Thursday, November 17, 2011
Politics Haslam Aides Armed Themselves with Talking Points Well Before Occupy Nashville Crackdown
Posted by Jeff Woods on Thu, Nov 17, 2011 at 12:18 PM
Harrell, the governor’s director of constituent services and community relations, sent his talking points in an email at 7:49 a.m. on Thursday, Oct. 27. Outside of the administration, no one even yet knew about the new curfew on the state Capitol grounds. That wouldn’t be announced until after 1 o’clock that afternoon—and the first arrests wouldn’t occur until roughly 14 hours after that at 3 a.m. on Friday, Oct. 28.
“We’re going to get calls and emails today about Occupy Nashville and need to have talking points for our folks on the phone first thing in the morning,” Harrell wrote in the email made public by the administration under the state’s open records act.
People have a right to peaceably assemble. Those assemblies should be safe, sanitary, and non-destructive. After several assaults, it is no longer safe for the Occupy protesters or the community at large [to] remain on the plaza overnight. The occupy protesters can still protest during the daytime hours.
With talking points like these, maybe it’s a good thing Haslam’s flacks kept their mouths shut. A Port-a-Potty or two was about all that was needed to solve all these problems on the plaza.
Haslam’s crackdown is widely recognized as a blunder. He succeeded in rallying the protesters—something they couldn’t do on their own—and damaged public confidence in his judgment while he was at it. His communications team made matters worse by failing to give forthright and accurate information about what was happening.
Comments (9)
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SANITARY ??? Then what is that foul smell coming from the Capitol building? Rancide corruption? The Rancidification, oxidation of fats?
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Harrell is a hack who wants badly to be someone really important in the Haslam Administration, but is kept out of the loop most of the time. The reason his "talking points" were not used is probably because these "talking points" were for the interns and the receptionists rather than for the official press spokespeople.
If Little Jeremy tried to take talking points to the Haslam press office, they would either curse him or laugh at him, or curse him while laughing at him.
Haslam was prepared before hand to try and get the Occupy Nashville out of the Legislative area, but if backfired and he had to eat crow. I hate to say this, but out Governor is a wimp.
The Haslam administration is never unengaged. On any issue. Whether it's obvious or not. Some folks have seemed to think otherwise.
He's an empty suit, Donna. Always has been. Daddy put him into politics to get him the hell out of their way, and maybe finally be somewhat useful to the family business in the process.
The "empty suit" has a lot of strings attached to it, this should make one wonder about the puppet masters working the strings, can they save the performance of their show?
One would expect good talking points when facing this type situation no
matter the source from which they came. One would also expect those
talking points to be good valid ones backed up by a good legal brief
already prepared if faced by a sure to come Federal Court case.
It appears there was poor preparation on all fronts which the Governor
needs to realize and be better prepared for future events! Of course,
his biggest obstacle is the State Attorney General's office which gets
it's life blood through and for the Tenn Supreme Court versus the citizens!
Is this supposed to be insidious in some way? That somebody was tasked (or took the initiative) to make sure there was a consistent message coming out of the government? Don't we rip politicians when it seems like nobody knows what's going on? And to say that they "knew more than they were letting on....well in advance of the first arrests"....umm, you even admit that the e-mail was sent roughly *five hours* before the announcement was made. What should they have done, sent the e-mail out with the announcement? What am I saying? This is typical Woods trollery. Republicans can do no right, and Democrats can do no wrong. Must be nice, seeing the world in black and white, without all those other colors to muck it up.
Jeff Woods long ago gave up any pretense of reporting. What's the big deal here? An employee of the administration provides other staffers information they will need in a few hours. And regarding the information in the memo that Jeremy Harrell supposedly emailed, is any of it incorrect? I recall reading about assaults and sanitation problems from in variety of sources.
