It’s Crafton’s Face on the Cover. But Crisp is Pulling the Strings.

On December 4, 2008, in Liberate Your Radio from The Right, by Mary Mancini

So, Eric Crafton’s a good guy. A smart guy. He’s just a little too “alarmingly left-brained” to understand that learning a foreign language with the “full backing and resources of the American Navy…is so removed from the life of your average Nashville non-native speaker that it might as well take place on another planet.” He’s a no-nonsense, black or white, right or wrong, pull-yourself-up-by-your-bootstraps family man. According to those who know him best, his colleagues on the Metro Council, he’s not a bad guy.

Let’s say, for argument sake, that all of the above is true. If so, then Crafton is also a little too “alarmingly left-brained” and a little too driven by his ideals to see that he’s being manipulated by Jon Crisp, his “friend” and former head of the Davidson County GOP.

Because Crisp, in this week’s Nashville Scene cover story, let the singular purpose of the “English Only” Amendment slip:

Crafton certainly saw no gray in English Only when he and his friend and adviser Jon Crisp devised it a couple of years ago. Crisp says that English Only came to be during one of his and Crafton’s regular spitball sessions.

“Eric and I pick up on topics that we think are timely,” he says. “And you know as well as I do that any given day I can make an issue out of illegal immigration.”

Yes. We know. You’re, uh, doing it right now. You topic is “timely” because since 2004, when then-Senator Majority leader Bill Frist first introduced immigration as a problem, the unholy alliance of right-wing cable TV anouncers, talk radio hosts, and Fox News have increasingly inflamed nativist sentiment. Nashville’s version of the cookie cutter “English First” website may say that having English as the official language is “truly inclusive” and “essential to unifying our increasingly diverse population,” but Crisp’s transparent words say “purposefully exclusionary” and “essential to dividing in order to conquer.”

The well-being of the city and people of Nashville may be part of the Crafton/Crisp (aka Crispton) official talking points, but the truth is that they could really care less. My thanks to Crisp for finally admitting it.

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Tornado Tuesday Observations

On February 6, 2008, in Liberate Your Radio from The Right, by Freddie
  • Democratic turnout in Tennessee favored Democrats, which is more noteworthy than some other states where this has been the case considering that we don’t have party registration.
  • The media has been desperately trying to turn the Republican race into a two-man race before it legitimately was one. I was (too privately, alas) an early predictor (before Iowa) of Huckabee as a dark horse. And my prediction wasn’t that he would only do well in Iowa. The media tried to cast him as Chucklebee and to be dismissive of another southern candidate. They were wrong. Unlike Thompson, Huckabee has real grassroots support and is successfully tapping it. Voters are thumbing their noses at the media for once.
  • Regarding the rise of Huckabee, did Karl Rove create a monster he can no longer control? Famously announcing and then engineering the turnout of 4 million evangelicals in 2004, could he have failed to foresee the rise of evangelical populism that Huckabee is now tapping into? Would there be irony if Karl Rove turned out to be worse for his vision of a long-term Republican majority than Bill Clinton was for the prospect of a long-term Democratic majority and strong progressive movement?
  • We had a caller to the show on Monday who remarked about the possibility of a Bill Frist return to public view (in the form of a Super Bowl ad) as a reminder of his potential as a vice presidential candidate. Look for him on an eventual short list. I’m still predicting McCain as the nominee, and if the Republicans look South, Frist is as competitive as anyone (certainly more so than Huckabee or Thompson at this point).
  • What is the deal with Ron Paul? How could a Republican candidate who raised more money than his competitors (to the tune of $20 million) in the 4th quarter of 2007 be failing so spectacularly to engineer broader based interest in his campaign? I, for one, think he has a lack of talent in his campaign team. But considering the devotion of the supporters he has, is this evidence of a highly motivated, surprisingly wealthy (and quite possibly racist) lunatic fringe within the Republican party? The contrast between Paul and Huckabee is striking.
  • Obama and Clinton each executed their strategies brilliantly last night. Clinton managed to maintain her firewalls in California and New Jersey, cementing big state wins, and she spat in the eye of the Kennedy-Kerry-Patrick trifecta in Massachusetts. Obama, meanwhile, sought broad-based statewide support and gigantic margins of victory. We’ll see these strategies continue, but they favor Obama in the short term. Clinton now has firewalls in Ohio and Texas, which vote on Mar. 4th. But in the meantime, Obama has the opportunities to pick up wins (and delegates) in Louisiana and D.C., among others. His opportunities don’t happen on the same day as hers from here on out, so he might gather momentum that will finally be hard for her to combat.
  • Fred Thompson didn’t come anywhere close to pulling a Howard Dean in 2004 and winning his home state. And John Edwards had negligible early voting impact.
  • Four counties in West Tennessee had to close polling locations early as a result of weather. What does that mean for voters (and votes)? Would this have tightened the margin in Tennessee?
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