Karl Dean, Confident a Democrat Can Win the Governorship, Tours Memphis
Thursday was Karl Dean Day in Memphis. Unofficially, of course. And Friday was Karl Dean Day Two. The former two-term mayor of Nashville, now an announced Democratic candidate for governor of Tennessee, devoted a couple of days to making the rounds in the Bluff City, giving folks here a chance to look him over.
What they saw — to judge only by two of Thursday’s stops, a morning drop-in at the Flyer and an early-evening appearance at a Tennessee Voter Project PAC event — was a man whose laid-back presence hinted at a calm, even a steady, self-assurance within. The first name Democrat to offer himself for Governor since Mike McWherter took a drubbing from Republican Bill Haslam in 2010, Dean figures it’s time for a Democrat to win again in a state that’s gone deep-dyed red in recent years.
As Dean is fully aware, he is not alone in so thinking. Another prominent Democrat, state House minority leader Craig Fitzhugh of Ripley is also expected to become a candidate for governor, setting up the prospect of a competitive Democratic primary in a state that in recent years has experienced significant statewide competition only in Republican primaries. And, as per usual, several Republican candidates have either announced for governor or are reported on the verge of doing so.
"They just want to see things happen"
But, as Dean noted at both the indicated Thursday venues in Memphis, the governorship has see-sawed back and forth between the parties with regularity since the 1970s. And, as he further noted, the last two governors, Democrat Phil Bredesen and incumbent Republican Bill Haslam, have both been big-city mayors like himself.
Read more: https://www.memphisflyer.com/JacksonBaker/archives/2017/07/14/karl-dean-confident-a-democrat-can-win-the-governorship-tours-memphis