Sandy Hook

Sandy Hook

Sunday, August 05, 2012

Tennessee Jackasses and Jennets Vote for the Real McCoy in Primary

Hee haw! Tennessee Democrats sure don't need GOP dirty tricks to lose an election. They seem quite adept at kicking themselves in the ass without a lick of help from the fright-wing. Yes, sirree Billy Bob.

As unbelievable as it may sound, my fellow Tennesseans just voted for an anti-gay conspiracy theorist to run -- not for dog catcher or the beer permit board mind you -- but for the U.S. Senate against Republican Bob Corker. Face it, in this increasingly bright red state a Democrat probably wouldn't have a chance in hell of defeating Corker, but can we at least make a serious effort here so we don't end up looking like a herd of jackasses and jennets to the rest of the nation?

Clayton, third from left, and his 2008 Campaign Posse

Mark Clayton won the primary election with just 26% of the vote despite raising no money and listing the wrong opponent on his campaign website.  [Don't bother linking to it; a message says it's exceeded its bandwidth.] According to an article in Mother Jones, however, it reads "DEDICATED TO THE DEFEAT OF NEO-CONSERVATIVE LAMAR ALEXANDER." This is from Clayton's 2008 failed attempt to win the Democratic nomination. Remember this.

Among his fringe-nut theories, Clayton believes "the federal government is building a massive, four-football-field wide superhighway from Mexico City to Toronto as part of a secret plot to establish a new North American Union that will bring an end to America as we know it." In 2008 he issued a press release accusing Google of censoring his campaign site on behalf of the Chinese government. Further, he believes that "Schwarzenegger, born in Austria, wants to amend the Constitution so that he can become president and fulfill Hitler's superman scenario."

Clayton is associated with the hate group Public Advocate of the United States -- another one of those family values organizations. Mother Jones informs us that his elusive campaign site states he is:
against national ID cards, the North American Union, and the "NAFTA superhighway," a nonexistent proposal that's become a rallying cry in the far-right fever swamps. Elsewhere, he warns of an encroaching "godless new world order" and suggests that Americans who speak out against government policies could some day be placed in "a bone-crushing prison camp similar to the one Alexander Solzhenitsyn was sent or to one of FEMA's prison camps."
Our on-the-ball Tennessee Democratic Party (TNDC) quickly released a statement, which said in part: “Mark Clayton is associated with a known hate group in Washington, D.C., and the Tennessee Democratic Party disavows his candidacy, will not do anything to promote or support him in any way, and urges Democrats to write-in a candidate of their choice in November.”

Well, gee guys, thanks for letting the voters know, even if it is a day late and a few thousand dollars short. And your suggestion to just write in a name? Any ol' name? Wowzee, now there's a thought.

In a phone interview with TNDP chair Chip Forrester the Nashville Scene asked about the vetting process and how a guy like this gets this far. Forrester explained about the low number of signatures required to get on the ballot and then went on to say:
We have a very small window of five days after candidate paperwork is filed and there are 99 House seats, 33 Senate seats, nine congressional seats. So we have five days to withdraw or not allow a Democratic candidate to be placed on a ballot. And it's also a slippery slope to keep a candidate off the ballot. And frankly, we didn't expect him to win ... he had spent no money. But with turnout so low and [him] at the top of the ticket and his ballot placement as a "C", it gave him, because nobody knew who these candidates were, an edge to win the primary.
Really? You didn't expect him to win? So, you just sat on your heinies instead and did absolutely nothing to educate the public about each of the seven candidates which nobody knew. I guess we should be grateful that the accused pedophile came in last, eh?

When asked if he thought it was fair if people blamed him or the state party for this debacle, Forrester responded:
Well, I certainly spent a lot of time and the staff spent a lot of time talking to prospective candidates. It is difficult when the Republican has a $10 million war chest and a personal checkbook that is in excess of that, to recruit a candidate against that kind of campaign war chest is difficult.
We did not get involved in the primary, we don't get involved in primaries, so we had a number of candidates that filed and it's a difficult mountain for us to climb when your Republican opponent has that kind of financial resource.
If the TNDP doesn't get involved in primaries, why spend all that time talking to prospective candidates, especially if you're not going to share pertinent information with voters? Just because Republicans have more money is no excuse for giving up and doing nothing. Democratic operatives just have to be and act smarter which, when you think about it, shouldn't be too hard. One thing for sure, the powers that be in the Democratic hierarchy cannot afford to be lazy.

Obviously, Tennessee needs to revamp it's election laws. Requiring only 25 signatures to get on a ballot for dog catcher might be acceptable but it's laughable in a race for the U.S. Senate. And obviously voters need to be better informed about the candidates. That's where the local yokels come in -- or should come in.

Of course, there's always that slim possibility that this was a Republican dirty trick, but I don't think so. I think it was simply a case of incompetence and ineptness on the part of the Tennessee Democratic Party leadership with a little non-help from the national Democratic party.

Oh yes, Clayton will remain on the ballot.
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More comments from fellow Tennesseans -- Southern Beale and Squatlo-Rant.

13 comments:

  1. Well now, his name was first on the ballot don't you know. Dems need a good candidate to run, whose last name begins with an A, or a B.

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    1. Sadly, this isn't far from the truth but they'd probably have to change their names to meet that requirement.

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  2. A well-justified rant, if there was one, L.P. Let me add that Tennessee's poor, overburdened Democratic Party might give a thought to at least prioritizing its meager efforts. As in taking care to get to know candidates for offices like governor, U.S. senator and U.S. representative before, say, vetting the candidates for Outhouse County commissioner position 2 and whoever's running for a legislative seat from Distillers Corners.

    And, how about all those Dems (if indeed they weren't nearly all Republicans in camouflage) who voted for Clayton without knowing any more about him than the TNDP? I wish I could get the state dunce caps concession. There's a fortune to be made. :)

    Now, two questions, since you're closer to the scene. First — and this is just a wild guess — is Clayton by any chance originally from Texas? Second, is he related to Rep. Marsha Blackburn? (I admit, these questions are motivated by the same strain of morbid curiosity that causes people to gawk at highway wreck scenes.)

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    1. Since the national organization has apparently written off Tennessee, the TNDC definitely needs to prioritize. I'm not that actively involved with TN politics, but apparently there's a lot of dissatisfaction with the local yokels.

      I've searched for biographical info on this creep but can't find anything at all, so don't know where he was hatched or by whom. Blackburn is certainly dreadful enough to be high on the list of suspects. She gives me the willies.

      The sad thing is that there was actually one candidate among the seven who has brains and who could bring a breath of needed fresh air to this state and to the train wreck of a Democratic party - Park Overall.

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    2. Ms. Overall looks good, to the extent you can go by a limited Web site. Certainly better than Clayton. What a shame the state Dem leaders didn't urge Dems and others to write her name in on election day, instead frittering their votes away on X-number of different names, none of which will get anywhere.

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    3. Overall was on the ballot and came in a close third to Davis' second (mentioned below). But you're right, you can't tell that much from a candidate's web site. She's a member of a private group to which I belong and I'm really very impressed with her. Actually, I don't see anyone wanting to involve themselves in this dog and pony show at this point.

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  3. The parties ain't what they used to be. Instead of permanent parties that nominate candidates every election cycle, we have individual candidate campaigns that compete every cycle for the party label. The tails wag the dog. The party is entirely a vehicle for the winning candidates, and the party almost always almost completely abstains from favoring any candidate for its nomination over any other such candidate.

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    1. I'm not suggesting that TNDP favor, much less endorse, a candidate during a primary but they need to publish some kind of fact sheet, if only on their web site, listing WHO the candidates are and providing a brief bio with their stand on at least two or three issues. I have never lived in a state where finding this kind of information isn't readily available. They don't have to wait until the last minute to put this info together. More than likely they have a good idea who is going to run, so they should have plenty of time to write something up ahead of time and publish it as soon as a candidate has filed. Since Clayton ran in 2008, they should have already had a blurb on him.

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  4. I know folks in my county who say they vote Democrat because their family has always done so, from the '60s onward. (That's 1860s....)

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    1. In my case, that would depend on which side of the family we're talking about. ;)

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  5. Leslie, 'tis a sad state of affairs indeed when the same political party that manages to send me multiple requests for donations daily can't even vet a list of candidates for statewide office. I wouldn't give these clowns a nickel of my money for the same reason I don't flush dollar bills down the toilet... it wouldn't solve my problems and would probably just clog the pipes. The folks at the top of this state Democratic Party need to be purged ASAP. All of them. I've worked phone banks in Nashville, and you can't believe how disorganized and half-assed everything is done on the state level.
    A pedophile and a gay bashing conspiracy theorist are among the idiots the Dems offered up as sacrificial lambs to Corker's machine. Not one well-known Democrat (even John Jay Hooker would have been preferable to this bigot) stepped forward to take one for the team?
    We get the government we deserve around here.

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    1. Those weren't the only two nut cases. As Southern Beale wrote: "Gary Davis, who wants to do away with all foreign aid and “restore rights to the state by giving people full control of their own health care,”; and then Benjamin Roberts, who wants to return us to the gold standard because “inflation is grossly out of control,” despite it being only 1.7% right now. Neither of these people seems to espouse Democratic Party values, yet they ran for the Democratic Party nomination."

      Apparently Dave Hancock is another - so 5 out of the 7 candidates are useless.

      This whole thing is a slap in the face to all Democrats in the state and never ever should have happened.

      As I said above, I'm writing in Park Overall.

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  6. I'm afraid that a lot of Southern Democrats are DINO (Democrats in name only).

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