Political Notes
by Bruce Dobie
Phil Bredesen is enjoying his salad days. Part of the good will that surrounds him, of course, has to do with his dalliance with the Houston Oilers. They called, and he answered. In a sense, it was that simple. In a sense, he is a lucky man.
But Bredesen has also played the Oilers situation fairly well, laying in place a damage-reduction strategy to minimize the blame-laying that will follow if the Oilers decide not to make the move to Nashville. He also, however, stands to enjoy a huge upsurge in support should they in fact decide Nashville will be their new hometown.
Bredesen spent last Tuesday in Houston with Oilers personnel, including the team’s owner, Bud Adams. The excursion now looks, in retrospect, like a fairly well disguised recruiting trip. Clearly, the Oilers are serious if the mayor is willing to troop down to Houston himself. At least he didn’t send Peaches Simpkins to do the heavy lifting.
“We’re not going to comment on that,” is all Bredesen press secretary Tam Gordon would say about his trip last week. One insider jokingly said that Bredesen and Adams were seen inspecting the poor quality of the turf on the floor of the Astrodome. There are also rumors that Bredesen spent some time recalling his days as a strong front-line tackle for the Harvard Crimson.
Bredesen is not a professional sports aficionado, observers say, nor is he much a fan of college athletics. But he clearly sees what a pro team could do for the city’s economy, and he understands the increased visibility pro sports could bring to Nashville.
These days, Bredesen appears to be gliding along nicely, just as he has glided through almost all of his first four years in office. He will be inaugurated for his second term as mayor very soon. Not in two decades has a Nashville mayor encountered so little turbulence. Bredesen’s popularity took a dip toward the end of his gubernatorial race and in the weeks that followed, largely because of the fact that he simply was not around to rebuild his image. These days, however, he’s back and enjoying himself.
Part of the reason things in Metro Government appear to be so rosy may well be that Metro Council has been largely missing in action for about six months now. With every member of Council up for re-election, no one has dared to do anything controversial or anything that might invite any sort of voter antipathy. Of late, a productive Metro Council meeting has been the sort at which a resolution is passed honoring a dog catcher for his valiant efforts; in such times, if a proposal requires serious thought, it almost automatically gets jettisoned.
Metro Council’s reaction to the Oilers proposal has been fairly shortsighted—most Council members have ruled out any sort of revenue-enhancement to pay for a team. There is, however, a sense that, should the Oilers decide to move here, community support would be so huge that Council would have no choice other than to vote for any package Bredesen and Gov. Don Sundquist might come up with.
While it is going to cost some money, a deal involving the Oilers and Metro Government and the state of Tennessee may not require an increase in local property taxes. If the potential agreement becomes a done deal, all sorts of dollars can be pumped into a stadium under the guise of “fee increases,” “revenue sharing” and anything else that looks like a tax, and smells like a tax, but is not actually a tax.
At the bottom line, a football stadium may turn out to be an indescribably complex project. If you thought the arena was difficult, this project will be three or four times more confusing.
Meanwhile, should the pro football contract ever come to pass, the Nashville Scene hereby boldly predicts Bredesen’s choice for its location: The East Bank.
He will recommend the East Bank because
♦ it will lead to a greater downtown density
♦ it could be built on land that Metro already owns
♦ nothing looks or feels more awesome than a riverfront stadium
♦ it would allow fans to walk across the new pedestrian Shelby Street bridge for the after-game party.
We hear MDHA is making some very preliminary inquiries into East Bank options. We wish them well.
The man Time forgot
“One of these days,” someone speculated recently, “Lamar is just going to have to win something.”
In a sense, all of the ingredients of the Alexander presidential organization have been top-notch, ranging from his fund-raising team to his campaign personnel to his local organizations in Iowa and New Hampshire. The walk idea was brilliant, and the candidate fairly inspired. At this early stage, however, Alexander is suffering from a certain neglect when it comes to most of the national media’s discussions about the candidates. In countless news reports, he is the invisible man, wholly virtual, a blip.
In the Iowa straw poll, for instance, the headlines read that Dole had stumbled, Gramm had proven himself by tying him and Pat Buchanan had shown himself to have a forceful coterie of conservative backers. Alexander slipped in right behind Buchanan, but well ahead of a long list of other folks. Yet he was hardly mentioned.
Probably on the advice of some savvy political consultants, Alexander has decided by now that, if he’s not going to get recognition for being a nice guy, he might as well get noticed for hitting somebody. The convenient punching bag on Monday was Pete Wilson, the California governor who officially announced for president in front of the Statue of Liberty, all the while announcing a platform including strong anti-immigration policies. (Why not stand in front of a tall fence strung with piano wire instead?)
Alexander bashed Wilson in radio spots in New Hampshire, decrying several of the California governor’s flip-flops. That night, on CNN’s , spin doctors from both campaigns were flinging accusations back and forth, at long last bringing Alexander some badly needed recognition.
Given his huge, well-oiled fund-raising machine, Alexander has been able to equip himself with plenty of ammunition. What’s been lacking is an early sign of life. It’s still way early, but he badly needs a kick-in-the-butt skirmish that will bring him to a higher level of attention.
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