We had another great weekend campaigning and connecting with voters in East Tennessee.We arrived at Tri-Cities Airport on Friday afternoon and were met at the airport by State Representative Nathan Vaughn and County Commissioner Moe Brotherton, both of whom are Ford for Senate campaign co-chairs. After a brief meeting at the airport to discuss strategy and several minutes taking pictures with many East Tennesseans in the airport, we left for an early supper and informal homeland security briefing at the
Kingsport Fire Department. The dinner was good and conversation illuminating.
Several weeks ago in Memphis, I hosted a statewide Homeland Security conference to formulate a better strategy to prevent and, God forbid, respond to acts of terrorism in Tennessee. Friday's meeting confirmed many of my concerns and underscored the need to convince the Bush Administration to develop a national metric to help medium and small-sized cities and counties respond to terrorist acts. Furthermore, the attacks in London underscore the need for a better national strategy to improve port and transit security. Unfortunately, President Bush announced late Friday that the Homeland Security Department would not fund port and transit security measures for local governments. Local governments will have to pay for it. I will continue working against that, as I promised Darrell Hayes, Chip Adkins, Mike Roeske, Roger Williams, Matt Fleenor and John Reeves of the Kingsport Fire Department.
After supper, I joined almost 7,000 Tri-Cities residents at the Sullivan County 25th Annual Funfest Parade. I walked the 2.5 mile parade route and enjoyed making new friends, seeing old ones and being squirted relentlessly by the kids with their water guns - next year, I will have one too. After the parade, and before the storm started, we put Ford for Tennessee bumper stickers on cars. People were happy to get them.
Saturday started early with a trip to the Colonial Heights Optimist Club/WCYV-TV 5 Kid's Fishing Derby at Warrior's Path State Park. Commissioner Brotherton is a member of the club. There, we met members of the county sheriff's department and other members of the club as we talked homeland security, education and jobs. I'm looking forward to a Sunday back in Kingsport to attend church with Deputy Sheriffs Large and Ferguson. And a special thanks to the chair of the fishing derby, Mrs. Diane Stewart and her husband Bill, for their kindness.
After the fishing derby, I joined Irene Wells, her husband Bobbie, former State Representative Ralph Yelton, Betty Trent, former Sullivan County Commissioner Marvin Hyatt, Betty Starnes, Jane Bellamy, Judy Payne, MaryAnn Rush, Jack Vaughan and a group of the most enthusiastic Democrats I have seen in a while at the Hardee's in Colonial Heights for breakfast and some grassroots campaigning. We stood in the drive thru line and put bumper stickers on cars. We didn't get a single "No." Not one. And many of our supporters in the parking lot were Republicans.
We left Hardee's and headed for Surgoinsville for a meet and greet breakfast at Bellamy Hardware that was organized by Teresa Greer, the wonderful Tina Crownover and Hawkins County Democratic Party chair Doug Godbee, who will also serve as Ford for Tennessee county coordinator/manager.
This meet and greet was attended by 200 people, had a band playing and gave me the chance to share my vision of how to make Tennessee and the country's future better. I spoke, took questions and then put bumper stickers on everyone's car. It was a great, great event. It made me feel good to be a Democrat at this event, especially afterwards as we put bumper stickers on just about every attendee's car in the rain.
From there we headed to the Mountaineer in Church Hill for lunch with Mount Caramel Police Chief Jeff Jackson, his wife Phyllis - herself an investigator with the county Sheriff's Department - and many other law enforcement officials, including Sgt. Tony Allen and Cpl. Chad Gillenwater. Also I had a chance to chat briefly after my speech with Kingsport Police Chief Mark Addington and Chief of the Church Hill Fire Department David Wood.
We rushed from there to Morristown for a quick second lunch with financial supporters before heading to Crossville for a meet and greet with Cumberland County Democratic Chair Randy York and 50 of his friends and supporters. I was proud and honored that Senator Annabelle Clement O'Brien and Chief O'Brien and my statewide campaign chairman and colleague Lincoln Davis joined us for this meet and greet. Again, the rain ended things early and we all headed to the fairgrounds for the Farm Bureau picnic. The rain stopped and Lincoln and I worked the crowd together. After shaking hands with more than 150, we left for a final event of the day - the White County Democratic Party hamburger fundraiser. I want to thank especially Farm Bureau Vice-President Lacey Upchurch and his wife for their kindness and friendship over the years.
Organized by county party chairman and my longtime friend, Geeta McMillan, the dinner was also attended by Democrats from Putnam, Overton, Dekalb, Warren, Clay and Van Buren counties. Chairwoman McMillan deserves congratulations because she is actively involving young people on her leadership team. If every Democrat was like Geeta, the Democrats would be a majority party because she is smart, practical, driven and embodies the best of our party's tradition. It was good to see Chairman of the Democratic County Chairs Association Paul Davis and his wife.
We ended the day with a drive to Knoxville to overnight and prepare for church Sunday morning at Canaan Baptist Church with Pastor Harold Middlebrook and an interview with George Korda on AM 990 with Representative Frank Nicely.
Sunday church was terrific also. Pastor Carl Shields of Memphis and the Antioch Baptist Church family were guests of Pastor Middlebrook and Canaan Baptist. Pastor Shields gave a stirring message based on Job 14:13,14 entitled, "I'm waiting on Jesus." It was a fitting way to end the trip.
Before heading to the airport, I did Korda's call-in show and taped a segment for Knoxville's ABC affiliate, WATE, on homeland security, the bombings in London and Iraq.
Finally, I want to thank Commissioner Brotherton and Professor Lee Porterfield for making the weekend a success. In short, we had a good weekend. Those who want to see pictures of the weekend can do so later today on the website, fordfortennessee.com. And, please don't hesitate to contribute online as well. As solid a quarter as we had raising money last quarter, the new one has started, and we have some aggressive campaign plans this quarter as we work to define us before the attack dogs on the other side lie about us. So, please contribute at fordfortennessee.com.
Sincerely,
Harold
From: Campaign email
