VOL. 126 | NO. 217 | Monday, November 07, 2011
By Bill Dries
Updated 3:40PM
With a month to the Dec. 8 filing deadline for the March 6 presidential and Shelby County primary elections, the coming race for Shelby County district attorney general is beginning to show signs of life. That is as voters in one part of Memphis prepare to decide the last election of 2011 this week.
Tennessee Senate Democratic leader Jim Kyle is weighing a bid in the Democratic primary to be the county?s top prosecutor.
Meanwhile, incumbent Amy Weirich has pulled her petition for the Republican primary and held a $500 a head fundraiser in East Memphis last week that included an endorsement from Tennessee Gov. Bill Haslam.
?It is not easy to run for office the first time. It?s really hard to call people and ask for money, to go out and say,�?Vote for me. I?m the right person,?? Haslam told the bipartisan group of supporters at the fundraiser at Oaksedge.
?We don?t know who is going to run against her. But it could be somebody with a lot more name recognition and she?ll need money and the ability to get that message out,? he added in an apparent reference to Kyle.
Weirich was Haslam?s first appointment to a local office as he selected her in January to replace Bill Gibbons as Gibbons became the state?s commissioner of safety and homeland security.
Gibbons, who made Weirich his top deputy district attorney general, recommended her appointment as his successor.
Weirich immediately said she would be a candidate in the special election�? the March 6 primary and the Aug. 2 county general election�? for the remaining two years left in Gibbons? term of office.
It is her first bid for elected office and Weirich has already said her appeal won?t be along party lines in the primary or the general election.
?It is not easy to run for office the first time. It?s really hard to call people and ask for money, to go out and say,�?Vote for me. I?m the right person.??
?Bill Haslam
Tennessee governor, campaigning for District Attorney General Amy Weirich
She is running on a theme of making Shelby County�?safer, stronger and better? with an emphasis on her record as a prosecutor as well as broadening initiatives begun during Gibbons? tenure.
Weirich pledged to continue programs beyond court aimed at reducing domestic violence and youth violence.
?As a 20-year prosecutor I know that every 7-year-old child that we keep from seeing violence�? is less likely to cross the threshold of Juvenile Court and is less likely to cross the threshold of 201 Poplar,? she said.�?We understand that we cannot prosecute our way out of the problems we have. But it?s my responsibility to lead our office and make sure we have the toughest and fairest prosecutors and staff that come to work everyday that are led by me to pursue the guilty and protect the innocent.?
The race joins the regularly scheduled slate of county primaries and general elections for assessor and General Sessions Court clerk.
Word that Kyle is considering a challenge of Weirich comes after more than a year of speculation that former Memphis City Council member Carol Chumney is also weighing a run in the Democratic primary.
The political indicators arise as Memphis voters prepare for the last election of 2011 to decide the runoff contest for Memphis City Council District 7 between Lee Harris and Kemba Ford. Election Day is Thursday, Nov. 10.
Going into the weekend when the early voting period was to end, voter turnout was ready to top 1,000 of the 59,000 voters in the council district.
And Harris? campaign mentioned Ford for the first time by name.
Voters in the district got a direct mail piece from Harris Thursday bearing the banner,�?Is Kemba Ford Ready??
Ford is relying heavily on the power of the Ford name. The actress is the daughter of former state Sen. John Ford and has touted the Ford political legacy heavily in her first bid for elected office. Her campaign is focused on name recognition via lots of yard signs and financial support from some local municipal labor unions, most prominently the American Federation of State County and Municipal Employees.
Until Thursday, Harris, a University of Memphis Cecil C. Humphreys School of Law professor who ran in the 2006 Democratic congressional primary, had avoided mentioning Ford by name.
The mailer is a comparison of Ford and Harris based on the scores given them by the not- for-profit group Coalition for a Better Memphis, which screens candidates with in-person interviews and a detailed questionnaire. Harris? piece includes his response and hers to questions about qualifications, education and vision.
Source: http://kwindur.wordpress.com/2011/11/07/shelby-county-da-race-taking-shape/
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