Both Volunteer Voters and R. Neal have picked up on Adam Groves' story that Senator Rosalind Kurita may face a Democratic Primary challenge at the hands of former Montgomery County Mayor Doug Weiland.
The Senate Democratic Caucus supports her, as does the Tennessee Democratic Party; however, I seriously doubt you'll see the Senate Democratic leader, our own Jim Kyle, campaigning for her. Although he would never publicly admit it, a Weiland victory is more likely to make him happy, since he can't be sure that, in the event of another 16-16-1 Senate after the 2008 elections, that Kurita would vote for him over Lt. Governor Ron Ramsey (R-Blountville).
Look, I know Kyle is still furious over this, but I have an answer for him: GO BEAT SOME REPUBLICANS AROUND THE STATE AND YOU CAN BE SPEAKER. It's as simple as that.
You know, I was stunned when she voted for Ramsey, and I met with her, as several of my brethren in the blogging community did, and I wasn't really satisfied with her answers.
However, the blunt truth is that A) she was screwed by the DSCC in her aborted US Senate race, for which I have yet to forgive Chuck Schumer, B) since that time, she has continued to work for progressive causes, and C) I do like her personally, and as much as I would like to see her punished for voting for Ramsey, we are in no position to do so unless the Caucus gets a few more members.
As far as I'm concerned, the oust-Kurita movement is wasted effort, as I suspect her district likes her just fine, and will re-nominate and re-elect her. Now, it would help if she would openly declare that she would vote for Kyle for speaker, but since the likelihood of that is the same as Heidi Klum calling me to ask for a date, I'm not holding my breath.
4 comments:
Rank and file Democrats in this state have a bad tendency to overblow things. You take away Kuritas vote for Ramsey and this woman is a true blue liberal. Just look at her voting record. This reminds me of Wilders race back in '04. Regular Democrat callers would call in to Bill Way and Steve Bowers shows on 101.5 in Jackson and brag about what a fine liberal Wilder was. They wouldnt know what to say when Way and Bowers would point out that Wilder was taking donations from the bigwigs at those religious right schools in Jackson and spending the night at their homes when he was in Jackson.
We could always run our own challenger against Kyle, you know.
Hey, Auto, don't you live in Senate 28?????????
Yes, I sure do.
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