State Senator Lowe Finney Endorses Padgett For U.S. Senate
Posted on June 12, 2008 at 2:29 pm
Following up yesterday’s endorsement list which featured Shelby County Commisioner Sidney Chism, the Mike Padgett for Senate campaign is showing a bit of West Tennessee shake and bake action with the endorsement of Jackson’s own State Senator Lowe Finney.
“Mike Padgett has visited 86 of the 95 counties in this state, showing Tennesseans what the people of Knox County already know,” Finney said. “That Mike is a public servant in the truest sense of the word – their concerns will be his mandate in the U.S. Senate.
“Mike has heard the people of rural Tennessee talk about the struggles they face, and he has responded with a sound, innovative roadmap to put prosperity again within their reach.”
For the East Tennessean Padgett to show these kinds of endorsements in West Tennessee is significant. In an a statewide primary with Bob Tuke, if Padgett can turn them out strong in his native East Tennessee and Chism and Finney can get out the African Americans of Memphis and the rural yellow dog whites of West Tennessee respectively, Padgett can concede Tuke’s Middle Tennessee base and still come out golden.
Senator Lowe Finney, a cousin to the McWherter family, was the incumbent slayer of 2006, taking out the party switching Don McCleary which was crucial in assuring that Democrats maintained an even split in the state Senate.
Finney’s campaign manager in that effort was Jed Brewer who currently manages the campaign of Mike Padgett.
Along with this endorsement, the Padgett campaign released its policy paper for rural Tennessee called “TN 2.0: Rebuilding, From the Farm to the Front Porch.”
The plan, populist in nature, contains a request for an $8.40 “living wage” while calling for tax relief and “eliminat[ing] the estate tax for 99.7 percent of estates.”
Padgett also pushes something called the “New Homestead Economic Opportunity Act” would help entrepreneurs starting a business in a rural area in population decline a federal match on money to start a small business.
The plan pushes nuclear power as the campaign did in its energy plan but not as path to energy independence but as an avenue to good paying jobs for rural Tennesseans.
As expected from an economic nationalist like Padgett, the plan explicitly decries our current trade deals calling for their renegotiation and offers the promise of rewards for companies who do not offshore or outsource although specifics seem to be lacking on this point.
Will incentives to outsource just be removed or incentives to stay incountry be instituted? What would those be? The plan doesn’t say.
The plan does say that do to the current rate of displacement in rural area that unemployment benefit period would be extended and that the family farm needs protection.
Padgett would enforce country-of-origin laws that require labels to show where food was raised and he would limit farm subsidies to $300,000 per person to prevent agribusiness from horning it.
A rather ambitious proposal, all in all, for a fiscally conservative electorate.
UPDATE: The Brainstem analysis of “The Plan.”
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7 Responses to “State Senator Lowe Finney Endorses Padgett For U.S. Senate”
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This could be a lot like the 1970 gubernatorial race. Winfield Dunn, the Memphian dentist, ran in a heated Republican primary on the logic of his “East-West” strategy: if Dunn could garner enough votes out of traditionally Democratic West Tennessee, especially Shelby County, then combined with the Republican base in East Tennessee, he could beat John Jay Hooker in the general by leaving Middle Tennessee to the Democrats. The Republicans saw the logic of that argument, and Dunn became the first Republican governor since the 1920s.
Padgett could apply a similar strategy in the general election. By cutting into the Lamar’s Republican base of East Tennessee, especially in his home of Knox County, and by drawing rural voters in West and Middle Tennessee back into the Democratic column, he could conceivably achieve the biggest upset in Tennessee since 1994.
D given Lamar’s time as Governor and in the Bush cabinet…it would be a bigger upset than Sassers. I have to say Im impressed by these endorsements. I thought Tuke would run away with the Dem nod and Padgett would be on of these yahoos who wouldnt get anywhere when he announced.
Maybe, then, it would be comparable to the Senate race in 1970? Bill Brock defeating 3-term incumbent Albert Gore, Sr. was the third part of the Republican trifecta begun with Howard Baker’s defeat of Frank Clement in ‘66, and completed by Brock and Dunn in ‘70.
[…] this post is about Lowe Finney. Finney has endorsed Padgett. And for those of you who don’t know or understand west Tennessee […]
[…] this post is about Lowe Finney. Finney has endorsed Padgett. And for those of you who don’t know or understand west Tennessee candidates, […]
D, the more relevant example is when Lamar spanked another Democrat from Knox county named Randy Tyree in 1982. Despite Mr Tyree being Knoxville’s Mayor, Lamar carried Knox County with 70% of the vote.
Meanwhile in Memphis, I think Lamar has received more endorsements from Dems in Shelby County than the two Democrats have combined.