Haslam Wins West Tennessee Straw Poll

10 Responses to “Haslam Wins West Tennessee Straw Poll”

1. Sarah Ray writes
   November 8th, 2009 9:02 pm

   What a joke, Haslam buys tickets to these events for college kids and tells them to go vote for him in straw polls.

2. Joe Kirkpatrick writes
   November 8th, 2009 9:09 pm

   I’d have voted for Haslam, too, if he had paid for my ticket. Nice reporting, this event took place 11 days ago. Why don’t you post the link to the actual story instead of a third-party account from someone who wasn’t there? You people should take a class from the editor of this paper. Not perfect, but this is as close as anyone has come to covering one of these events honestly.

3. Perry Aubric writes
   November 8th, 2009 9:46 pm

   Waa, waa, waa, Sarah and Joe. Bitter, are you? So Haslam out-organizes, out-politics, and out-maneuvers his opponents, gets more of his people to the poll, and wins this little election? Gee, how terrible for him. He wins, and the rest of you lose. And your response? Oh, I already noted it. Waa, waa, waa.

   Seems to me that knowing how to win is kinda a qualification for the eventual nominee of any party. Joe, if you can’t find more than 2 supporters in a crowd od 200 members of your party, you are even more of a joke that you appear to be And that’s pretty bad.

4. Number9 writes
   November 8th, 2009 10:01 pm

   There were a lot of Haslam votes in Knoxville that came from college age voters. Twenty five to thirty percent. That is a clever and very inexpensive way to improve voting in straw polls. This is looking to become a machine race.

5. Joe Kirkpatrick writes
   November 9th, 2009 12:16 am

   Hey, I show up with nobody. If I leave with any support at all, they are converts among political actives.

   If he’s such a great organizer, given the money, he should win every time. Seriously, bitter, not at all. I am having the time of my life. I don’t go in expecting anything except a lot of new friends.

6. Late writes
   November 9th, 2009 8:47 am

   How in the tank for Haslam is the News-Sentinel? They are reporting an event from 11 days ago to blur Haslam getting his ass kicked by Knox County conservatives at the TCU dinner.

7. Number9 writes
   November 9th, 2009 8:57 am

   How in the tank for Haslam is the News-Sentinel?

   The KNS waited two days before reporting on the TCU straw poll. Every Saturday Pilot Gas stations give away free KNS newspapers. That is about 10,000 papers. So you can see how in the tank the KNS is for Haslam.

8. vandyfan writes
   November 9th, 2009 10:15 am

   KNS has nothing to do with this. Have any of you actually checked the source? It’s the freakin’ Dyersburg State Gazette. The local paper in Dyersburg waited 10 days to write the article. The media across the rest of the state like Kleinheider and Humphrey don’t find out about things in rural west TN until the local paper there actually reports it, and then it turns up on a google alert or whatever they use. So don’t blame Humphrey or KNS or Kleinheider.

   Does anyone want to actually discuss the results? Like how Zach Wamp only got 3 votes, which is an indication he clearly has not been to northwest TN and apparently has no intent to have a presence in west TN. Or that Bill Gibbons finished 2nd, which might or might not mean anything. Or how in the world Bill Haslam got 95 votes in west TN. I highly doubt he bought 95 tickets. That’s just ridiculous. If he wanted to win a straw poll so bad, why hasn’t he “bought” all the rest of them? Could it be that he’s actually been to northwest TN a few times and has legitimate support there?

   And Joe, you are ridiculous. Kleinheider sourced Humphrey, who sourced the actual Dyersburg Gazette. Geez. And if you’re going in with no expectations, just wanting to make some friends, surely there are better reasons to run for governor. I would love to hear what those are.

9. Joe Kirkpatrick writes
   November 9th, 2009 12:15 pm

   vandyfan:

   Our beloved alma mater is apparently that is all we have in common.

   Making friends, while not my purpose, is a great benefit of participation in the process. You are welcome to click on my user name, it is a link to my home page. Start there and then proceed to my blog for more detail.

   I am running because I damn well want to, and its still what’s left of a free country the last time I checked. So, whether you accept, dismiss, or criticize my motives is your business just as running MY race for Governor of Tennessee is MINE.

   As for Adam and Tom, don’t kid yourself. They know exactly what in the he** is going on. If they don’t, they are incompetent. I give them far more intellectual credit than that. Please, by all means, inform me if they are undeserving of the respect.

   Yes, the story did come in 11 days after the fact, yet when someone who actually puts real effort into something and gets paid little or nothing to do it, we really lack the moral authority to criticize them.

   The story would have been just as worthy had the results already been posted by the press timely. The primary is August 5th, next year. They knew everything. Many thanks to Late and Number9 for the additional theory and insight on the conspiracy model.

   I learn a lot around this blog from people who either willingly or unintentionally give me the cannon fodder I need to move my purpose and its associated message forward.

   If I am able to make friends here, great! However, I am not quite as interested in that result in this particular venue.

   I like Tom Humphrey well enough. We’ve been passing acquaintances for over ten years. It doesn’t mean I am not going to call him out on his crap, not to mention his misspelling of my last name right after he says I am largely ignored. He proofreads his stuff.

   He calls me out on my crap or mocks me as well, and I don’t take it personally. After all, there is a bit truth laced in all of that spin he promulgates. A few people actually still read the rag/blog that employs him. Hmmm… and I am guessing (just another conspiracy theory) the Haslams have spent a million or three in advertising over yonder in the last decade or so.

   I don’t really know Adam, but I’m sure he and I would get along famously in a social setting. I like his work, but his, too, is subject to intense scrutiny given the field of expertise he has chosen.

   This is a fun business for those with thick skin.

10. The Second Chance Sheepdog writes
    November 9th, 2009 5:57 pm

    God help us all.