Metro Pulse/Insights/Jim Henry

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by Joe Sullivan

I don't like to start a column, especially an endorsement column, from a negative point of departure. But my overriding desire in the upcoming governor's election is to smite the two-headed Philleary Van Bredesen monster that has become a scourge upon this state. As horrible a mess as the state has already fallen into, both Republican Van Hilleary and Democrat Phil Bredesen would only make things worse for years to come. Their Tweedledum and Tweedledeeish campaign posture that Tennessee has a spending problem and not a revenue problem is so perverted that the state would be better off without a governor than to elect either one of them.

It's hard to say just how much of the blame for this year's debacle in the Legislature can be laid at their doorstep. But for sure their taxaphobic rhetoric has contributed to a climate of opinion that's made it all the harder for legislators to raise the revenues so desperately needed to adequately fund our schools, especially our debilitated universities.

What's also clear is that Hilleary and Bredesen have squandered any ability they might have had to lead the state toward fiscal sufficiency in the years ahead. As the sad case of Gov. Don Sundquist so painfully illustrates, a governor who finally realizes the need for tax reform after having campaigned against it lacks credibility in converting the public.

In Hilleary's case, there wasn't much ability to be squandered to begin with. Neither by experience nor aptitude is he qualified to govern Tennessee. His specious claim that he can save the state $400 million by reforming TennCare is just the worst of many examples of his lack of grasp of complex state issues.

Bredesen's case is a much sadder one. During his two terms as mayor of Nashville he brought progressive leadership to that city. Just how anyone who's been as high-minded as he has in the past could have stooped so low is hard to fathom. But his charlatan's claim that he can manage the state's way out of its fiscal crisis with no new taxes makes him almost more offensive than Hilleary, who at least has come around of late to acknowledge that some source of additional revenue may be needed—just not an income tax.

All three of the other serious candidates for governor are far superior. Republican Jim Henry and Democrats Randy Nichols and Charles Smith each recognize that Tennessee's archaic tax structure is inadequate. They are also committed to putting enough more money into education to at least bring it back up to par with other Southern states. Both Henry and Smith have extensive state government experience—Henry as a former legislative leader and Smith as a former commissioner of education. Alone among the candidates, Nichols is unequivocal in his support of tax reform based on an income tax and selective reductions in the state's regressive sales tax.

Philosophically, I'm with Nichols. But as a practical matter, I don't believe he has a chance of winning. The harsh reality is that it takes a lot of money to run an effective statewide campaign, especially when you're as little known as Nichols is outside of his home base in Knoxville and perhaps the rural area of West Tennessee where he grew up. Neither he nor Smith has anything approaching the resources needed to combat the much-better-funded Bredesen in the Democrat primary.

Pragmatically, therefore, I view Henry as the only good candidate with a chance to overcome the bad ones. While he's still a decided underdog, he's clearly started gaining ground on Hilleary in the Republican primary. And while Hilleary has a bigger war chest, the $1 million-plus that Henry has raised is enough to wage an effective media campaign in the four weeks that remain until Election Day.

I don't want it to sound, however, that I am supporting Henry just because I believe he is electable. I also believe that his experience and accomplishments in both the public and private sectors make him the best-qualified candidate to break the gridlock that has gripped this state for the past four years.

Above all else he is a consensus builder, as demonstrated by his success as House Republican leader in molding bipartisan legislative support for then-Gov. Lamar Alexander's educational initiatives (including their funding) in the 1980s. Whatever one may think of the latter-day Lamar, he was a progressive and effective governor at that time, and Henry also learned a lot from him about how to mold public opinion in support of a legislative agenda. One further testament to Henry's skills is the way in which Democrat Gov. Ned McWherter called upon him for consulting help after he'd left the Legislature in gaining passage of McWherter's landmark Basic Education Plan, which had become highly divisive.

It goes without saying that divisiveness is now the order of the day in Tennessee once again, primarily between proponents and opponents of an income tax. If anyone can get reason to prevail over emotion on this issue, I believe it is Jim Henry. And even if he can't, I believe he will find some way to fulfill his commitment to restore full funding to higher education, whose decimation has been the state's worst failing of the past decade.

Henry's own success over the past decade in building OmniVisions into a premier foster care and adoption placement agency for children with disabilities attests to his executive abilities. And it also says a lot more about him. One doesn't get into this line of business for money alone. Compassion also has to be a major motivation.

In sum, Jim Henry has many attributes for becoming a governor who will lead in ways that transcend partisan politics. Democrats, independents and Republicans alike should get behind him in the Republican primary on Aug. 1.