Tuesday, June 16, 2009
Legislature / Politics / Woods At Home to Raise Campaign Cash, Ramsey Shows Political Tin Ear
Posted by Jeff Woods on Tue, Jun 16, 2009 at 10:14 AM
Ramsey's political tin ear was on full display today in an article in his hometown newspaper by his high school elementary school classmate, Hank Hayes. He decided to go home to throw a few campaign fund-raisers right in the middle of the legislature's big budget debate. That was after he was embarrassed by strong criticism from the normally reserved governor for the Senate GOP's bizarre budget-cutting plan. House Speaker Kent Williams complained yesterday that Ramsey's absence was hindering negotiations. In response, Ramsey thought it made sense to whine about the competitive disadvantage he's suffered as a legislator running for governor.
"It's not that people take things for granted. They just don't understand the importance of raising money in a statewide race," he said. "I'm doing very well across the state and well here in East Tennessee too. I understand the fact that we're not out of session now, and there may be some criticism for that. But we should have been out of session. The law says I can start raising money on June 1. I was handicapped by that."
Ramsey went on to contend that it somehow was Bredesen's fault that Republicans tried to kill funding for the Haywood County industrial megasite at the same time the governor was heading to Europe to sell the property to companies. How was Ramsey supposed to know Bredesen was serious about that site, just because the state already had invested millions of dollars there?
"When we were looking at cuts, the governor had not informed us to the extent of where he is trying to market this site. Obviously if you're in a time of economic downturn maybe the last thing you want to do is buy land for speculation. The governor explained to us how important this is on the trip he is taking right now to try to market this. That was lack of communication on the administration's part. Obviously we're OK with that now."
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