Metro Pulse/Ear to the Ground

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The Power of the Public Pocketbook

How big an issue will TVA be in the 2000 presidential election? Fair to middling, if a recent issue of Time is any sign. The two-page story, complete with picture of TVA Chairman and Al Pal Craven Crowell standing in a little red boat in front of a big gray dam, says that the agency "...has doled out millions of dollars in consulting fees, salaries, rent for office space, and investment capital, much of it directed to supporters and advisers of the home-state politician who reached the vice-presidency, Al Gore." The story touches on lots of locally-familiar names: TVA critic Steve Smith; former TVA director and Gore fund-raiser Johnny Hayes; lobbyist and Gore campaign adviser Peter Knight (who got hired by TVA even though the agency already had four in-house lobbyists on the payroll); former Gore chief of staff Jack Quinn, who is being paid $25,000 a month to lobby; Chattanooga developer-wheeler-dealer-Democratic Party contributor Franklin Haney (recipient of a high-dollar lease of one of his Chattanooga buildings); and TVA spokesman John Moulton, who says TVA needs all the high-powered help it can get.

A News-Sentinel Plug

The Knoxville News-Sentinel made news recently in the prestigious Columbia Journalism Review. Unfortunately for the Sentinel, it wasn't for practicing good journalism, but shameful PR. The trade journal listed the paper in its DARTS & LAURELS column in its March/April issue. The little blurb went like this:

"If happiness for a p.r. professional means having a warm relationship with the big-city paper, Cynthia Moxley must be in paradise. Not only is the Knoxville News-Sentinel a major client of her Moxley Carmichael public relations firm, but her weekly gossip column, 'Strollings,' (sic) appears every Monday in the paper [NOTE: it's actually every other Tuesday]. Although the 'special' to the News-Sentinel feature carries her by-line, it offers no hint of what's really behind those breathless plugs for, among other organizations she represents, the TVA, the Knoxville Utilities Board, and the First Tennessee Bank."

So, if you want good PR, you know who to hire.

Southern Living Goes Kosher

Harold and Addie Shersky get some long-overdue regional publicity in the Tennessee section of the May issue of Southern Living. The Sherskys, who have run Harold's Deli on Gay Street since 1948, outliving several downtown master plans, earned a full-page profile with a nice portrait of the two of them behind the counter. The profile includes a choice quote from Addie about the big crowd they get from Immaculate Conception every Saturday morning: "I'm Jewish. Harold's Jewish. They're Catholic. We have a wonderful relationship."

Making Friends

Want to make more friends, have more fun, get more mail? Go out and win a political race. Take, for example, Brian Hornback, who upset 5th District school board member Tommy Prince last month. He's been getting congratulations from everywhere. Take this one letter, for example:

"Dear Brian,

You did well.

You earned it on your own.

My good friends Mike and Mike (as in Ragsdale and Arms) may have bragging right over your win, but you actually did it by working your rear off.

Now the rest is the hard part—getting something done. Good luck.

The sheriff took a beating and Ragsdale will need to divest himself of that association to win county executive in 2002, unless he is unopposed.

I say that as a friend.

(Mike) Ruble could not break the tie and apparently did not want to try. (Mike) Moyers won big.

Sincerely yours,

Victor Ashe"

We called up Ragsdale to see what he has to say about Ashe's political forecasting. He was brief:

"I think Victor's right. Moyers won big."