Gary Loe, the lifetime head of the West Knox Republican Club, is on a crusade to try and wreck the chances of Garrett Holt to serve on the Knox County Commission. Holt is far ahead of his competitors, raising an impressive financial war chest to run and has been actively campaigning to succeed Kyle Ward on the commission. Ward, after the birth of a baby, has chosen to retire from the county commission and concentrate on family and business matters. Loe has pushed Liz Tombras to challenge Holt in the Republican primary.
Loe is usually to be found complaining inside the Republican Party and fighting with just about everybody but Democrats. Loe ran a losing campaign against state Representative Gloria Johnson and last year was rejected by the delegates to the Knox County Republican convention when he sought to become the party’s secretary. Loe was allied with Erik Wiatr, who is seeking to redefine himself as a foe of developers and incumbents. Wiatr makes his money from running campaigns and incumbents inhibit his ability to generate revenue, so he tries to find challengers to line his pockets. Loe and Wiatr had a falling out at some point, but Loe had supported a ticket of Republicans put together by Waitr to run in the City Council races in 2021. Garrett Holt ran on that ticket and Loe supported him then. Nor did Gary Loe object to Erik Waitr who spent more of his life as a Democrat and Green Party member than as a Republican. Nobody has heard Gary Loe scream from the rooftops about the hundreds of liberal Democrats and Green party zanies Erik Wiatr backed and the ballots in Chicago were as long as a roll of toilet paper.
Loe made a nuisance of himself protesting the nomination of former state Representative Eddie Mannis and wanted to make an investigation into crossover voters. Voters are free to vote in the primary of their choice in Tennessee since the beginning of time, although some folks are either ignorant of the law, still think they are just living in a better suburb of Illinois or are too new to know Tennessee’s law. Democrats crossed over in New Hampshire to vote for Nikki Haley against Trump, not that it made any difference. Like it or not, ultimately the voters have the final say on whom they prefer in public office.
Garrett Holt’s candidacy has been accepted and approved by the members of the Republican State Executive Committee from Knox County with only one dissenting vote. The State Executive Committee members are also elected by Republicans in primary elections.
Waiting on the sidelines is a Democrat candidate with no opposition in his own primary, who will have every resource the leftist special interests can bring to bear on the race in the general election. It doesn’t help that Republicans are fighting amongst themselves. Unfortunately, too many of them are too new to Knox County to remember a time when the county clerk was a Democrat and won election after election county-wide for 20 years. The district attorney was a Democrat and there were a slew of Democrats elected to judgeships. These self-appointed party crashers, some of whom have been Democrats themselves, spend more time fighting other Republicans than they do Democrats. As the old saying goes, any jackass can kick down a barn, but it takes a carpenter to build one.
This originally appeared in Publisher’s Positions in the January 29, 2024 Knox Focus. Republished with permission. you can read it here from the Knox Focus site.
I have been told that Gary is the best campaigner for the democrats. Beating up on a Republican in a Republican Primary is a petty low down act.
