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May 22, 2006

Gore's movie coming to Knoxville

An Inconvenient Truth will be coming to Regal's Downtown West on June 23.

Posted by Paul Witt at 04:55 PM

May 19, 2006

The Death of a Legend

I just received this email:

The Miami University Alumni Association is sharing the sad news of Ken McDiffett's passing. Ken passed away Tuesday evening as the result of a cerebral hemorrhage related to Alzheimer's Disease. As further evidence of his commitment to others, Ken's body is being donated to science.

I think everyone has a pretty short list of those teachers or mentors that had a big influence their life. Dr. McDiffett was one of those people for me. I suspect he's on that list for hundreds of people. He was retired before I got to college so I never took a class from him. I don't even remember what his field of study was. He was an advisor for my fraternity, Alpha Phi Omega.

APO is a service fraternity. That's supposed to mean that we're more about performing community service than partying. Most every week, for 50 years, our actives and pledges would find Dr. McDiffett sitting in the back of the room during our meetings and offering advice to anyone that asked. We weren't his students. There were no lectures. Instead we saw a great example of how a person should act. How they should help.

He was a very generous man and he will be missed.

Rest in Peace

Posted by Paul Witt at 02:51 PM

Biden out... Hackett in!

There's been a bit of a shakeup in the schedule for Truman Day. On Wednesday, Joe Biden backed out as the keynote speaker. Yesterday morning, Paul Hackett agreed to speak. That gives us the next U.S. Senator from Tennessee, Harold Ford, Jr. and a rising star in the Democratic Party, Major Hackett, as our two main speakers.

Tickets are still available!

Truman Day will be held tomorrow night, May 20, at the Knoxville Convention Center. A pre-dinner reception starts at 6pm on the Cumberland Concourse and dinner starts at 7pm. Tickets are $50 each or table for 10 is $450. There's also an optional, $100 per ticket, VIP reception at 6pm.

Tickets By Phone: Please call 540-4001. The message will direct those interested in tickets to press "0."

Posted by Paul Witt at 11:17 AM

May 11, 2006

Betty Bean yet again

Today's column from Betty Bean, while interesting as always, isn't exactly accurate (some would also say "as always"). Her column tends to be more political gossip than fact so I suppose it's not all that fair to criticize her, but I will anyway.

The latest in party wisdom is that county chair Jim Gray would like for these seats to be filled by a countywide vote of the party's executive committee. The majority (if there is such a thing among local Dems) seem to favor voting by district, however.

Actually, the default nomination process, as defined by our by-laws and Robert's Rules, is that the executive committee, as a whole, nominates and votes on every candidate. This isn't something that Jim Gray "would like", this is what he's required to do.

The vote itself will be a vote of the entire executive committee. The nomination process could be changed if someone, say for example... Bill Young, were to make a motion that nominations were to be made by the district in question, through a district caucus or something. This motion would have to be approved by the entire executive committee that are already facing a long meeting. Will we vote to put the main meeting on hold for however long it takes to break into district caucuses and pick our nominees? I highly doubt it.

The "majority" actually prefers to have the three nominees be Helen Diane Lewis, Amy Broyles and Sharon Cawood. Except for Sharon, that would give the nod to those people that decided to have the question answered by the voters. Anything else is a backroom deal. As far as I know, nobody other than Sharon has stepped forward for Mark Cawood's seat.

Sometimes I'd just love to know where Betty gets her information. I suspect that this "majority" she's talking about is the same "majority" that opposed Betty Reddick for 1st Vice Chair and lost the vote by about 5-to-1. The same "majority" that opposed Jim Gray's reelection as party chair and lost by about 30%.

This reminds me of her column from a few weeks ago where she said this:

"Dean Democrats" want to choose replacements for incumbents Mark Cawood, Tindell and Diane Jordan. The "Dean Democrats" are mad at "Haslam Democrats" (like Jordan and Tindell) who supported Bill Haslam in the (non-partisan) 2003 mayoral election.

I posted something about it at the time. She seems pretty obsessed by the various factions inside the local Democratic party. All I can speak about is the "Dean Democrats", or "elitist deaniacs" as Brian Hornback calls us.

The local organization that grew out of the local Dean Meetups from '03-'04 is now called Democracy for Knoxville. Of the 40 or so people in the group, 8 were around in the early days. Howard Dean and his politics are not the focus of our group. We're focused on one thing: Helping Democrats get elected. To do that we've filled as many positions on the executive committee as possible, we've held a campaign training course and have a candidate training course coming up in about a week. In short, we're trying to help the local party grow and help local candidates find trained volunteers. I don't know how successful we'll be, but we're trying and we're learning.

In doing this, we seem to have been taken as a threat by some of the older party people (older as in having been around for a long time, not necessarily meaning age). Maybe these people are the "Haslem Democrats" of legend. I've never had anyone pull me aside and point them out. The only part I care about is making sure that the people that have a say in the Democratic party, support Democrats when they're running for office. It would also be great if some people stopped thinking of the local party as some kind of social club and actually hit the streets to elect more Democrats.

If someone is threatened by that, I could care less.

Posted by Paul Witt at 01:57 PM

May 04, 2006

May 2 Primary Results

The election results are in. What follows is an analysis of those races where Democrats were trying to get write-in candidates on the ballot...

Commission District 1-A

Democratic Results: (1096 total voters)
Diane Jordan (D) - 674
Helen Diane Lewis (D) - 101
John B. Foster Jr. (D) - 54
Stan Johnson (D) - 46
Stephen Dupree (D) - 42
Charles Frazier (D) - 35
Jim Garland (D) - 18
Stacey Diamond (D) - 12

Republican Results: (608 total voters)
Nick Della Volpe (R) - 154
Albert O. Baah (R) - 58
Clarence A. Cash (R) - 15
Mark Saroff (R) - 8

So...
Della Volpe got the necessary 5% and will be on the August ballot. The KnoxDems Executive Committee will select a candidate to replace Jordan who is term-limited. Most likely Della Volpe will face Helen Diane Lewis in August.

Commission District 2-A

Democratic Results: (876 total voters)
Mark Harmon (D) - 659
George J. Steffaniak (D) - 39

Republican Results: (1551 total voters)
David Collins (R) - 988

So...
Mark Harmon will be on the August ballot. KnoxGOP will select Collins' replacement.

Commission District 2-B

Democratic Results: (876 total voters)
Billy Tindell (D) - 356
Amy Broyles (D) - 262
Jonathan Wimmer (D) - 157

Republican Results: (1551 total voters)
Deborah W. Porter (R) - 44

So...
Porter did not get the necessary 5% (I hear that she didn't even realize she needed 5%). Tindell won the Democratic primary. The KnoxDems Executive Committee will select his replacement for the August ballot. Most likely Amy Broyles will be selected and serve on County Commission.

Commission District 3-A

Democratic Results: (687 total voters)
Michael Daugherty (D) - 530
Brenda J. Riley (D) - 37

Republican Results: (2082 total voters)
Tony Norman (R) - 1229
Wanda Moody (R) - 603

So...
Mike Daugherty and Tony Norman will face each other in August.

Commission District 3-B

Democratic Results: (687 total voters)
Colvin Idol (D) - 109

Republican Results: (2082 total voters)
Ivan Harmon (R) - 1423

So...
Idol got the necessary 5% and will face Harmon in August.

Commission District 4-A

Democratic Results: (764 total voters)
Joan M. Wagner (D) - 397

Republican Results: (3142 total voters)
John Schmid (R) - 1648
Mike A. Alford (R) - 886

So...
Wagner got the necessary 5% and is on the August ballot. KnoxGOP will select a candidate to replace Schmid who is term-limited.

Commission District 4-B

Democratic Results: (764 total voters)
Elaine Davis (D) - 382

Republican Results: (3142 total voters)
Phil Guthe (R) - 1661
Archie Ellis (R) - 292
Lisa Bogaty (R) - 178
William Sherrod (R) - 143
Holly Foutch Wolfe (R) - 73
Ed Shouse (R) - 71

So...
Davis got the necessary 5% and is on the August ballot. KnoxGOP will select a candidate to replace Guthe who is term-limited.

Commission District 5-C

Democratic Results: (744 total voters)
Tom Salter (D) - 256

Republican Results: (4280 total voters)
John Griess (R) - 2584
Leonard Brown (R) - 362
Larry Danner (R) - 260
Alexander Cain (R) - 17

So...
Salter got the necessary 5% and is on the August ballot. KnoxGOP will select a candidate to replace Griess who is term-limited.

Commission District 6-A

Democratic Results: (861 total voters)
Mark Cawood (D) - 700

Republican Results: (3151 total voters)
Chuck James (R) - 1469
Scott Russell (R) - 987

So...
Mark Cawood is term-limited and the KnoxDems Executive Committee will select his wife, Sharon, to face Chuck James in August.

Commission District 7-A

Republican Results: (4702 total voters)
R. Larry Smith (R) - 2008
James A. McMillan (R) - 1609
Mary-Lou Horner (R) - 691
David Amburn (R) - 83
Steve M. Rogers (R) - 17

So...
R. Larry Smith is the new County Commissioner for seat 7-A.

Commission District 8-A

Democratic Results: (543 total voters)
James Brian Pirtle (D) - 52

Republican Results: (3182 total voters)
Phil Ballard (R) - 1529
Mike McMillan (R) - 1164
James C. Eubanks (R) - 44

So...
Pirtle got the necessary 5% and will face Phil Ballard in August.

Commission District 8-B

Democratic Results: (543 total voters)
Thomas Pressley (D) - 93

Republican Results: (3182 total voters)
John Mills (R) - 1210
Kay Frazier (R) - 959
Gary Sellers (R) - 660
Roger William Bates (R) - 12

So...
Pressley got the necessary 5% and is on the August ballot. KnoxGOP will select a candidate to replace Mills who is term-limited.

Commission District 9-A

Democratic Results: (597 total voters)
Steve McGill II (D) - 152

Republican Results: (3121 total voters)
Larry Clark (R) - 1811
Johnny Chamberlain (R) - 124
Peggy S. Loflin (R) - 225

So...
McGill got the necessary 5% and is on the August ballot. KnoxGOP will select a candidate to replace Clark who is term-limited.

Sheriff

Democratic Results: (6932 total voters)
Randy Tyree (D) - 2327

Republican Results: (25819 total voters)
Tim Hutchison (R) - 16887
Carl R. Seider (R) - 982

So...
Tyree got the necessary 5% and will face Tim Hutchinson.

Chancellor - Division III

Democratic Results: (6932 total voters)
Jim Andrews (D) - 1577

Republican Results: (25819 total voters)
Mike Moyers (R) - 17891

So...
Andrews got the necessary 5% and will face Mike Moyers.

So the final score:
- 5 races are set
- 1 race is decided
- 2 Republican candidates don't know who they're running against
- 6 Democratic candidates don't know who they're running against
- 1 new Commissioner will be selected by KnoxDems
- 0 new Commissioners will be selected by KnoxGOP

Tuesday was a big win for Democrats.

Posted by Paul Witt at 12:13 AM