Dan left this in the comments section and it is worthy of a post:

Terry, the GOP nominee for Chester County Mayor lost that race yesterday after the election commission accepted twelve provisional ballots. Patricia Jones ended up losing by 3 votes to local car dealer Dwain Seaton who ran as an independent. I guess the only good news out of Chester County, Tn is that no one won a county office running as a democrat. Thats the first time thats ever happened in that west Tennessee county. That brings to three the number of counties in rural west Tennessee where there are no democrat county office holders (Chester,Madison and Henderson). Keep that in mind the next time you hear someone call the west state democrat territory.

UPDATE: Wow!  Add to Dan’s comments, these from RedHadRob:

Add to that list of counties, Shelby. The Republicans swept all the county-wide offices.

Hard to believe, but true.

From the email box, the fight for Speaker is already shaping up.

20100806104406664

In the heated race for Anderson County Juvenile Judge between Democrat Brandon Fisher and Republican Zach Farrar there is a tie!  Two provisional ballots are out…don’t know when it will be decided.  Oh my gosh.  This is killing me!  I can only imagine how Zach feels…

Zach Farrar: 6,442

Brandon Fisher: 6,442

Unbelievable!

Update: Division of Elections is aware of situation and ballots are reportedly secured.  No recount unless a judge orders a recount.  Developing…

UPDATE: Two provisional ballots to be opened Saturday at 5 PM.

JEFF OWNBY WINS Knox County Commission!  Yes, the little guy running on a conservative platform can beat the money and the media!!!!!

Congratulations, Jeff!  You Rock!

I am soooooo HAPPPPPPPY!!!!!  SENATOR CAMPFIELD AND SENATOR BELL!!!!  YES!!!

ROCK ON CAMP!  WE LOVE YOU!

Just from early voting results, it looks like we’re going to get to call Representative Mike Bell Senator Mike Bell.  Looks like a blow-out!  Loving it.

Running tab of interest:

In Anderson County here are the early voting results:

Fleishchman 1,491

Robin Smith 987

Van Irion 1,018

Gobble 284

ARt Rhodes 132

Governor Early voting results Anderson County:

Haslam 2,411

Wamp 2,316

Ramsey 518

From Investors Business Daily:

Power: Show Me State voters overwhelmingly rejected the federal mandate to buy health insurance. Those who ignored the consent of the governed to pass ObamaCare take heed: The governed no longer consent.

It is fitting that Missouri was the first state to hold a public referendum on ObamaCare, sending the notion that government can shred the Constitution to impose its will to a crushing defeat with three-quarters of the voters approving Proposition C. The measure would forbid the federal government from penalizing people who do not buy health insurance.

A year ago, on Aug. 6, 2009, Kenneth Gladney, an African-American vendor, was beaten by thugs wearing the purple shirts of the Service Employees International Union outside a town hall forum called by Rep. Mel Carnahan, D-Mo., at a school in Mehlville, Mo.

And here in Tennessee, Van Irion hand delivered to D.C. a lawsuit challenging Obamacare.  His suit differs from others in that his challenge is over the interpretation of the commerce clause.  See here:

I’m sure you haven’t heard the last of this, but Club for Growth sent out a hit piece on Chuck Fleischman that includes a phone number urging people to “Call Today!” But oops, here’s what you get when you call…

[Warning: nothing too lewd, but it is a sex industry call center.  I just want you to be aware that you might be offended.]

Click to listen: 1-800-Get-Some-Pork

I am a huge supporter and fan of Club for Growth.  I hope they didn’t do this on purpose and that it was just an oversight because this is pretty bad.  Pretty bad.  I think they probably just meant to do a mock number, but I don’t know for sure.  Hopefully there will be some clarification.

Ed Brantley and Bob Thomas kicked off their new show this morning on 100.3 FM here in East Tennessee.  Mr. Brantley referred to the “repo” of 100.3 WNOX as Citadel has been forced to downsize their signal because of bankruptcy.  Hallerin, Phil and others have moved to 98.7 FM. Listening this morning, I think Brantley got the message across to listeners that he is motivated to dominate the market.

WBIR has all the news on the changeover.

And for conservative talk show junkies, you’ll want to start tuning in on Saturdays for Steve Gill’s show from 9-12 EDT.  East Tennessee doesn’t get a lot of state coverage and Steve often covers what many don’t here in the state.  Be sure to tune in!!

Primary season is wrapping up and tonight’s tv show is our last before election day.  Tonight we’ll interview Chuck Fleischman, candidate for Congress for the third Congressional District.  We were hoping for a debate between Robin and Chuck as the race has been quite contentious, but Robin was not available for a taped or live segment.

As we head into election day, I’d like to offer a BIG THANKS to all the candidates who have appeared on the show to share their passions, beliefs, goals and ideologies with the good people of Anderson, Roane and Morgan counties.

We’ve hosted local candidates like Zach Farrar and Brandon Fisher for Juvenile Judge as well as Congressional Candidates like Tommy Crangle, Van Irion and Chuck.  And of course, Lt. Governor Ron Ramsey has joined us several times especially during session to fill the audience in on what’s been happening at the State level.

We hope we’ve given viewers an opportunity to see some of the candidates outside of their sound-bytes and campaign speeches.  I must say, I’m always amazed and encouraged at the wonderful people who have the guts and tenacity to put their names on the ballot.  It takes  a special person to step out into the public eye.

For tonight’s show, we’re talking with Chuck, so be sure to tune in for Chuck and more.

The Tennessee Conservative Union has released their ratings for Lt. Gov. Ron Ramsey, Congressman Zach Wamp and Mayor Bill Haslam.  Haslam ain’t lookin’ so good to the TCU—

Click here to see the full document: TCU Candidate Ratings

Great commentary too!  Check it out!

I really have tried to ignore this guy, but Lane Kiffin just can’t seem to resist hating on Tennessee.

PASADENA, Calif. — Lane Kiffin thinks the Tennessee Titans’ lawsuit against him and the University of Southern California is more about geography than coaching etiquette.

and:

Yet Kiffin couldn’t stop himself from intimating the lawsuit has something to do with his stormy history in the state of Tennessee.

Tom Humphrey has the presser from Gubernatorial Democrat candidate Mike McWherter and the details surrounding the claim.  From Tom’s blog, Humphrey on the Hill:

Nashville, TN – Mike McWherter, Jackson businessman and candidate for governor, calls Bill Haslam out for lying to the Associated Press about his family’s role in advocating for a state income tax.

and this:

Jimmy Haslam, Bill Haslam’s father and Pilot Oil’s founder, served as one of four board members for an advocacy group known as Citizens for Fair Taxation. The four member board raised over $1.8 million for a publicity campaign supporting Gov. Don Sundquist’s push for a state income tax.

This week I have listened to all three of the gubernatorial interviews on Hallerin Hilton Hill’s morning show at 98.7 FM here in Knoxville (formerly 100.3 Big Talker.)

I have also listened to portions of those interviews on podcast.  However, today, no podcast.  I’ve checked throughout the day and will continue to do so.  Kind of odd.  Given the close relationship between Hallerin Hill and the Haslam family, one has to begin wondering if the podcast will go up  at all and if it doesn’t, did Mayor Haslam say something wrong?

Mayor Haslam did say today that he and Bruce Pearl went to church together—kind of odd as Pearl is a prominent member of the Jewish Community and Haslam is a two decade+ member of Cedar Springs Presbyterian. Either someone converted or someone is lying.  But I wanted to check the podcast and make sure the three of us who heard that are correct.  Who knows, it could be scrubbed (or fixed) by now…

Update: Luke in comments says Pearl’s new wife Brandi now attends Cedar Springs Presbyterian Church.  Still a bit of a stretch to say to say you go to “church together.”

Developing…

UPDATE: 8:30 pm and still no podcast.  What’s the big deal?  Newstalk only maintains audio/podcasts of their broadcast for the day.  Once the day’s over, it’s over.  Interesting.  Or taking care of business?  You decide.

Are any of my readers out there skilled in source codes for emails.  I received something pretty interesting, but I need to verify source and make sure I have not been sent the email through any hacking or such?

—-Terry

From the WSJ:

In governing so far to the left, President Obama has made U.S. politics even more polarized, though some of his opponents may be revealing a little too much id. Today’s “teachable moment” is Tennessee Republican Zach Wamp, who claimed in a recent interview that ObamaCare is making secession an attractive option.

“I hope that the American people will go to the ballot box in 2010 and 2012 so that states are not forced to consider separation from this government,” Mr. Wamp told Hotline on Call. “Patriots like Rick Perry have talked about these issues because the federal government is putting us in an untenable position at the state level,” he added, referring to the Texas Governor who has also floated such Civil War-era remedies for Washington’s spending, tax and entitlement binge.

Mr. Wamp later said his remarks were taken out of context, but politicians of all stripes are smart to keep away from analogies to the Old Confederacy. An additional irony is that Mr. Wamp, now in a three-way gubernatorial primary, is an instructive lesson in the ways that Washington often changes politicians more than they change it. Elected with the Gingrich class of 1994, Mr. Wamp went on to become a member in good standing of the powerful Appropriations Committee and an epic spender and earmarker, especially for the Tennessee Valley Authority and other federal boondoggles.

On the National Taxpayers Union’s annual fiscal responsibility scorecard, Mr. Wamp rated 54% in 2004, 62% in 2005 and 56% in 2006 during the dissolute late period of the Republican majority, down from 87% in 1995. He told NPR in 2006 amid backbench attempts to impose even modest spending discipline that “You know, I will defend until my death the ability of the Congress to direct the funding or to earmark projects.”

Mr. Wamp is once again trying to appeal to the GOP’s opposition to big government, but Tennessee voters will want to look at his priorities when he was in a position of actual power.

It’s not a huge deal because it’s Hallerin’s show and it’s his prerogative, but will he disclose during his interview of Mayor Haslam this morning that Pilot Oil sponsors Hallerin’s television show? Will Hallerin disclose any financial connections?  Just wondering…

By the way, Hal told Mayor Haslam he would start his interview with him like he did the other candidates (Ramsey & Wamp) by asking about how the campaign is going.  Just for the record, that’s not factual.  Hal started Wamp and Ramsey by asking about who they were—family, background, etc.  Haslam didn’t get asked that question.  Just here to do a little fact checking.  Carry on…

This is the best five minutes you’ll spend in awhile.  I have openly challenged liberalism time and time again that it is their policies that are racist.  Hat tip to Ben.

I mentioned this on George Korda’s show on Sunday and several people have asked me where I got the info.  Here’s the original post, but the link to Club for Growth is now dead.  I’m sure I can email them and see what they can do for a direct contact to them.  Here’s the link to my original from 7/26/2010.

By the way, Congressman Wamp has said on Hallerin Hilton Hill’s show this morning that he’s progressive. He’s said it twice.   Most of you already know how I feel about the word progressive. I’ll try to put up the audio/clip proof a little later.

This is  a great video on the FACTS, not the emotion, surrounding the Arizona law dealing with Washington’s failures in enforcing the federal law.   The video was put together by Tennessee State Representative Joe Carr (R) from Lascassas.  It is an outstanding piece of information.

UPDATE: Here is the ad.  I just recorded it off the radio.  Listen here: HASLAM______________________________________

There’s a new ad out today authorized by Bill Haslam for Governor.  I don’t have a copy of it, I wish I did.  It’s all over the radio this morning.  It’s a woman’s voice.  I’ll try to recall all the hits and I don’t have the exact words, so I’ll just paraphrase to the best of my ability.  She says Wamp promised to term limit himself, then broke the promise.  He promised not to take special interest money, then broke the promise.  He voted for TARP/bank bailout, bridge to nowhere, and more pork than you can count.  He raised the national debt.  He’s never balanced the books.  Never met a payroll.  Is that what you call a conservative?

Of course, they could have hit Wamp on this long ago—but Mayor Haslam needed both Ramsey and Wamp in the race because Haslam can’t win in a match-up against only one alternative. However, the fact that they’re hitting him at all confirms my earlier post that this race is far from over.  I’d be interested to know if they are running this ad statewide, or only in the Knoxville area.

For the TV show tonight, we’ll also discuss these two ads:

Ramsey here.

Wamp & Rusty here:

Tom Humphrey has a good read over at his blog. Check it out.

Candidates Relying Heavily on Self-Funding Often Lose

(Note: This is an unedited version of a column written for Sunday’s News Sentinel.)
Until 1994, it was something of a novelty to see Tennessee political candidates rely on personal money for their campaigns. The results of reliance since have been mixed and, actually, not all that successful, though the practice continues in a big way this year.

Press release sent to me from one AWESOME LADY, Buffy James:

SEVIER COUNTY TEA PARTY

www.seviercoteaparty.org

For additional information:

Brett Randles, Chairman

(865) 206-2689

info@seviercoteaparty.org

July 21, 2010

PRESS RELEASE FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Sevier County Tea Party to host Ron Ramsey Event

By Brett Randles, SCTP Chairman

Republican gubernatorial candidate Ron Ramsey with Sevier County Tea Party member Buffy James at a recent event in Knoxville.

The Sevier County Tea Party (SCTP) will be hosting a Meet and Greet event for Republican gubernatorial candidate and current Lieutenant Governor Ron Ramsey on Monday, July 26^th at 6:30 p.m. at the Sevierville Civic Center.  The Civic Center is located at 200 Gary Wade Boulevard in Sevierville. The event is free to the public.

The SCTP recently endorsed Mr. Ramsey at it’s meeting of July 8^th, with an excess of 160 people in attendance.  The straw poll vote was 70% in favor of Mr. Ramsey and the subsequent motion to endorse him was unopposed. The SCTP has now joined over 20 Tea Party organizations throughout the state, cumulatively representing over 20,000 Tennesseans endorsing Mr. Ramsey’s candidacy; more than any other candidate running. (more…)

Click over to the Knoxville Journal for a great reminder of the caliber of some of the wonderful men who call themselves Americans:

Captain William “Bill” Robinson attributed his survival of the Vietnam prison camps to the WWII and Korea veterans.

and:

When asked to describe the experience in a few words, Robinson described his eight Thanksgivings, Christmases and New Years in captivity in more minute terms.

“It was minutes, hours, days, weeks, months and years of boredom punctuated by terror,” Robinson said.

He and his American peers were not able to communicate except through a tap code.

“We took the alphabet and removed ‘K,’” Robinson said. “Then, we made a five-by-five cube of the letters. The first tap recognized the row the letter was in, and the second recognized the column.”

Robinson left no dry eyes in the room as he explained how he survived.

“I told myself I was only in Vietnam for three days,” Robinson said. “I was shot down yesterday; today was today; and I was going to the house tomorrow. I prepared myself everyday to come home. I knew I had to be physically and mentally strong.”

I clipped this from my hard edition of the WSJ so that I could share it.  It’s a fascinating piece from John Fund in the July 14th edition:

By JOHN FUND

Did illegal felon voters determine the outcome of the critical 2008 Minnesota Senate election? The day after the election, GOP Senator Norm Coleman had a 725 vote lead, but a series of recounts over the next six months reversed that result and gave Democrat Al Franken a 312 vote victory.

The outcome wound up having a significant impact, giving Democrats the critical 60th Senate vote they needed to block GOP filibusters. Mr. Franken’s vote proved crucial in the passage of ObamaCare last December in the Senate. The next month Democrats lost their 60-vote Senate majority with the election of Scott Brown in Massachusetts.

Ever since Mr. Franken was declared the victor, the conservative watchdog group Minnesota Majority has combed through records comparing lists of those who voted with criminal rap sheets. It found that at least 341 convicted felons voted in Minneapolis’s Hennepin County, the state’s largest, and another 52 voted illegally in St. Paul’s Ramsey County, the state’s second largest. Dan McGrath, head of Minnesota Majority, says that only conclusive matches were included in the group’s totals. The number of felons voting in those two counties alone exceeds Mr. Franken’s victory margin.

“We aren’t trying to change the result of the last election. That legally can’t be done,” Mr. McGrath told Fox News. “We are just trying to make sure the integrity of the next election isn’t compromised.”

Minnesota Majority says it has been “stonewalled” by Hennepin County officials to whom it presented its findings. But in neighboring Ramsey County, Phil Carruthers of the local District Attorney’s office says he takes the charges “very seriously” and found that Minnesota Majority “had done a good job in their review.” His office has asked for 15 investigators to be hired to pursue the information. “So far we have charged 28 people with felonies, have 17 more under review and have 182 cases still open,” he said.

They said it was inevitable: John Oxendine would be the GOP candidate for Governor down in Georgia.  But check out what happened in just a short window of time.

On another note: do you think Tennessee should have runoffs if a candidate doesn’t make it over 50%?  What say you?

Also from Mason Dixon polling found at the Times Free Press:

Brad Coker, managing director of Mason-Dixon, said Mr. Haslam has a “decent lead,” but he noted the contest remains volatile as charges and countercharges fly.

“Things can happen fast if bad news comes out,” Mr. Coker said. “I wouldn’t hand it to him (Haslam) unless we were taking this poll the Friday before the primary.”

From pollster.com:

From the Lt. Governor’s office:

Lt. Governor Ron Ramsey today asked Attorney General Bob Cooper to file an amicus brief, also known as a “friend of the court” brief, to support Arizona in defending herself from a federal lawsuit seeking to stop Arizona’s new immigration law.

You can see the letter and all details here: Ramsey_Join_AZ_AG

This is a very interesting article that is definitely one of those must reads.  Most noteworthy in the piece is the web of money associated with campaigns.  One issue not raised in the article but I think is kind of curious, is the fact that the price-gouging ad campaign with various and sundry connections to Zach Wamp and Akins-Crisp was timed at the same time a group of individuals were filing paperwork for a 527 in support of Ron Ramsey.  (See Tom Humphrey’s blog here.)

Did the 501 group that did the price-gouging ads see the reports that friends of Ramsey were planning a 527?  Did the individuals with the Wamp/Akins connections time their ad campaign to make it look like Lt. Governor Ron Ramsey  was behind the 501 price gouging campaign?  Just something to think about.  Most people don’t know the difference or the rules of 501s or 527s.

The news of the some individuals putting together a 527 to support Ramsey broke on July 11.  The price-gouging ads hit the media on July 13.  Interesting.

Great email from Eric and worthy of sharing:

Obamacare is tracking gold sales to the 1/2 ounce beginning in 2012. Of course, by then $600 may only buy you a 1/4 ounce.

Obamacare you ask? Yes, the “health reform” legislation is tracking the private sale of gold.

I am really expecting this to greatly improve the quality of the health care I am provided, lower my health insurance rates, etc. Controlling the sale of gold should be a great health care benefit shouldn’t it? This is the beginning of FDR’s illegal actions from 1933 again.

I guess you really do have to pass these things so you can find out what is in them.

By the way, if you want to buy some gold or silver, I recommend you buy the real thing you can hold in your hand. If you go for the EFT (paper) certificates, (ala the “gold” 401k radio commercials about),  there is a very high possibility it doesn’t even exist. The precious metals market is being naked shorted and manipulated just like the stocks – and by the same criminals – for the same reason

From the July 18th edition of the Washington Post:

By Shailagh Murray

Washington Post Staff Writer

Sunday, July 18, 2010

So who wants to join Rand Paul’s “tea-party” caucus?

“I don’t know about that,” Sen. Bob Corker (R-Tenn.) replied with a nervous laugh. “I’m not sure I should be participating in this story.”

Republican lawmakers see plenty of good in the tea party, but they also see reasons to worry.