The Nigh Seen Creeder

Way back in 1994, I was working for Memphis economist Steve Wilson, who was a member of the "six-pack" of Republican primary contestants who hoped to remove Jim Sasser from the U.S. Senate.  One of 'em, Bill Frist, would do just that; and another, Bob Corker, would replace Bill Frist twelve years later.
 
Steve Wilson announced his intention to run for Sasser's seat a full year-and-a-half before the primary election, which is how I came to work for him:  He was the first to ask, so I through my support behind him.  Wilson treaded water for months, and then he began openly courting the support of Christian conservatives.  His name i.d. and numbers began to rise, as did the balance in his campaign account. 
 
In Spring '94, Wilson embarked on an official announcement tour across the state.  He made his big announcement in Memphis.  Then he got on a plane and made stops in Jackson, Nashville, Chattanooga, Knoxville, and the Tri-Cities.  I and some 2,500 fellow Wilson supporters were crammed inside a hanger at the Nashville airport when our candidate stopped in Music City.  He gave a stem winder of a speech ("Let's sack Sasser!" I remember him saying) he shook some hands and hugged a few ladies, and then he was on his way.
 
The day after Steve Wilson's Nashville announcement stop, Gail Kerr's short piece in the Tennessean included the comment that Wilson spoke to a "handful" of supporters.  I was livid.  I left a message on her voice mail in which I expressed my doubt that she'd even been at the event. I told her that no one who had been there would've described the gathered folks as a "handful" of supporters. 
 
Later that day, another campaign worker told me that Kerr had been at the airport on the day of the announcement -- but she'd come and gone before Wilson ever arrived. "Someone who showed up an hour before the event probably could conclude that there was only a handful of people there," he said.  I left another message on Kerr's voice mail blasting her "sloppy reporting," and I demanded that she call me back.  I never heard from her.  I also wrote a letter to the Tennessean setting the record straight.  Of course, it was never published. 
 
Steve Wilson obviously didn't win the Republican primary for Sasser's seat in '94.  He came in a respectable third behind Frist and Corker, who'd both thrown so much personal money into the race that none of the other candidates really had a chance of winning.
 
Oh, two years later I was in that same airplane hanger participating in a campaign event.  This time it was a rally for Lamar Alexander the day after the 1996 New Hampshire GOP presidential primary.  Alexander had come within a whip and a whisker from knocking Bob Dole out of that race entirely -- Dole was able to survive only because of a blitz of negative TV ads, directed squarely at Alexander, during the last few days of the campaign -- and he was rallying the troops before the campaign shifted to South Carolina. 
 
I couldn't help but notice that there were about the same number of people at the Alexander event that there'd been at the Wilson event.  Conspicuously absent from the Tennessean's coverage of the event were the words "handful of supporters."  Since I have a looooooong political memory, I left another message on Kerr's voicemail asking her, again, to justify her crappy coverage of Steve Wilson's announcement event.  I never heard from her ... and I swore that I'd never again read anything to which her byline was affixed.
 
I was able to keep my promise until yesterday.  There was Kerr's fat face on the front page of the Tennessean's "Local" section under this headline: "Tide turns for Naifeh after GOP wins House majority."  I just had to read what Kerr had to say about the Republican takeover of the State House for the first time since Reconstruction.

When I got to the part where Kerr says Jimmy Naifeh can expect giant "na-na-na-na-boo-boo[s]" from the GOP in January, I asked myself, "Now why am I reading this crap?" Then I got to the part in the column in which Kerr speculates on who the next House Speaker will be. She mentions Minority Leader Jason Mumpower, about whom she says:

"[H]e leans to the far right on the conservative meter."

My blood pressure rose like it was 1994 all over again. When I cooled down a bit, dispatched this e-mail to Ms. Kerr:

Two things disturb me about your labeling State Rep. Mumpower as a "far right" conservative (Tennessean, November 6).

First, you make no effort to qualify who is and who's not worthy of being dubbed "far right." What must one do to be considered a far-right conservative, as opposed to just an ordinary conservative?

Also, I'd be willing to bet a dollar to your nickel that you've never used the term "far-left liberal" to describe a liberal member of the General Assembly. If there are degrees of conservatism, surely there are degrees of liberalism as well. If you were asked to pick, say, five far-left liberals members of the Tenn. House of Representatives, whom would you pick?

I eagerly await your reply.

I've yet to hear from Gail Kerr. My dollar to your dime says I never do.

who wants to bet?