Why Is This Necessary, and Why is it "Good"?

I recently saw a TV spot against Ken Yager. It sucked. It was, frankly, low-life.

Now before I arouse the ire of WC, an ardent Ruppe supporter, or any of her other supporters, I hasten to add that I am with you: I think Ruppe will be a more effective state senator than Ken Yager. I'm also with you in not being at all happy with many of the things about the state Ken Yager left the county in.

BUT:

The TV spot, seemingly titled "The Tax Man," not only doesn't do the situation justice, it is only about making Yager seem evil. First off, I'm tired of people thinking the only way they can justify voting for or supporting their candidate is to claim the opposition is evil. Hell's bells! Why can't you just say, "I like X better than Y, because I believe X will do a better job because... (and list some reasons"?

This TV spot makes a big deal out of the fact that in 11 of the years Yager was County Executive, there were some tax increases in Roane County. Well, being as how he served for 24 years, that means that for over half the years he was County Executive, there were NO tax increases! But the clear impression delivered by the ad was that Yager raised taxes. Numerically that is not true for the majority of his tenure.

The spot also seems to believe Tennesseans are so stupid as to believe the County Executive to be the person responsible for tax rates in a county. Of course, that's not the case. The County Executive sits on the Budget Committee as one member thereof. He proposes a budget, as do other department heads. The Budget Committee then makes its changes and sends THEM to the full County Commission. Then the Commission votes and sets the tax rate. No budget is passed without the concurrence of the Budget Committee and the County Commission. Both groups can - and have - over-ridden the County Executive's numbers. So if they want to mistakenly lay all the blame for tax raises on the County Executive, the honest thing to do would be to also give credit for the fact that taxes didn't increase in the majority of his years of service to the County Executive.

But honesty or fairness is not what this spot is about. This TV ad is about using disingenuous tactics to mislead the public. Just exactly what we need more of in politics. No damn wonder people are over politics and politicians!

To Becky Ruppe's credit, there was NO tagline on the end of the spot saying "I'm Becky Ruppe and I approve this message." It was NOT a spot of the candidate's making. And frankly, knowing what I know of Becky Ruppe, she wouldn't act that way. And I say BRAVO for Becky on that score!

As far as I can tell on this trashy ad, the responsibility goes to the state Democratic Party. Their blog is The Donkey's Mouth. But this ad came out of the other end of the donkey.

I've seen the ad you speak of and I too think it was low-handed, mean and frankly untrue. I also saw at the end that it was from the Democratic Party. They must have saved those pictures of Ken for years considering he's much thinner now!

If this is what they think they have to advertise to win a vote, that's really sad.

I am an independent, voting for the candidate on what I believe to be their qualifications based on my research, reading and listening to them speak.

Unless I change my mind, I will probably vote for Ms. Ruppe, not because she is a Democrat but because I believe she can do the job.

If I was an undecided voter, an ad like this sure would turn me off from supporting anyone belonging to a party that would condone such tactics. I hope this negative, dirty type of campaigning doesn't cost a candidate the election, but it very well could!
I know they say that politics is a dirty business, but this ad is just pitiful.

I'm afraid I agree with the thought that this ad was ill conceived.

There are strong and legitimate concerns with Ken Yager being our next Senator but this is just a generic cheap shot, most likely concocted by a political consultant. It also opened the door for a counter attack of misleading statistics, which we've already seen.

If anything, Ken shirked his responsibilities by NOT addressing the financial situation Roane County was in. He refused to keep a close eye on revenues and let our reserves be spent down to nothing before he skipped out and left us holding the bag.

Becky needs to get her folks to stick to her strengths and Ken's weaknesses, rather than this kind of drivel.

It wasn't KEN who "shirked" his responsibilities... it was the county commission who voted to pass those budgets, knowing that it would take a tax increase or a dipping into the reserves. I don't know of a more frugal man than Ken Yager but he can only present a budget. The county commission reveiws, changes, adds to, subtracts from, and then votes on it. The original budgets Ken submitted was, more times than not, morphed beyond recognition by the time they were passed!

Ken presented the budgets and the budget committee went right along with him, so they share any blame for the County's financials, even if all they did was go along..

To Farmer's credit, BTW, he has tightened up on several of Ken's questionable budgetary practices and has run a much tighter ship as far as spending is concerned.

It is still the Commission that rules and makes the final vote to approve or disapprove.

ONE person cannot do any of what they propose without the governing body's approval... and that goes from the local level all the way to the U.S. Presidency.

A candidate can offer proposal after proposal on how to straighten up this country, but ultimately it's the majority of the governing body who makes or breaks those proposals!

I think Becky's folks ARE doing what you suggest. The cheap shot appears to have been one taken by the Tennessee Democratic Party rather than anybody from Becky Ruppe's campaign. I don't think anybody should hold this against her.

Harrimanite - I do agree a lot with you. The County Commission didn't have the cojones to deal with the financial needs of the county. You're right. However, I know from talking with employees in the departments that were directly overseen by Ken that he did, in fact, in those last years, actively push the goal of refusing to have any sort of tax increase. That, in the long run, was not wise. It set us up to have to deal with the situation we're now in: with the new County Executive having to try to get the Commission to clean up the "leavings." It is fortunate that the Commission has, apparently with some new leadership, got its collective head out of its.... rump... and decided it's now time to fix some stuff that was let go far too long. The sad part is that there is now so much to fix, due to the last Executive and Commission, that somebody has to lose on getting everything done now. Simply can't afford to do everything now.

If they had been taking care of business all along, instead of playing the "lets get re-elected and all of us brag about no tax increases" game, we'd be in a helluva lot better shape financially - both in regard to the jail and the schools.

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To date, the failure to expand Medicaid / TennCare has cost the State of Tennessee ? in lost federal funding.

I've seen the ad you speak

I'm afraid I agree with the

It wasn't KEN who "shirked"

I asked about this very thing, H.

It is still the Commission

And, while we are agreeing, WC...

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