TeamGOP in Tennessee

At the last TFA meeting we heard from Jeff Ward from TeamGOP Tennessee. He is one of the principles of a grassroots effort to get Republicans elected to every level of office throughout Tennessee. They are starting by specifically targeting vulnerable Democrats in the Tennessee House in 2004, with a goal of spending $100K in key state races this year and possibly gaining a Republican majority.

I don't know if TeamGOP knows it, but they are implementing the same strategy as the highly successful Club for Growth, only at the state level.

Is this possible? I believe so as there are a number of House Democrats that are vulnerable and that I would like to see TeamGOP go after, including (but certainly not limited to):

• Speaker Jimmy Naifeh (aka, Mr. "we gotta have an income tax"). Naifeh did pretty poorly against write-in opponent Antonio Lopez two years ago. He then spent a lot of political capital in his nearly successful bid to ram an income tax down the throats of an unwilling citizenry, and is paying the price as supporters have distanced themselves from the aura of failure. Dr. Jesse Cannon has been essentially campaigning for the last two years for this seat. He is well known in the community and has a lot of support (as well as a tiny bit of money from me). Naifeh is going down, and this is the year we knock him off his perch.
• Freshman Kent Coleman won his seat by 38 votes, in part because of an A rating from the NRA based on how he answered a questionnaire. Once seated on the misnamed Constitutional Protections subcommittee, Coleman reversed his position and voted against initiatives he specifically pledged to support during the campaign (thus giving rise to the word "Coleism"). Coleman angered a lot of gun owners in Tennessee and we hope to make his political career a very, very short one.
• Craig Fitzhugh
• Phillip Pinion
• Tommy Head
• Rob Briley

While TeamGOP is concentrating on the House, there are a few vulnerable Democrats in the Senate as well:

• Tommy Kilby
• Roy Herron
• John Wilder (who is also Lt. Governor).

Cross posted at Memphis Red Blogs

 

Posted on Thursday at 10:54 AM in category Republican
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