Debate: TN Congressional District 8 Republican Primary
The Political Cesspool hosted a debate for Republican candidates vying for the seat currently held by Democrat John Tanner. This is a safe seat (Tanner has held it since 1989), with as much of a chance of a Republican taking it away as there is for Michael Moore becoming president of the NRA. But there are larger issues in this race.
One of the candidates, James Hart, is a white supremacist that ran for the seat in 2004. Because this was is a heavily-Democrat district, the Republicans didn’t put up a candidate and Hart, exploiting the fact that anyone can run on any ticket (I could run as a Democrat in Tennessee), snuck in when no one was paying attention and suddenly it looked like the Republicans were running a racist unopposed in the primary.
So Hart is at it again, running so that he can use it to promote his extremist agenda (he admitted that this was true in response to a question during the debate). As a political candidate, Hart has found that people will come and actually listen to him so he is exploiting that for all it’s worth.
As I said, Political Cesspool (true believers in free speech) hosted the event, inviting all three Republican candidates: Rory Bricco, John Farmer, and James Hart. Bill Roland moderated, beginning by reading a statement from Bricco that said he would not participate in any event that gave a platform for Hart to speak.
The tone of the debate was set early and you could tell that the Cesspool was hosting by the wording of the first question, with began with the assertion that the War in Iraq is an embarrassment and talked about the missing WMD (sometimes it is difficult to tell the far right from the far left — it’s more like a circle than line).
I’ve summarized the comments of each of the other two candidates in separate posts over at TennWatch:
- Comments made by John Farmer
- Comments made by James Hart
I highly recommend reading both posts for different reasons. Read the one about John Farmer because he is a serious candidate that did very well during the debate. Read the one about James Hart because the garbage that came out of his mouth is at once both repulsive and entertaining.
Bottom line: unless Rory Bricco does something to change my mind, John Farmer is my pick for this race.
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James Hart.
I would like to state here, just for the sake of what is fair, that I read some open letters online. One from Mr. Farmer and one from Mr. Bricco.
Mr. Bricco never said in his letter that he would never speak where Hart was given a platform. I have searched and can’t find that he said that anywhere.
What he did say in that letter was that he knew that Hart doesn’t hold to the same values of respect that the Republican party does and Rory Bricco said that he’d debate Hart anytime as long as Hart was running on an Independent ticket.
Bricco knows that the people of this district were NEVER happy that Hart left the Independent ballot to run on the Republican one so that he could get more attention for his scheme against humanity.
Can I force you to endorse Bricco if you like Farmer? Of course not. Then why should Hart try to make the Republicans endorse him when he is really an Independent and has been for years?