Democratic goals: Bust stereotypes, beat Republicans

Betty BeanKnox Scene

Knox County’s new Democratic Party chair came to Knoxville eight years ago to study at Johnson University (the former Johnson Bible College for those of us who can’t turn loose of local tradition). Matt Shears is young (26), energetic and, as one might expect of a JBC alumnus, deeply religious. He is aware that some are surprised to run across a church-going Democrat.

Matt Shears

That’s a stereotype he wants to debunk, and he points to Jimmy Carter and the Rev. Dr. William J. Barber II as role models.

“President Carter is my personal example of someone who is living out equality, justice and service. And I am from the same denomination as the Rev. Barber, Christian Church (Disciples of Christ).”

Barber is the founder of the Poor People’s Campaign – National Call for Moral Revival, and is from Shears’ home state of North Carolina.

Shears also considers Bobby Kennedy a role model because he practiced Catholic social justice principles – “Justice for the poor, fairness for immigrants and equality for all people. Republicans don’t own religion.”

Shears, whose day job is area director at Pension Fund of the Christian Church, has been the official party chair for about a week. He was appointed interim chair when LaKenya Middlebrook accepted the position of executive director of the Police Advisory and Review Committee (PARC) in June. He is a big fan of Middlebrook, and credits her for groundbreaking accomplishments during her time as chair.

He and his wife, Lauren, live in Parkridge now, but were South Knoxvillians in 2016 when he got involved in the Democratic Party and was put to work by the tireless Sylvia Woods.

Although Democrats are still a decided minority in Knox County, Shears says they’ve started the task of eating the elephant a bite at a time. He offers the last two election cycles as proof that more Democrats – and fewer Republicans – are getting involved:

Democrats have logged record numbers in fundraising and in volunteer recruitment. This year, nine percent more Democrats voted in County Commission District 2 than in 2016, allowing Courtney Durrett to beat her well-funded Republican opponent, Grant Rosenberg. Democrat Todd Frommeyer didn’t beat Republican Kyle Ward in District 4 (being vacated by commission chair Hugh Nystrom), but he gained four percentage points over last election. Challenger Kimberly Peterson didn’t prevail over incumbent John Schoonmaker in the far-west, deep red District 5, but she did gain nine percent more of the vote than Democrats won in 2016 (from 24 to 33 percent).

Shears figures that the result in District 4, which overlaps with state House District 18, bodes well for Democrat Virginia Couch. Until he was prodded (did I mention that he’s a really nice young guy?), he didn’t mention the nasty battle in the Republican Primary over the party credentials of Eddie Mannis, who won by 99 votes over Gina Oster, triggering a bizarre election night attack on Mannis by Shears’ GOP counterpart Randy Pace. On Tuesday, the picture got even uglier when Oster asked the Republican State Executive Committee to disqualify Mannis for voting in this year’s Democratic Super Tuesday Primary.

They might just do it.

Couch is an attorney who is smart, well-funded and well-liked by many of the same moderate Republicans who also like Mannis. Oster is a right-wing Republican who, if she’s successful in booting Mannis, will likely lose the moderate votes in November. With the voters who will be lured to the polls by a heated presidential race, the fact that Democrat Greg Mackay got 47.5 percent of the vote against incumbent Martin Daniel two years ago, and the math looks perilous for Oster.

Shears didn’t want to speculate about the result of the Republican shoot-out beyond saying that Couch has his 100 percent support and the support of every other Democrat that he knows. It was a phone interview (social distancing, you know), so I couldn’t tell if he was smiling.

Betty Bean writes a Thursday opinion column for KnoxTNToday.com.

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