Spat boils over
GOP primary called ‘outright ugly’
While the one-of-a-kind race to replace state Rep. Gerald McCormick simmers temporarily on the back burner, the GOP primary contest to fill the county’s other open state House seat is boiling furiously on the front of the stove.
Departing state Rep. Marc Gravitt on Thursday endorsed Esther Helton in what he called an “outright ugly” campaign between the East Ridge City Council member and Jonathan Mason, a Unum employee, for the District 30 seat.
Gravitt’s endorsement came a day after his attempt to honor a much-respected WWII veteran and a long-time local public official was blocked at the Hamilton County Commission by what he called “petty politics” from Mason supporters.
The Mason side calls Gravitt’s unscheduled appearance a political stunt in support of Helton, who sat with the families of honorees Kayo Erwin and Criminal Court Clerk Vince Dean.
All this comes during a contest in which Mason paints Helton as “all tangled up with Obama and the Democrats,” based on her having voted in four Democratic primaries since 1994, and Helton accuses Mason of lying about her Republican credentials, her voting record and her pro-life stance, among other issues.
Gravitt is running for the register of deeds post. He said Thursday he’d been neutral in the primary to determine his successor before the snub at the county commission.
He said the campaign is “not a campaign of issues; it’s turned into a campaign of ‘How can I beat down my opponent the most?’ And it seems to me the majority of that has come from one side.”
“One side is running on the issues, the other side is running on negativity,” Gravitt said. “It’s got to stop. The Republican Party,
we’re eating our own.”
Mason’s side pointed out, though, that Gravitt was accompanied by Helton and by Dean, who is supporting Helton’s campaign.
“I think it was a political stunt gone wrong,” said Mason campaign manager Dalton Temple.
Commission Chairman Randy Fairbanks said it wasn’t politics but protocol that made him deny Gravitt time to make his presentations: Gravitt wasn’t on the agenda.
“It was nothing personal; I had to go by the procedures that we set or there’s no point in having procedures,” Fairbanks said after the meeting Wednesday.
Gravitt said he didn’t know the procedures and had cleared the appearance with County Mayor Jim Coppinger. But Fairbanks said the meeting is the commission’s, not the mayor’s, and Gravitt should have called him.
On Thursday, Fairbanks added that Gravitt just two months ago had gone through the process to honor retiring Register of Deeds Pam Hurst, so he should have known the steps.
Commissioners Sabrena Smedley and Tim Boyd are Mason supporters, but Fairbanks said eight of the nine commissioners and Coppinger agreed they needed to stick to the rules and not let Gravitt speak.
Gravitt said he was there to honor Erwin, a recently deceased veteran who fought in the Pacific theater and was among the few survivors of the USS Indianapolis sinking. The Tennessee General Assembly voted to rename part of Ringgold Road to Kayo Erwin Highway.
It also voted to bestow Dean’s name on Exit 1 at Interstate 75 to honor his 50 years of service as a police officer, East Ridge council member, state representative from District 30, and now Criminal Court clerk.
Gravitt called the denial “political retribution” and “the most petty issue that I have seen in my eight years” in politics.
“I have never in my life heard of a commission or city council ever refusing to have a presentation made with two whole families sitting there in attendance. This would have taken 10 minutes,” he said.
Instead, the group walked out of the commission chambers and held the presentation in the rotunda outside the room.
Dean, in a Facebook post, decried “small minded Commissioners chose to let their dislike for me drag a hero’s name down,” and added, “Thank you for showing your true colors.”
Mason has positioned himself as the “only lifelong Republican” in the GOP primary. His campaign has pounded on Helton’s four votes in Democratic primaries: The 2008 presidential primary, when eight Democrats were on the ballot; the 2010 state primary; the 2012 presidential primary when Obama and Hillary Clinton fought for the nomination, and the state primary the same year.
Mason says that amounts to support for Obama and his policies, including the Republican-loathed Affordable Care Act. He has said throughout the campaign that Helton admitted voting twice for Obama — a claim Helton campaign manager Vince Butler disputes.
“Esther never said she voted for Barack Obama twice. This is one of several lies or misrepresentations of Esther and who she is,” Butler said Thursday.
It’s an argument that has spilled over to campaign signs scattered across the district.
Helton, a nurse, has focused her campaign around the central issue of health care and said she has spent “not one penny, not one second” of time on negative campaigning.
Helton contends Mason could have challenged her GOP credentials in the local party months ago but didn’t. And one of her supporters, political strategist and District 26 candidate Robin Smith, protested after Mason posted an edited version of Helton’s voting history on Facebook.
The post showed only her votes from 2008 to the present — including the four Democratic primary ballots — leaving out Republican ballots in 1994, 1998, 2002 and 2006.
Smith posted on Facebook that Helton’s “voting record has been altered.”
Mason smacked back at Smith’s “wild accusation of election commission tampering” and asked, “Is Robin Smith being paid to spread false information across our county?”
Hamilton County Election Commission Chairman Mike Walden said Friday there’s no question about the integrity of election commission records and said he believed Smith was referring to Mason’s Facebook post.
Butler said Thursday that Helton is honored by the endorsements from Gravitt and Dean.
“Both have served in the seat and understand the type of person it takes to serve in Nashville,” he said.
District 30 covers part of Chattanooga, East Ridge, Collegedale and Apison.
The GOP primary winner will face Democrat Joda Thongnopnua in the November general election.
Thongnopnua said Thursday the heated Republican race is drawing independents and some Republicans to his campaign.
“Campaigns are essentially a job interview and I don’t think childish behavior during an interview should land anyone a job — much less in our state legislature,” he said via email.
“That’s why I’m staying focused on the issues that matter to working families, not getting distracted by the temper tantrums from the other side.”