Sullivan candidate forum features straw poll

BLOUNTVILLE, Tenn. – If Sullivan County Democrats get their way, state Senate Democratic Caucus Chairman Roy Herron will be Tennessee’s next governor.

The Northwest Tennessee state senator got 47 percent of the vote in an “unscientific straw poll” held by local party members at a Saturday candidate forum.

Candidates Jim Kyle and Ward Cammack also attended the event. The three men are among five seeking the Democratic Party’s nomination to be governor. The state party will pick its nominee during the August primary election, which also will feature the Republican Party’s statewide primary and elections for several local offices.

“I’m awfully grateful to the people of Northeast Tennessee for their support,” Herron said Saturday, adding that the region would play a “huge” role in his primary campaign.

Herron, of Dresden, said the state needs to improve its education system to improve its economy and create more jobs. He suggested recruiting more math and science teachers, giving high school students laptops and extending the school day as ways to reach that goal.

Kyle and Cammack also touched on ways the state could improve its economy by improving its education system during speeches they delivered at Saturday’s forum.

“We may play Mississippi in football,” Kyle said, referring to Saturday’s University of Tennessee-University of Mississippi game. “But we don’t compete with Mississippi for jobs. We compete with the world for jobs.”

Kyle said Tennessee has problems getting jobs because it ranks 43rd in the nation in terms of its educational attainment, or the percentage of its residents who have a college degree. This problem could be corrected by creating a special scholarship to help people who started but never finished return to college and get their degrees, said Kyle, who represents Shelby County in the state Senate and is that body’s Democratic leader.

Cammack, a Nashville businessman, said the state could help bring in jobs by building partnerships between its colleges and the businesses it recruits, so there would be a trained workforce in place when they were ready to open. He also said the state should work on using renewable energy, buying food from local farmers and fighting preventable diseases such as obesity, type II diabetes and heart disease.

“Tennessee has to go in a different direction,” Cammack said. “We have a number of problems that if we don’t change them will bankrupt the state.”

Cammack got 6 percent of the vote in Saturday’s straw poll. Kyle got 7 percent. Jackson businessman Mike McWherther got 28 percent of the vote in the poll, while former House Majority Leader Kim McMillan got 5 percent of the vote.

The remaining 7 percent of voters said they were “undecided” in the straw poll. Sullivan County Democratic Party Chairman Bill Jones said he thought that final number would be higher because the primary is still nine months away.

But, Jones said he could also understand Herron’s popularity among the local Democrats because of the importance the candidate’s campaign has placed on the region.

Even this early in the campaign, Jones said, Herron has made several trips to the region to meet with its voters in person. The last of these trips was Nov. 7, when the candidate had breakfast with party members at Pardner’s Restaurant in Piney Flats.

“The people in Northeast Tennessee are just like the people I represent,” Herron said Saturday, explaining his popularity with the region’s Democrats. He said both groups were “hard-working, God-fearing, family-loving folks who care about their neighbors and the state.”

Lt. Gov. Ron Ramsey, Knoxville Mayor Bill Haslam, Shelby County District Attorney Bill Gibbons and U.S. Rep. Zach Wamp are running for the Republican Party’s gubernatorial nomination in the August primary.

The state’s current governor, Phil Bredesen, is not seeking another term because Tennessee’s constitution limits governors to two consecutive terms in office.

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