Sen. Alexander hops on the flat tax bandwagon
Alexander has issued a press release proposing an “optional” 17% flat tax:
Americans would not pay taxes on their income until it reached a certain level. For a married couple filing jointly, the exemption level would be $25,580. For a single head of household, the exemption level would be $16,330, and for a single person, the [...]
Read More..>>Knoxville homeboy Padgett starts getting statewide attention
Former Knox County Clerk Mike Padgett, currently running for Lamar Alexander’s U.S. Senate Seat, will be the subject of an interview this week with Nashville Scene editor Matt Pulle, who has an ongoing beef with Padgett’s primary opponent, Bob Tuke.
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Tuke is to Obama as Padgett is to Hillary
Jennifer Brooks suggests the Tuke-Padgett match-up will play out as a primary do-over. What do you think?
If you liked the presidential primary race, you’re going to love the sequel.
Familiar faces from the Clinton/Obama matchup are returning for a new battle in Tennessee, this time challenging Republican U.S. Sen. Lamar Alexander’s hold on his seat.
Democrats Bob [...]
Al Gore vs. Lamar Alexander smackdown
Tennessee Ticket has the foolish details.
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GOP demands loyalty
David Oatney:
… if you’ve ever become involved as a conservative activist with Republican politics in any way, shape, fashion, or form, you know that the one thing that the GOP asks of its conservative adherants is loyalty. There is a good reason for this-with rare exceptions, the Democrats fail to offer much in the way [...]
Lugo won’t run as Democrat
Via the AP:
A former Green Party candidate for the U.S. Senate says he has abandoned plans to run as a Democrat this year. Chris Lugo, who came in seventh in the 2006 race, said Friday that he will again seek the Green Party nomination or run as an independent. Lugo was one [...]
Paging Bob Tuke…
Matt Pulle at The Nashville Scene has penned an open letter to Bob Tuke:
Hey Bob, it’s Matt. I hope you’re doing well. Do you remember me? I left you two voice mails about Gus Puryear, figuring that you’d have something interesting to say about him. Not just because you’re running against—in theory at least—Sen. Lamar [...]
Alexander announces
To the great surprise of exactly no one, Lamar Alexander announced yesterday that he’s running for re-election.
(And Senator Alexander will be our guest this week on WBIR’s Inside Tennessee, airing at 9:30 am SUnday morning. Our panel members this week are Don Bosch, Mike Cohen and Jack McElroy, and as always, the inimitable John Becker [...]
Sen. Alexander takes TN GOP to the woodshed
Apparently, Tennessee’s moderate GOP senator wasn’t real happy with the TN GOP leadership’s approach to campaigning against Obama.
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Lamar Alexander gets his snark on
An entertaining quote from an obviously irritated Sen. Alexander on the time Congress is currently wasting spending investigating steroid use in professional baseball:
“Now if gasoline weren’t three dollars a barrel, if the terrorists weren’t lurking, if everybody had health insurance and the economy were in good shape, then maybe we’d be out of things to [...]
Does this mark the official start of the campaign?
Kleinheider notes that the state GOP has begun taking public notice of Democrat Bob Tuke’s campaign to unseat Lamar Alexander.
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Padgett –and Alexander — have a challenger
Silence Isn’t Golden says TN Democratic insider and Nashville lawyer Bob Tuke will formally announce for U.S. Senate this week.
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More Democrats get on the Alexander bandwagon
The Nashville Post notes today that Lamar Alexander’s fundraising list looks more bipartisan by the week:
Today’s list of new Tennesseans for Alexander is like a “who’s-who” of
prominent Democrats who have been crucial to past Democratic fundraising
and campaign efforts. Included are Hal Hardin, former U.S. Attorney for
Middle Tennessee during the Carter Administration; former state Attorney
General Paul [...]
Mike Padgett to challenge Lamar Alexander
Via Volunteer Voters:
Ken Whitehouse with the breaker:
NashvillePost.com has learned that former Knox County Clerk William M. “Mike” Padgett will enter the Democratic primary.
Padgett was first elected to the Knox County School Board in 1984 then as Knox County Clerk in 1986, a position he held for over 20 years. He was forced to leave [...]
Read More..>>Lamar Alexander moving party to the left
That’s the premise of this profile in Politico:
Last year, Alexander angered conservatives by embracing a nonbinding timetable for withdrawal from Iraq — basically adopting the recommendations of the Iraq Study Group that had been rejected by the Bush administration. He says he’d have to back off that idea now that he’s in leadership.
“It would [...]
Another Lamar Alexander opponent bites the dust
Albertini is apparently out.
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Bob Tuke to challenge Alexander after all?
That’s the buzz over at Volunteer Voters.
What do you think? Should the Democrats run a “legitimate” candidate against Lamar Alexander for the sake of state legislative candidates down the ticket or is there nothing wrong with letting the evidently newly shaved and coiffed Chris Lugo stand for the progressive values of the new Democratic Party?
Or [...]
The Lamar Alexander juggernaut plows another Democrat out of the way
Link
Nashville insurance lawyer Kevin Doherty says he has decided not to run against Lamar Alexander for the U.S. Senate this year.
The Democrat said in a released statement Friday the costs of campaigning and the time needed to raise money are “simply insurmountable at this late stage of the campaign.”
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Read More..>>The Howard Baker effect?
Via Kleinheider:
The AP’s Erik Schelzig touches on the unfortunate history of the what might be termed “The Baker Family” in presidential politics:
Thompson’s campaign followed unsuccessful bids for the presidency by former Senate Majority Leader Howard Baker in 1980 and by Sen. Lamar Alexander in 1996 and 2000. Baker was Thompson’s political mentor while Alexander is [...]
Lamar Alexander finally hits the big time
You know you’re somebody when you’re “quoted” in The Onion, as our very own senator is in this piece entitled “Senate Meets at Coffee Shop to Brainstorm Legislation” (note to those unfamiliar with The Onion: this is satire):
While nearly every senator interviewed said they were pleased with the new legislative ideas and were looking forward [...]
