Well, I voted on Thursday, the final day of early voting. It was with low enthusiasm that I pulled the lever for Sheriff Tom Spangler, District 7 commission candidate Chuck Severance and school board candidate Sherri Garrett.
There was more excitement about voting for Bud Armstrong for chancellor and at-large commissioner Larsen Jay. And zero excitement about the choice for trustee between Justin Biggs and Richard Jacobs.
Today’s Republican Party is off-the-tracks. As one friend commented, “It’s really hard to get a long word like “conservative” on a yard sign.” Yet Jay’s primary opponent, lawyer Steve Weiner, did it. The folks who get paid to write political mailers are all about “conservative, Christian and low taxes.”
Severance’s challenger Rhonda Lee hit the trifecta: “Rhonda is a Christian mother and grandmother who will fight for conservative values. Rhonda will vote to eliminate wasteful spending and fight for low taxes. Protect our children, our faith and schools from any Washington D.C. liberal agenda.”
David Allan Coe
Reminds me of David Allan Coe’s “perfect country & western song,” which, he said, had to include “mama, trains, trucks, prison and getting’ drunk.”
The verse goes like this:
“Well, I was drunk the day my mom got out of prison
“And I went to pick her up in the rain
“But before I could get to the station in my pickup truck
“She got run over by a damned old train.”
Spangler has posted a “JJ Lite” record as sheriff and was out-maneuvered by Jim Jennings and Gina Oster at the Sheriff’s Merit Council. Yet Spangler has friends both in and outside the Sheriff’s Office that just won’t stop working for him. And they will carry him one more time on May 3. But I won’t be at anybody’s victory party.
GOTV Rally: GOP party chair Daniel Herrera has called a “Get Out The Vote” Rally for Saturday, April 30, from 5-8 p.m. at GOP headquarters, 5412 Clinton Hwy. There will be free admission, free pizza and soft drinks.
Omarosa prevails: An arbitrator has ordered former president Donald’s Trump’s campaign to pay Omarosa Manigault Newman $1.3 million in legal fees over the campaign’s unsuccessful lawsuit against her after she wrote a book about her time as a White House adviser. Remember Omarosa from “The Apprentice.” Trump brought her to the White House with an unspecific job and few credentials. She later wrote “Unhinged: An Insider Account of the Trump White House.” Trump’s lawyers did not dispute the content of her book but sued because she had violated a non-disclosure agreement which the arbitrator said was vague. Reckon the check is in the mail?
Oops: CNN invested $100 million to create online streaming called CNN Plus. It was an effort to get folks to pay to hear what they could hear for free on cable. CNN’s parent company killed the baby just three weeks after its launch.
Sandra Clark is editor/CEO of Knox TN Today.