One Shot, Two Kills: Odom Was The Mastermind Of The Speaker Williams Coup
Posted on February 20, 2009 at 8:16 amJackson Baker reveals that Speaker Jimmy Naifeh was not aware of the plan to get all 49 Democrats to collude in electing Rep. Williams Speaker until the last moment:
Longtime House Speaker Jimmy Naifeh was never a party to the arrangement and only came to know of it at 5 p.m. the day before the scheduled Speaker election. Naifeh had in fact consistently importuned Williams (along with other friendly Republicans) to vote for him as Speaker right up until the eve of the vote. “And I couldn’t vote for Speaker Naifeh. I just couldn’t,” says Williams, who bases that resolve on his having given a now famous public vow to vote “for a Republican.”
Again, Williams insists and Odom concurs that Naifeh was utterly ignorant of the plot and knew nothing of it until the last minute, as it were, and then, with his own dreams of retaining the Speakership expiring, merely acquiesced.
This directly contradicts a widespread suspicion among Republicans and, for that matter, some Democrats not now serving in the legislature that the wily Naifeh must have had a hand in the undertaking. (One such Democrat was former state representative Kim McMillan of Clarksville, who served as majority leader under Naifeh and is now a candidate for governor. While making a visit of her own to Memphis on Wednesday night, McMillan, a Naifeh loyalist, made it clear she thought the longtime Speaker had to have been a participant in the plot. “That just sounds like Speaker Naifeh!” she said with an admiring smile.
But not so. In point of fact, Odom – who had intended to challenge Naifeh for the Speakership had the Democrats maintained their majority – chose, when asked point-blank, not to dispute the interpretation that his involvement in the Williams affair had been aimed at both Naifeh and Mumpower.
SEE ALSO:
Jeff Woods
Mediaverse
Comparing The Kurita And Williams Situations
Posted on February 15, 2009 at 12:21 pmTom Humphrey explores the differences in the two cases of party disloyalty:
[T]he Democrats held their Kurita hearing in public and voted in the open. The party chairman at the time, Gray Sasser, left the decision to the executive committee.
The Republicans, in accord with their bylaws, left the actual decision on Williams to Smith but had a secret vote of the executive committee on a resolution urging Williams’ ouster — refusing even to make public a copy of the resolution until Smith made her announcement and said it was approved overwhelmingly.
It might be, however, that Kurita would have been better off if tossed out of the party back in 2007. She would have had two years to prepare for election as an Independent (or Republican?).
As it was, she was effectively unelected by the party executive committee when her name was removed from the ballot. She tried to run as a write-in candidate, but that crusade was doomed.
Williams does have time to organize a campaign as an independent and, conceivably, could benefit from a Carter County backlash.
Carter County Republicans Unite
Posted on February 10, 2009 at 7:25 amSpeaker Kent Williams’ hometown paper rebukes TNGOP chair Robin Smith for kicking the Carter Countian out of the GOP:
[W]e do not think that Republicans in Memphis and Chattanooga, where Ms. Smith is from, should be meddling in Carter County politics. We may live in the mountains, but we aren’t ignorant. We are learned enough in politics to vote. We don’t need the bright out-spoken lawyer from Memphis nor the “blonde” saleswoman from Chattanooga to tell us how to vote, nor do we need them to select our candidates. My gosh, our ancestors were the first to settle in Tennessee. They formed the first independent government west of the Alleghenies. Long before there was a Tennessee or a Chattanooga or a Memphis, our folks were living here in the Watauga Settlement. They were busy building a community and forming a government. I don’t know if they were Republicans or Democrats, but it really doesn’t matter. They were daring, brave and they sure didn’t let the British tell them what to do.
Perhaps, Ms. Smith should know that when she kicks our representative out of the Republican Party, she has dealt a blow to every Williams voter in Carter County.
UPDATE: The editorial has been removed from the website of the Star but Joe Powell has salvaged the text for posterity.
(TJF: Ken Whitehouse)
Oh, No You Didn’t
Posted on February 9, 2009 at 1:03 pmMicahel Silence exemplifies the attitude of the East Tennessee Republican in reacting to the TNGOP’s ousting of Speaker Kent Williams:
The people of Carter County ought to vote to oust the GOP from the county. After all, it seems to me that if the state GOP is going to nullify their votes, then the people of Carter County can nollify the party. Residents voted for Williams as a Republican. The party says no you didn’t. Again, that seems a wee bit arrogant. In the meantime, the state party has removed Williams as the villain and made him the victim. Add to that latter list the voters of Carter County.
Better For Whom?
Posted on February 5, 2009 at 12:50 pmLt. Governor Ron Ramsey tells Speaker Kent Williams that it would be better for him if he left the Republican Party rather than get kicked out:
“I sat down and talked with Kent Williams about this in my office, and to be honest, I think it’d be better for him if he was independent,” Ramsey said. “I think it would be better if he made that choice instead of being kicked out of the party. I think the whole atmosphere, the whole situation would work better if he was an independent.”
Better for him, Governor Ramsey, or better for you?
As I’ve said before, Kent Williams doesn’t want to be a Republican when the elections of 2010 rolls around. He can’t win a Republican in this climate. This much we know. On this point, Ramsey is correct.
The Republican Party will use all it’s powers and all of it’s skills to defeat Kent Williams in 2010. It won’t be like Kurita or Mike Williams last time. Kurita’s vote for Ramsey, while despised by activists, was understood by certain factions of the party and the casual Democratic leaning voter. Williams’ 2005 vote for Speaker Wilder was ameliorated by the fact that it was some time past by the time 2008 rolled around and he did, in fact, vote for Ramsey in 2007.
Kent Williams will be different. The conservatives hated him before.
They had already tried to defeat him. This time, they will have the party infrastructure behind them as well.
Williams’ only chance to maintain his seat in the legislature is as an independent. True, there aren’t many Democrats up in Carter County, but he’ll need every one to win. He’ll also need the casual voter, the voter that leans Republican, but is not necessarily an activist or a primary voter.
The last thing Kent Williams wants to do is make the Kurita mistake, stay in a party where they activists and the establishment are against you. So Ramsey is right, Williams does need to be an independent for his own good but which is better for him, being kicked out or leaving?
Again, Williams is from Carter County in East Tennessee. Republicanism is in the soil there, in the water. But so is independence. Kent Williams can sell himself in East Tennessee as the Independent Republican who did what he thought was right but got kicked out by an angry, ideological party hijacked by the religious right.
You can market that image to East Tennesseans. Not the activists, but your average voter will buy that. If he is painted the betrayer, the sellout who got elected as a Republican only to then vote with the Democrats, become speaker and then leave the party, that is an image he cannot sell.
Yes, Williams needs to an independent. It is in his interest. What is also important, however, is how he gets there and for a Carter Countian to leave the Republican Party under these circumstances is not a place Kent Williams wants to be if he can avoid it.
He wants to get kicked out. He needs to get kicked out. And on February 9th, the party will likely oblige him.
Why Kick Him Out?
Posted on January 26, 2009 at 11:25 pmWhile the Tennessee Republican Party has not yet taken the action against Speaker Kent Williams many expect them to, Rep. Stacey Campfield and others are patiently waiting for the inevitable. They wait for the day that the state party takes away Kent Williams’ ability to appear as a Republican on a Tennessee ballot.
My question is why? Why would a Republican who wants desperately to witness the end of Williams’ political career want the TNGOP to throw him out? Williams may be just a sophomore representative but one needs to be careful when describing him as a political lightweight.
In 2006, Kent Williams unseated an incumbent legislator, Jerome Cochran, to gain his seat in the legislature. Two years later, the same man challenged him again with support from members of the house caucus and again he emerged victorious. And say what you want about how he got there, the man is Speaker of the House. It is a powerful position and one that will allow him, tight budget times or not, to help the people of his district.
Speaking of his district, Carter County is not exactly a haven for liberalism. You don’t run as a Democrat in Carter County. Not if you expect to win anyway. East Tennessee is Republican country, hill country. If the Republicans throw him out, Williams will be able to play the martyr. He will be able to say that he didn’t leave the party but that the party left him.
East Tennesseans are Republicans but they are also independent minded. If the party shuns him he can fashion a narrative as the independent Republican that got thrown out by an overzealous, hyper-ideological party.
If they leave him as a party member, however, that’s when things truly get tricky politically for Kent Williams.
You see, while it may offend the sensibilities of party members, the best way to get rid of Williams is to leave him be. Williams can’t win a Republican primary. He has to run as an Independent. He doesn’t have a choice. He’s not trying to go out like Kurita. So in two years, in 2010, Kent Williams will file for reelection as an independent. He will no longer be a Republican.
So why make it easy for him? Why not force him to leave? Then, not only is he the rogue legislator who colluded with Democrats to make himself speaker, he is the ungrateful Judas, a man who refused the outstretched hand of a forgiving party.
It’s a no brainer. It may be hard. It may be distasteful. But if Republicans really want to hurt Kent Williams politically, they should leave him as one of them.
SEE ALSO: Brainstem
RNC Chairman Candidate Gets Involved In The Kent Williams Situation
Posted on January 16, 2009 at 11:07 amA political action committee led by former Maryland Lt. Governor and RNC chairman candidate Michael Steele wants Speaker Kent Williams proverbial head on a plate for accepting the Democratic nomination for Tennessee house speaker — and the committee is putting its money where its mouth is. A press release from the TNGOP:
The installation by Democrats of Kent Williams as Speaker of the Tennessee House of Representatives this week despite losing the majority in the 2008 elections has galvanized Republicans not only across Tennessee but also across the country into action.
Today, GOPAC, the national Republican organization dedicated exclusively to electing Republicans to state and local offices, presented a financial contribution to the Tennessee Republican Party as a down payment on the effort to replace Mr. Williams with a representative who represents the people of Carter County honestly and who will not use deception and lies in order to advance his own personal political ambitions.
“GOPAC was honored to assist with the election of a Republican majority in the Tennessee House of Representative and looked forward to working with the Republican Caucus nominee for Speaker of the House,” said GOPAC Chairman Michael Steele. “The actions of Mr.. Williams in conspiring with Democrats to make him the Speaker and to elect a Democrat as Speaker Pro Tempore means our work continues for a governing Republican majority in the Tennessee House.
“To kick-off this effort, GOPAC is pleased to be the first contributor to the Tennessee Republican Party’s new project to elect a larger Republican majority and, in turn, the Republican Caucus nominee for Speaker of the House,” Steele said. “We urge citizens across the Volunteer State who want a conservative, common sense majority governing the State House to join us in contributing to the Tennessee Republican Party’s new project.”
“Kent Williams’ betrayal of his party through massive deception and conspiring with the leaders of the opposition, Jimmy Naifeh and Gary Odom, has energized and galvanized countless Tennesseans and Republicans across the nation who have pledged their commitment to electing a principled Republican to the Speaker’s post,” said Bill Hobbs, Communications Director for the Tennessee Republican Party. “The Tennessee Republican Party expresses its appreciation to GOPAC today for the first contribution from a national organization to that effort.
“GOPAC knows the way to defeat the corrupt politics that the Williams-Naifeh-Odom club epitomizes in Tennessee is to defeat Democrats who made this secret deal with Williams, and replace them with Republicans who deal honestly with each other and with the people of our great state,” Hobbs said.
In 2008, thanks to the support of the countless Tennesseans, Republicans won 14 non-incumbent legislative races en route to winning the first Republican majority in the legislature for the first time since the Civil War.
Rather than honor the will of the people in their historic decision to elect him and 49 other Republican candidates to the majority, Williams allowed himself to be installed by Democrats as Speaker of the Tennessee House of Representatives – despite making numerous promises and public statements of his intention to vote for the Republican Caucus nominee.
Tennesseans have been vocal and active in demonstrating their overwhelming disgust with Rep. Williams’ betrayal.
“It is an honor to stand with great folks and organizations committed to more than political position and power,” commented Tennessee Republican Party Chairman Robin Smith. “We have already begun to recruit and support candidates committed first to principles that serve this great state. We express sincerest thanks to GOPAC and others who are investing in our efforts.”
Of Two Minds
Posted on January 14, 2009 at 12:44 pm“Mixed emotions, buddy. Like Larry Wildman going off a cliff — in my new Maserati.”
~ Gordon Gekko in Wall Street (1987)
The head of the county GOP out in Carter County is still trying to get his head around the election of Kent Williams as Speaker of the House:
The chairman of the Carter County Republican Party, Keith Bowers, was more reserved, knowing that Williams was elected by Democrats against the will of the Republican majority in the House.
“We are happy for Carter County that one of our own has been elected to this high position, anything to help Carter County to grow and to receive help in Nashville is welcome,” Bowers said, “but I don’t want to make an official comment on what happened today until I have had time to study this.”
(HT: MS)
permalink | Comment on this post
You’re Nothing But A Lot Of Talk And A Driver
Posted on at 12:33 pmLibertarian think tanker Drew Johnson on Speaker Kent Williams:
“They went to Kent Williams and said, ‘Listen, you’ll make three times more money, you’ll have a driver from Carter County…so that’s what it was all about; Kent has no principles, no nothing, now he has $70,000 and has a driver.”
MORE: Jeff Woods
permalink | Comment on this post
Bad Dream
Posted on at 9:55 amRep. David Hawk (as well as Rep. Eddie Yokley) reflect on yesterday’s Speaker election in the Greeneville Sun:
Hawk said that participating in the vote was “surreal, like being in a bad dream.”
Hawk said he has not gotten to know Williams well in the two years they have served together. “Obviously nobody did,” Hawk said, adding, “It’s hard to know someone who does what he did, but we’ll be living with it for a couple of years.”
Recent Comments
What’s really unaffordale is to keep...
Just doing what any lap dog would do for it’s...
Congressman Cooper has apparently decided to take the...
I’d say it’s more because we’ve waited...
Hmmm… wonder if...
Glad Cooper came on-board. What’s up with Bart?
Vote YES, BART. Do it! Your people NEED health...
yeah, and Bart’s not one....
LOL … no. No...
Maybe Mike Williams?