REPLACE WATSON WITH PRICE
Tennessee’s super red legislature has not had an original thought since Democrats became almost as scarce as dinosaurs in the General Assembly.
One need look no further than state Sen. Bo Watson’s imitation of Donald Trump with his tweet about Nike contracts in Tennessee state-financed college football after the sportswear giant unveiled its Colin Kaepernick ad: “Believe in something, even if it means sacrificing everything #JustDoIt.”
Watson, — the same guy who taunted Volkswagen as “un-American” when the German company sought help from the United Auto Workers to set up VW’s employee “work council” for consultation and participation with management to improve production — tweeted “I have asked the TN Office of Legislative Budget Analysis to review what TN state-financed colleges & universities have Nike contracts and report findings.”
Watson’s Democratic challenger, 38-year Chattanooga broadcaster, reporter and radio anchor Randy Price, calls Watson’s prattle “bullying.”
“Doesn’t he have any real priorities? We’re No 1 in bankruptcies, 43rd in crime and 28th in education,” Price says.
Just for the record, Watson, in an endorsement interview with the Times Free Press, backed away from his Nike tweet.
“I tweeted that for excitement, I guess,” Watson said somewhat sheepishly. “Nike has three distributor centers in Tennessee. That’s big for us. That’s a lot of investment in Tennessee.” Yeah.
Watson, 57, is a physical therapist who was elected to the Senate in 2006. He is chairman of the Senate Finance, Ways and Means Committee. Because he thinks Tennessee is “on tremendous trajectory,” his leadership position is every bit as concerning to us and to Price as is Watson’s uninformed tweets and his inflated view of Tennessee’s direction.
“If you watch what’s coming out of Nashville, it is a whole lot of nonsense and not a lot of common sense,” Price says, questioning the priorities of lawmakers who will worry about Nike’s support of a football player’s peaceful protest of racial injustice while state GOP lawmakers are happy to leave on the table $22 billion in federal dollars that could close the TennCare gaps and improve health care access for all Tennesseans. Price also wonders where Watson’s priorities are in addressing the opioid epidemic and putting more counselors in schools instead of talking about arming teachers.
“Without taking rights away, we need to be talking about common-sense gun reforms like background checks, assault weapons bans — these are protective things, not intrusive things.” Price also thinks our General Assembly members need to more rigorously examine the state’s too-easy economic development tax breaks and to raise the state’s minimum wage up to $12 or $15 an hour.
Contrary to what Watson and our other supermajority GOP incumbents crow, Price says our state has not improved a lot in the eight or 10 years.
“We don’t need a monologue,” Price says. “We need a conversation.”
He’s so right.
Vote Randy Price for the District 11 state Senate seat.