Comment on this story Seven Days Wednesday, Nov. 3 • The News Sentinel reports that a Knoxville man crashed his car into a Wendy’s restaurant on Kingston Pike. Guess he took that “Drive thru window” sign a little too seriously. Thursday, Nov. 4 • State Republicans say they see their recent election success as an endorsement of their party. Funny, we see it as an endorsement of voting drunk. Friday, Nov. 5 • While investigating an allegedly fraudulent wedding chapel, TBI officials report that they managed to get an agent’s household pet ordained at the World Christianship Ministries. Geez. And we thought getting married by Elvis was bad. Saturday, Nov. 6 • The University of Tennessee football team loses several starters to injury in a painful 17-13 loss to Notre Dame. Reports say the UT sideline has more bad legs than a broken freezer at Chicken City. Sunday, Nov. 7 • News Flash: “Political observers” say that “economics” influenced Knox County voters’ decision to preserve a new wheel tax and avoid a property tax increase. What we want to know is how long World Christianship Ministries has been anointing political observers? Monday, Nov. 8 • Local officials suggest a 180-day moratorium on allowing new adult businesses to open within city limits. We agree that bringing in more sex shops should not be considered lightly. We’ve seen what’s out there now, and we firmly believe that Knoxville is capable of bringing in a much higher grade of pornography. Tuesday, Nov. 9 • The Sentinel says that TDOT will be #$%-ing up traffic for six months with more roadwork at I-40 and Papermill. Another, unrelated report links TDOT’s managerial training program to World Christianship Ministries. Street Talk Scott West downtown entrepreneur How do you feel about the current state of redevelopment downtown? There are far more people feeling really good about the future of downtown—not just the people who are involved in the development or live downtown. People in surrounding areas feel better about the future of downtown Knoxville now than in the last 20 years. One of the last times they felt a real sense of “it’s happening” was for the World’s Fair in 1982, which didn’t come to fruition in the three months after the fair. I, along with a lot of other people, feel really good about downtown redevelopment. What businesses are you involved with? We have Earth to Old City, with locations in Gatlinburg and Farragut, and, at some point along the way, that became six buildings on Market Square. One of which we haven’t done anything with yet—the four-story on the end on Wall Avenue next to Lerner Lofts. That building will develop next year in conjunction with the Cineplex with 10 more living units and ground-floor commercial space. And, of course, we have Preservation Pub, Oodles Pasta and Noodles Bar and opening soon, Uncorked Wine Bar. Is there anything in particular that you would like to see the city or other developers do downtown? We want people to live downtown, but people look for certain amenities. People want to live downtown because you can go to the cafÉ or coffeehouse or go to a play. Those things need people to support them, and everything needs to go forward together. I hope that some of these big project ideas like residential units above the transit center and UT housing happen. What I really want to see is what’s already happening, only more so, and I think that we’re at a point now where the momentum that we have will be very hard to derail. What would you like to see happen on Market Square? All of the events that happened last year. Everyone that I’ve talked to about the festivals downtown said they have been very successful. And, hopefully by next winter, we’ll have an ice skating rink back on the square, and we’ll be blowing what looks like ice crystals on the buildings every morning.

Blue Knoxville, Red Knox County
Decisive, but hardly unanimous

Tennessee went red on the national election maps about one minute after the polls closed last Tuesday night. This state was hardly mentioned thereafter, though there was much talk about the “unanimous” South. However, that solid red masked a 42.5 percent minority of Tennesseans who voted for John Kerry. As in most Southern states, Tennessee’s percentage split was near the middle, in the 50s and 40s, near the national average.

Alabama, which went 62.5 percent for Bush, was the only Southern exception. In all, 17 states were more pro-Bush than Tennessee was. The more decisive Bush leads weren’t in the South, but in Western states; Utah went 71 percent for Bush.

It doesn’t boost pundits’ regional theories about the coasts versus the heartland, but the fact is that most of the country, from the East Coast to the Wild West, is torn between the two candidates. Tennessee, New York, California, Ohio, Michigan, Louisiana, Iowa, Florida, all have something in common: they split among the two candidates in percentages that fell in the 50s and 40s. In each of those states, the minorities, whether for Bush or for Kerry, are very large.

Still, we hear about the polarized, geographically divided country, that the people in the red states don’t understand the people in the blue states, and vice versa.

That’s nothing. Within Knox County are several precincts more extreme than Utah and Massachusetts.

Knox County as a whole tilted more Bushward than the state of Tennessee did, with a 62-38 split. In that regard, Knox County most resembles the state of Kansas, which is only the merest shade more Republican than we are. If colored in on an election map, Knox County would be red as Kansas.

Up close, though, it’s a different story. It’s potentially dicey to judge neighborhood loyalty by precinct voting; this year, more than half of all Knox County voters voted early, and their totals were added together, never divided among the precincts. Precinct tallies reflect only election-day voting. However, 66,760 Knox Countians did vote on election day. Their loyalties seem to be statistically similar to those of early voters, who here at least tend to be just a little more Republican.

So, it would seem that this sample, based on a little more than 37 percent of the total electorate, may say something interesting and relevant about how people’s residences reflect their political loyalties, or vice versa.

Once again, as in the last election, Kerry won the city precincts—by a narrower margin than Gore did in 2000, but by more than 1,000 votes. In all, 20 Knoxville precincts favored Kerry, all of them within a five-mile radius of downtown. Some of them are heavily minority-populated, but some others of them aren’t. What do the people who voted at Lincoln Park, Walter P. Taylor Homes, Fort Sanders, and Bearden Elementary or West High have in common? Not much, except that majorities in all would prefer that John Kerry was the president-elect.

Kerry won in the central part of town, Moses School in Mechanicsville, Central United Methodist, Fort Sanders. He won near-west Knoxville, West High to Bearden. He won in most of the north, as far as Lincoln Park. Kerry won by something like a landslide in East Knoxville. The president got only seven percent of the vote at Eastport School—where Kerry earned more than 92 percent of the 443 votes cast there. Kerry didn’t do that well even in the District of Columbia.

Kerry didn’t do as well in South Knoxville. A total of 512 people voted at South Knox Community Center, and it was a near tie. Bush won that precinct by a single vote.

Meanwhile, the president did extremely well in rural and suburban parts of the county. Not one suburban or rural precinct of Knox County favored Kerry. Halls, Bluegrass, Brickey, Powell, Carter, Ritta, and Farragut each went more than two to one for Bush. Karns, Gibbs, and Corryton went Bush almost three to one.

Bush got 82 percent of the election-day vote at Gap Creek School in deep South Knox County. That four-to-one margin is better than Bush did in Utah.

Together, they like Bush even more than people in the city like Kerry, which accounts for the Bushward tilt, making Knox County the most Republican urban county in Tennessee this year. Still, the extreme differences within the county reflect and even exaggerate the differences seen between urban and rural parts of the rest of the nation. Urban areas go Democratic, rural and suburban areas go Republican. Knox County may be an American microcosm.

Nashville was described on one network last week as the “Democratic base” of Tennessee. But it’s not as if the city itself breeds Democrats. Maybe a city the size of Nashville only separates Democrats from Republicans, like the white from the yolk. Nashville’s Davidson County was one of few Tennessee counties that favored Kerry. That’s not that surprising, since Middle Tennessee has been Democratic since the days of Jackson.

But all of the suburban ring counties around Nashville went for Bush—by a percentage of 60 or more. One of them, booming suburban Williamson County, went 72 percent for Bush, which tied it last week with Sevier County as one of the state’s most Republican counties.

Most of the more rural counties in East Tennessee favored Bush more than Knox did. Blount went more than two-to-one Republican; it was even more extreme in Sevier. Sevier was the most Unionist county in Tennessee during the Civil War, and is still among the most Republican today.

Anderson County was the only county in the metro area less effusively Republican than Knox, but it was still more Republican than the state as a whole, giving the president a 58-41 edge. Kerry clobbered Bush in one precinct there, and maybe its location was predictable: More than two to one voted for Kerry at Oak Ridge City Hall.

—Jack Neely

Lawmakers New to Knox
Republicans, they eye TennCare reform

We’re sending three freshman legislators, representing parts of Knox County, into the fray that the 104th General Assembly promises to be. The newbies, all Republicans, have widely varying political experience. One’s a former representative; one’s a former county officeholder with nearly 40 years in politics at the local level; and the third, though he lost a race for the House two years ago, is looking toward his first seat in public office.

When the three go to Nashville in January, they’ll be faced with what’s become a perennial budget crisis and will be asked to help Democrat Gov. Phil Bredesen make uncomfortable choices in reform of TennCare, the state health care program that is busting the bank.

Frank Nicely, the former lawmaker, served his district in the House from 1988-92, then was re-districted out of a seat. He ran unsuccessfully for the Senate, then retired to his Jefferson County farm until he resurfaced this year to win the House seat left open when Jamie Hagood ran for and ultimately won the Senate seat vacated by Ben Atchley. Parkey Strader, the former Knox County tax assessor, succeeds the retired H.E. Bittle, and Stacey Campfield, the true freshman, takes the seat Steve Buttry left.

TennCare reform is the first thought each expresses as they contemplate their new role. “There’s a pretty good argument that TennCare has failed, Nicely says. “There’s a pretty good argument to knock TennCare all the way back to Medicaid and let the federal people worry about it. I’m going to back the governor on whatever he decides to do there.” Likewise, Strader says he’s ready to “work with the Democrats and the governor on TennCare to fix it the best we can before it bankrupts us.” and Campfield calls it the “No. 1 concern. I think within two to four years it’s going to be vastly different or dead.”

Dealing with education issues and the growing specter of home labs making methamphetamines are mentioned by all three of the new Republicans. Each says he thinks he can work well with Joe Armstrong and Harry Tindell, the Knox County Democrats who share considerable respect from House Speaker Jimmy Naifeh. And each says the budget can be balanced and the tax system reformed without resorting to a state income tax.

Special issues for each include a program Nicely would like to see instituted to give a state tax break to motor fuel dealers who sell a gasahol blend, perhaps 10 percent ethanol, in counties such as Knox that are classed as “non-attainment” areas for air pollutants by the federal Environmental Protection Agency. Strader says he is going to back legislation securing so-called grandparents’ rights to prevent children from broken, unsuitable homes from being automatically placed by the state in foster care. And Campfield says he’d like to help get more teachers with real-world experience into public school classrooms, even if they lack formal teaching credentials.

—Barry Henderson

November 11, 2004 • Vol. 14, No. 46 © 2004 Metro Pulse