Thursday, February 5, 2009
Legislature / Politics / Woods Ramsey to Williams: Quit the GOP. Plus, 'Sheer Hatred' in the Legislature: Will They Ever Get Over It?
Posted by Jeff Woods on Thu, Feb 5, 2009 at 11:51 AM
Ramsey made the comments at the Tennessee Press Association winter meeting, which is being held downtown. On Monday, GOP chair Robin Smith is supposed to announce whether the party is giving Williams the boot.
Also at the TPA meeting, House Democratic Leader Gary Odom said Williams could join his party. "If the Republican Party wants to remove him, I would welcome him on my side of the aisle. I'd like the title of majority leader instead of just Democratic leader."
As part of a panel discussion, former Sen. Bob Rochelle predicted the GOP will kick out Williams. "Never underestimate the ability of the Republican Party to screw things up," he said. Rochelle, a Democrat, said that by punishing Williams, the party is trying to assert control of the legislature's decisions, which he said would rob voters of independent thinkers.
Rochelle predicted lawmakers soon will forget all the ill feelings over Williams' election as speaker. "The dynamic is, whether you're a Democrat or a Republican, you're looking for votes. You're looking to get things done. The legislature will be in its usual stance, which you won't like either," he told the press association.
Lobbyist Mark Greene said, "It's really uncharted waters up there now. The level of animosity and really sheer hatred right now is off the scale."
Comments (5)
Showing 1-5 of 5
Jeff, you have been so prolific lately with your posts, I can hardly keep up. Though you seem full of ideas, here is one more that you might want to comment upon. It appears that Village Voice Media, owners of The Scene, have assigned staffers to spend time inflating the number of viewer hits on stories published in Village Voice papers, including The Scene. The purpose of this, of course, is to fool advertisers. You can read all about it here: http://www.thedeets.com/2009/02/05/how-village-voice-media-uses-digg-to-game-their-traffic-numbers/
Perhaps we can get Congressman Cooper to look into this.
like
dislike
I don't have time to comment on that, Henry. I'm too busy inflating our viewer hits. Come down to Brandon's tonight.
Just for the record, Henry, we don't do that down here. And if you look at the map accompanying the story, you won't see Nashville on it.
Thank-you, Pete, for your response. You are correct in nothing that the map accompanying the story does not highlight Nashville. If, however, you scroll down a little further, you will see two charts illustrating the last twelve months of Digg submissions by "Philostrato" and "Ivanb's" on behalf of Village Voice Media. The Scene is number 9 on Ivanb's list and number 15 on Philostrato's chart.
Feel free to join Jeff and me at Brandon's.
