The Mayor's race, frankly, appears to be over, barring an unforeseen incident, so let's talk about the Democratic primary for Governor for a minute.
The Rutherford County Democratic Party held a straw poll in Murfreesboro last night at their inaugural Grow Tennessee dinner. The results?
1. Sen. Roy Herron - 119
2. Sen. Jim Kyle - 81
3. Kim McMillan - 58
4. Mike McWherter - 32
5. Ward Cammack - 13
6. Undecided - 12
1) Roy Herron seems to be out-organizing the field at the moment. He had LOTS of volunteers at Jackson Day, and he seems to be making inroads with Democratic activists in the state.
2) Jim Kyle has only been in the race for two months, and he's already ahead of everyone but Herron, who has been in several months longer.
3) Kim McMillan's showing was better than I expected; if she could only raise more money, she could be a player.
4) Ward Cammack's campaign is over, but he seems to be the only one who doesn't realize it.
5) Mike McWherter is a good and decent man, with a helluva good campaign staff, but, let me say this in the nicest possible way: HE'S NOT NED RAY. NO ONE IS.
I can see Herron contiuing to do well in the rural areas, but he will get bupkis in Shelby County; only McWherter, if any one, can make a dent in the lockdown Jim Kyle has achieved here in a short period of time. Kyle's great showing in the Boro will cause others outside Big Shelby to take another look at him.
Now, The Boro is in the fifth most populous county in Tennessee, so this is a significant showing for Roy, and suggests the Battle of Weakley County will not be going away any time soon.
Your thoughts?
3 comments:
Let's start figuring whom the withdrawals will benefit.
I don't know the mechanics of how this straw poll was conducted. Most are bogus, rigged, or gamed. I guess if your candidate did well, then it's legit. :)
I can see why Roy is doing so well; he's been running for Governor since he was my father's student at UT-Martin 30 years ago. It doesn't surprise me that he is outorganizing all of his competition. If he manages to get enough votes in rural West and Middle, he'll offset Kyle's lead in Shelby and win the Dem's nod. If that's the case, he'll have to do some fence-mending in Shelby, but still should manage to have a Bredesen-like 2002 win against the GOP. Unless, of course, there are other subterranean matters that interfere. One would hope his tranining at Vanderbilt Divinity School would give Roy everything he theologically needs--after all, it's a required course--to balance his ambition. Ought to be fun to see what happens.
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