Tag Archives: Taylor

Democrats Have a Chance in 3rd District?

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From the Chattanooga TFP:
To hear Hamilton County Democratic Party Vice Chairman Rodney Strong tell it, “Do-Nothing Chuck, Little Prince Wamp and maybe The Milkman” can be defeated.
Strong renamed the Republican U.S. Rep. Chuck Fleischmann; his 24-year-old son-of-a-former-congressman primary challenger, Weston Wamp; and another potential GOP opponent, dairy mogul Scottie Mayfield, at the local Democratic Party’s executive committee meeting Thursday night.
Wamp and a spokesman for Fleischmann declined comment. Mayfield could not be reached.
In a brief interview after the meeting, Strong said Tennessee’s 3rd Congressional District race is within reach for a party that hasn’t tasted victory since 1992. Strong said the newly drawn congressional district, which includes parts or all of six fresh counties, could benefit Democratic hopefuls Mary Headrick, a physician from Union County, and Chattanooga businessman Bill Taylor, both of whom attended the meeting.
“We’re feeling good,” said Strong, an assistant district attorney for Hamilton County. “The new district gives the Republican [candidates] no better name recognition than our own people.”

Democrat Bill Taylor Launches 3rd Congressional District Bid

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From the Chattanooga TFP:
A little blue crept into Tennessee’s 3rd Congressional District race Thursday when political newcomer and Ooltewah businessman Bill Taylor became the first Democrat to go after U.S. Rep. Chuck Fleischmann’s job.
Amid coffee, cookies and a crowd at Hamilton County Democratic Party headquarters, Taylor, 59, shied away from partisan rhetoric and struck a centrist tone, comparing himself to former Democratic Tennessee Gov. Phil Bredesen.
Taylor later described the current Congress as “appalling” and said too many Republicans and Democrats occupy fringe ideological territory.
“Here in Hamilton County, we’ve not had anybody represent the 70 percent in the middle,” he said. “I represent the middle.”
Whether Taylor is a sacrificial lamb or a candidate with a chance remains to be seen. GOP candidates have won the seat since 1994, when Zach Wamp captured the first of eight largely uncontested terms. But Democrats say political tides could change.
They cite Democrat Marilyn Lloyd, who won the seat in 1974 and kept it until 1992, two years longer than Wamp. “Bill has a chance of winning,” said Martha Embry, a Chattanooga Democrat who first met Taylor at the news conference. “He’s sincere, down-to-earth and believable.”
The full story HERE.

Two More Ready to Run in 3rd Congressional District

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Two more candidates for the 3rd District congressional seat, one Democratic and one Republican, are apparently ready to enter the fray, reports Nooga.com
At the weekly meeting of the Hamilton County Pachyderm Club, club vice president Ron Bhalla announced he would be joining the field. Bhalla, a 64-year-old Indian immigrant and owner of Hixson’s Somo Enterprises Inc., said he was not running because he was disappointed in Fleischmann but instead to reform a political system that was out of order.
“I’m not against anybody, I am against the system,” Bhalla said. “Whoever they are sending to congress gets involved with external forces like lobbyists and Washington Politics and fundraising, but I won’t be getting involved in that because I won’t be sold out. I won’t be a puppet of people who want to use me for their own personal interest.”
….Bhalla’s entry to the field adds his name with Weston Wamp and Dr. Jean Howard-Hill as Republican hopefuls.
There had been no talk of any challengers from the Democratic party until Monday afternoon, when Hamilton County Democratic Party Chairman Paul Smith confirmed that Bill Taylor of Physician Practice Resources Inc. would announce his candidacy on Thursday.
The announcement will be made at the Hamilton County Democratic Party headquarters on Thursday at 11 a.m.
…Meanwhile, Chattanooga attorney and lobbyist J.B. Bennett said he wont’ run for Congress.

Recalling Tennessee’s Political ‘War of the Roses’

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In his Sunday column, Robert Houk shares “one of my favorite political stories of all time:
The 1886 race for Tennessee governor featuring two brothers from Carter County, one a Democrat and the other a Republican, who shared a buggy as they campaigned across the state. Bob Taylor, the Democrat, would go on to beat his Republican brother, Alf, in what was dubbed “The War of the Roses.”
The campaign got its name from a remark Bob — known affectionately by both his family and supporters as “Our Bob” — made at a stop in Madisonville.
“Bob, who opened the debate, said in his speech that he and his competitor were ‘roses from the same garden,’ ” Alf, James and Hugh Taylor wrote of their brother in their 1913 book, “The Life and Career of Sen. Robert Love Taylor.”
Bob suggested that he was a white rose and his brother was best represented by a red rose. The next day, the two traveled from East Tennessee to campaign stops in Middle and West Tennessee.
Somewhere along the way, a woman presented each of the brothers with a bouquet of their respective roses.
“Now I want you boys to take these flowers for the sake of your mother,” Bob’s brothers wrote in their book. “I know she must be proud to have sons who can be politicians and still be brothers.”
Thus, the brothers wrote, was the start of the War of the Roses.
Judged by today’s standards of civility, the 1886 campaign for governor was a gentlemanly contest and quite educational for the voters. The Taylor brothers were both gifted orators who could keep audiences enthralled for hours.