I live in the 6th congressional district in Tennessee, where Blue Dog Bart Gordon is retiring. Our surprisingly popular Democratic governor Phil Bredesen is also retiring due to term limits. Like the entire state of Tennessee, this district has become much more conservative and/or Republican in the last ten years. (Bill Clinton carried Tennessee in 1992 and 1996. ...It's true!)
Being the good little voter my mama raised me to be, I never miss an election and voted earlier today. With both of these guys retiring, the current political climate, and the geography, you can probably guess just how desirable the candidates on my ballot were.
I actually voted in the Republican primary this year (TN has open primaries) because I wanted to vote against the worst of the worst, and in favor of the lesser of the evils. There are bad Republicans, and then there are bad Republicans, know what I mean?
You might have heard of Lou Ann Zelenik. She's the candidate who issued the press release against our proposed new local mosque in Murfreesboro, calling it a 'training center' for extremists and refers to the 'naivete' of anyone who disagrees with her position. Fortunately, Zelenik lost, but unfortunately, Diane Black won. Her name might ring a bell, too. She's the State Senator whose aide forwarded an e-mail to other government workers in July 2009 depicting President Obama as a 'spook.'
And those are just the Republican candidates.
The Democratic congressional nominee, Brett Carter, sent a public letter to Nancy Pelosi asking her to pledge not to run for Speaker again if the Democrats can hold the House. Apparently he thinks that people here would rather vote for a Republican wannabe than an actual Republican. (Yes, Bart Gordon is a Blue Dog, but he did vote with the Democratic caucus on key legislation like health care and cap & trade.)
Unfortunately another example of this comes from our Democratic nominee for governor, Mike McWherter. He's the son of Ned McWherter, governor of Tennessee in the 1980s. In recent weeks, McWherter has been attacking Bill Haslam, the Republican nominee and Pilot executive, on TV and in the debates for running a company that imports oil from 'Socialist Venezuela.' Wow, I can practically hear all the Republicans flocking over to support McWherter's campaign. I don't understand the logic, but I digress.
After careful consideration, I decided to skip the governor's and congressional race and just support the local Democratic candidate for the State House. If either Black or Haslam were expected to win by less than twenty points, I would have considered holding my nose and voting for Carter and McWherter. But since all indications are that both races should be blowouts, I decided to protest a couple of really, really bad Democrats.