We’ve got a metro election coming up on August 2 , and so I want to take a selective, subjective survey of who’s running. If you think there’s somebody I missed or should have spent more time on, let me know—I will likely return to this topic next month.
In the mayoral race, David Briley, the self-proclaimed “Green candidate,” is polling well for a Green, which is about the best face I can put on his consistent single-digit polling numbers. Hey, at least they’re HIGH single-digit numbers! Let’s face it, he’s not likely to win this time—but Briley seems to have an urge towards politics for all the right reasons, and doubtless will be back at the quest for public office at the next possible opportunity. He is squaring up a little—he took the Jack Johnston song off his Myspace site—but he proved to be a trend setter with Myspace, as numerous other metro office seekers have now got their own sites, although Bob Clement still lists “Tom” as his numero uno “friend.” That’s embarassing, Bob, even if you are way ahead in the polls.
Clement’s campaign strategy seems to involve being as bland, vague and general as possible. I get no sense that he understands the urgency of the situation. I mean, bringing the Olympics to Nashville? OK, that’s not vague and general, but it’s markedly out of touch with reality. The fabric of our culture has become increasingly frayed, until now, ecologically, economically, and politically, it could shred from the slightest shock. David Briley seems to understand this. Karl Dean, whose work as public defender has involved him with the poorest of the poor, probably understands it, too. Buck Dozier, who incredibly has the Myspace “friendship” of the Davidson County Young Democrats ( I was sure he was a Republican!), almost certainly doesn’t. Shows you where the Young Dems are at, eh? As a more practical guy than Clement, who has basically been at the public trough his entire life, Dozier might be more capable of grasping the situation once it becomes a little more obvious, but I think we ain’t got time for that now….
Well, if Bob Clement really is the choice of a majority of Nashville, this town is as asleep as I was afraid it was. At least things look better in some of the other races…let’s look at the metro council at-large seats. There are twenty-six candidates running for five open seats. Many of these people are unremarkable, except that they are or have been members of metro council, which, again, shows that a lot of people in Nashville vote in their sleep. There oughtta be a law…
Three candidates in particular stand out when I survey the field: Jon Davidson, Megan Barry and Jerry Maynard. The Reverend Jerry Maynard, of the Cathedral of Praise Church. An evangelical Christian. An evangelical Christian? I’m a Green and I’m more-or-less endorsing an evangelical Christian? You are perhaps wondering what I have been smoking (or failing to smoke) lately? Not to worry. Jerry Maynard is one of those evangelicals who notices that Jesus talks a lot about caring for the poor and forgiving the sinners and never seems to mention banning abortion or the evils of homosexuality. Here’s some quotes and citations, courtesy of Sean Braisted, who has devoted a lot of time to interviewing candidates and publishing the results on his blog:
“ I’m one of those believers who thinks that Jesus Christ was the first activist that talked about Social Justice, and I never understood why in the black church, we stopped preaching social justice. And I never understood in the white church, why pastors did not stand in the pulpit and say ‘Racism is a Sin, not (a) moral dilemma, it’s a sin; exclusion is a sin.’ I never understood why Black preachers didn’t preach in their church and say, ‘Listen, we need to get healthy, have some self-love, and have some social justice.’”
Maynard understands the interconnection between social justice and personal development, and is not afraid to talk about it. I like that. And, he’s willing to stand up for what he believes: when right-wing Christians held a “Justice Sunday” event in Nashville to push for anti-abortion judges, Maynard organized an event at his church that he called “The Community of Faith and Unity” and hosted a variety of speakers, including ministers, a rabbi, and the head of Americans United for Separation of Church and State, to ask, “where is the love in the actions of this administration?” Over seven hundred people attended. The so-called liberal media paid much less attention to this event than they did to Justice Sunday itself, where thousands heard Tom DeLay talk about morality, and nobody thought that was in the least bit ironic. But, I digress…..
Rev. Maynard has said that one of the things that really concerns him about illegal immigration is that some people hire illegals and then stiff them instead of paying them, and the immigrants have no legal recourse. He called the attempt to pass an English only/English first ordinance in Nashville “ mean-spirited and wrong.”
His personal hero, he says, is Thurgood Marshall, because he put his life on the line to make things better for a lot of people. Sounds good to me!
Although he believes that “marriage is created by God for the purpose of procreation, so therefore marriage should be an institution between a man and a woman,” he also recognizes the importance of some kind of legal recognition of long-term relationships between same-sex couples. Really! Where God is involved, the government has no business. Marriage is a religious institution, involving a church ceremony and vows. Churches should be free to marry couples (or not) according to their own lights, and the government should not be in the position of enforcing any church’s view of marriage. The government should just provide a registry for people who want to legally become a single entity, the same way as it registers incorporated commercial enterprises. Churches are not called upon to bless the unions of corporate persons, are they? What religious ceremony couples mark this with, or whether they mark it with any ceremony at all, is simply not the government’s business.
But hey, I’m trying to tell you about Jerry Maynard, not ramble on myself.
On a more practical note, Maynard wants to see more emphasis on vocational education in Metro schools. I harp about this regularly and I’m glad to see I’m not the only one. As long as we’ve got public schools, we should use them to teach kids practical, hands-on stuff. Good luck, Jerry. I hope you make the cut.
Megan Barry is, in many ways, the opposite of Jerry Maynard. Some of those ways are superficial—she’s a white woman, and he’s a black man. But she is also much more secular, much more of a “textbook liberal”–in some ways. I don’t think it’s “textbook liberal” for her main concern to be governmental ethics, but I do think that’s a good place to start. Mostly, her context, I guess I’d call it, is “textbook.” Her husband, Bruce Barry, is on the board of the ACLU and features a link to Zippy the Pinhead on his website, which is even more of a freak flag than a Jack Johnson song. I hope he doesn’t get self-conscious and remove it!
Of course, we shouldn’t judge a woman by her husband—everybody knows Bill would be a lot more fun to party with than Hillary—but Megan seems to have the right attitude to bring to the job, and the bona fides to back it up. She has an MBA, she’s a specialist in business ethics, and she’s one of the people who spark plugged the effort to save the Belcourt Theatre. Does it get better than that? I would sum up her position as understanding that, as an at-large council member, she is expected to exercise oversight for the good of the whole metro area, and that the decisions she makes now will have long-term consequences that she will be around to reap.
I would be remiss not to mention the Green Party’s Jon Davidson’s bid for an at-large council seat. Jon has not sought party endorsement, but he did run as a Green for Rob Briley’s house seat last year. Jon is not a flashy, big-time, high-rolling, high-achieving, political kind of guy, just an average citizen with ideals and a good way of expressing them. I think he would make a well-grounded addition to Metro council, but in a city that’s threatening to elect a guy who’s either delusional or insincere enough to propose bringing the Olympics to town, he’s probably less likely to be elected than Megan Barry or Jerry Maynard.
When I worked in the civil rights movement, we used to encourage people to “plunk” for a favored candidate in a multi seat race. “Plunking” is voting for fewer candidates than the number of seats open. If enough people do it for the same candidate or candidates, it increases those candidate’ chances of winning the election. For example, in a race for five open seats, you only vote for three candidates. Gee, that’s the number of open seats in the metro at-large council race—and I just profiled three candidates! There is no connection, folks, no connection….
And lastly, Chris Lugo, the Green Party’s Senate candidate last year, is now running for Metro council in District 17, competing with four other candidates for the seat. Chris plans to go door-to-door and meet everyone in the district, which, since he is fundamentally a very reasonable and open guy, will vastly increase his chances of winning. Thinking globally, acting locally—the basis of Green political philosophy. We are going to do our best to talk some sense into this town.
And, PS—if you have ever thought about running for office, or helping someone else campaign for elected office, but have thought you’d like to learn more about it before just plunging in, or if you’ve already gotten involved politically but would like to learn more, there will be a Green Party Campaign School at Ecovillage in Summertown, Tennessee, on the last weekend in August. Details are available at the Tennessee Green Party website.
music: Yohimbe Brothers–”More From Life”
