Today we spoke to Senator Lowe Finney, of the Fightin’ 27th, which encompasses Madison, Gibson, and Carroll Counties. Senator Finney was recently elected Chairman of the Senate Democratic Caucus.
In the interview we learn about the Fightin’ 27th, the job of the Senate Democratic Caucus and its chair, regional megasites, voter suppression, being torn between several gubernatorial candidates, and that Democrats are really the party of the big tent. Plus, Senator Finney clears up the confusion about the existence of rural Democrats and finishes this sentence, “I probably shouldn’t be telling you this but…” [24.66MB Download MP3]
Senator Finney: But as I was sitting there watching them [Kim McMillian, Ward Cammack, Mike McWherter, and Roy Herron] I thought, they all bring a unique perspective to the race – a different set of tools, if you will, on how to fix the State’s issues, the State’s problems. I’m really excited. I think the next year is going to be really tremendous in Democratic politics. We need that in Tennessee. As you mentioned the trending and just what the turnout has been, you look at some of the districts in the last race where we had really good Democratic candidates running for the House and for the Senate and unfortunately they’re not serving with us now because of the turnout. They were running in districts where Barack Obama was beat by 15, 18,000 votes. That tells you that we’ve got a message to communicate – we’ve got to get it out there – and generate some excitement and some enthusiasm about what we want to do to help our state. And I think we have a tremendous slate of candidates to help us do that.
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