouting.

Answers will not be given if people are too busy screaming. Steve Cohen tried to create a forum to listen to his constituents. I think we can agree on that. I wish my rep, John Tanner, would do the same. And, instead of the conversation that should have occurred, today’s story was not about health care per se, it was about the anger and the shouting. People really do want to understand this issue better. Many of us do feel bombarded by insurance and instability.

The most comprehensive idea of what happened regarding the Memphis meeting is at Vibinc’s. And according to Jackson Baker’s account, after the chaos, Cohen actually led a pretty decent meeting where goals were discussed.

Activism, no matter what your issue is, is a great thing. I support it completely. Civil protest is fine.

Let’s remember though, not everyone blogs, not everyone has access to these bills and the American people are pretty up front of wanting to know the summary, and what are the consequences to their day-to-day lives. And as I’ve said dozens of times, some of us are a bit geographically challenged.

Sitting down and having a conversation about these things, even if we disagree, is the only way anyone is going to get an idea about what’s going on in our government in the proposals that are on the table which are laid out quite well in this article from last month from the New York Times.

It goes back to what the blonde niece said, no one wins in a headbutting contest.

And, as you know, it’s much more exciting for the media when the pitchforks come out, but I guess that’s another post for another day. No one shows up to these meetings when there isn’t controversy.

Image credit: Toothpaste for Dinner

In the midst of sounding morbid this week, it’s been a doozy. My friend Paul passed away and I went to the visitation. When I got there, his wife came to me and we talked a moment about what a wonderful man he was. But here’s the thing that was just so shocking to me that it’s taken me a few days to process it.

Her grandmother died three hours before her husband did. Paul was on one side of the funeral home, her grandmother was on the other.

Next time I whine, you are allowed to call me an asshat.

She is one of Mainstreet. In her grief, she could have given two poops about what is currently going on in Washington.

I’ve thought a lot about being in this small town. So much has happened this week and to put it in a blog post is difficult, thus this annoying autobiographical pause as I try to wrap my brain cells around it all.

Yesterday, I was in contact with one of John Tanner’s people and he told me that John voted for the bailout, I just sighed because a verbal riot ensued within the doors of the paper within just a matter of minutes once the news was given. Business people were waiting to hear.

Let’s just say, it wasn’t Tanner’s best day in the minds of some of those “Mainstreeters” that everyone keeps talking about.

So I hit the street and I heard more angry diatribes that would make my grandmother blush if she was still alive. Disillusionment and confusion followed by foul words that filled the air followed by the big question “Why?”

“There not explaining it to us,” one man said. “They just shoved it down our throats and they talk about mainstreet and saving middle class Americans but I don’t see it that way. What was Tanner thinking?”

“I lost $85,000 dollars in the past two weeks,” another man said. “I’ve been a Republican my whole life, but this isn’t a political thing. This is a matter of that I see the republic of this country destroyed.”

“I don’t have anything anyway,” one woman cited. “But it’s the principal of the matter that makes me angry.”

I tried to find someone who supported the issue and believe me, I tried.

I didn’t find one.

Not one, and I went to several places. Not one “Mainstreeter” I talked to supported this measure.

Not one.

And I talked to dozens.

In this day of instant information, we have none. We hear catchphrases but very little valid explanation on why. The failure lies with our elected officials not listening.

And as I referenced at the beginning of this post, day-to-day life goes on. There isn’t a choice.

But to reflect these words that are floating around the ‘tubes right now:

Dear Con. John Tanner,
As a taxpaying, voting citizen of this great nation, you have failed me. Over the course of the past two weeks, you have chosen to divert more money from my child to benefit those who have worked off of my back to get to where they are today.
I grow weary, not from the constant burden that has been placed on my shoulders everyday by those who claim to work in my best interest. No, I grow weary because I look at my two-year-old daughter who hasn’t a clue what is going on this country right now and I see her begin to slump over. She slumps because of the burden that she unknowingly carries at the hand of people that pretend to care about her future.

The failure is more than that though. We looked at pork attached to this bill. They voted for it anyway. We watched panic. Blue Dogs weren’t very blue, were they?

We are told it was the best thing to do.

I ask “Why?”

With that said, I’m hanging up my boots with the Democrats and the Republicans.

I just became an independent.

And I will answer “Why?”

Because the lot of Washington has forgotten “Mainstreet” but that’s where I live. I live on the ground and in the trenches. Mainstreet no longer exists after the past eight years and it is more than a catchphrase.

Mainstreet is filled with people. Forgotten people.

And thus I direct you to this post by Sadcox, who has posted an image that explains it all.

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.

As many of you know, I dig Steve Cohen and I do. I was fortunate enough to see a ton of his interns and some of his staff last night at Bratfest (man, how wonderful Bratfest is) at Left Wing Cracker’s house. It was lovely to sit around talking politics uncensored. There was an unbridled sense of enthusiasm and good natured joy bubbling about with young people in bright blue Cohen shirts hanging out.

I like uncensored. When I go to Memphis and Nashville, sometimes for just an evening, it’s really invigorating to sit and listen and talk about politics without a filter. I get that more in Memphis actually but most likely because the bloggers I know in Memphis I met at Drinking Liberally.

One thing that SQ and I talked about after we left, other than our undying affection for the folks we visited with, was the reality that Cohen represents our more liberal philisophy than the Blue Dog community we reside in. The elected officials in our district are much more conservative than our way of thinking or at least are, for lack of a better phrase, much more in the closet about it if they are.

I can’t help but wonder if it’s the political history in District 8 that has created the more conservative Blue Dog streak that is enmeshed in the area. I’m not sure. Jere Cooper was replaced with Fats Everett who was replaced by Ed Jones who was followed by John Tanner who took over the job in 1988 after Jones retired.

Is the people of the area that have created the conservative Southern Democrat vibe or is it the politicians that represent them that have set the tone?

Man, this is too deep on this Memorial Day holiday.

I’ll change the tune, go look at this picture of a wombat.

I’ve written about Hart before. Hart has run against John Tanner in the last two elections in District 8.

He makes me nuts . With that said, I was in Paris yesterday and, if you didn’t know, Hart marches around the Henry County Courthouse in a sandwich board. I shot a couple of photos so you could see what he does.

It says Impeach Saddam Bush.

I don’t know who the other guy is but it seemed to me he was doing his best to get away from Hart.

Just watching. Always watching.

“Some of us oppose creating a new entitlement program in an emergency spending bill, whether it’s butchers, bakers or candlestick-makers,” said Rep. John Tanner (D-Tenn.), a founding member of the Blue Dog Coalition who serves on the House leadership team as a deputy whip.

The so-called GI Bill of Rights, authored by Sen. Jim Webb (D-Va.), would give veterans money for college and cost $720 million in its first two years. But critics say that could grow to billions in future years.

House Democratic leaders attached it to the supplemental spending bill figuring Bush wouldn’t dare veto veterans’ benefits. If he did, Republicans would pay a steep political cost.

But that calculation is now causing heartburn for Blue Dogs, the same members who have generally supported war funding. The fiscally conservative coalition is split. Some members are willing to block the bill because “pay-as-you-go” budgetary rules — offsetting new spending with spending cuts or increased taxes — have been ignored one too many times. Others, like Rep. John Barrow (D-Ga.), don’t want to oppose benefits for veterans.

“It’s a cost of the war,” Barrow said.

Just call me a political voyeur.

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