Brian Hornback, county GOP chair, is thrilled that his ticket won a 5-of-5 sweep of countywide races. Contrast that with 1998 when the GOP lost Scott Davis (to Tommy Schumpert) for county executive, Wayne Houser (to Daryl Fansler) for chancellor and Jimmy Kyle Davis (to Randy Nichols) for district attorney general.
Next question for the GOP is why no challenge to Democrats Nichols and Mike Padgett?
Sandra Clark is correct in 1998 the Republican ticket was managed by local politico Ray Hill, actually the GOP in addition to losing the three races, also lost Gayle Stone Harris Jarvis (to Richard Baumgartner for Criminal Court Judge. So, in 1998 the local GOP went 0-4.
I can not remember a recent incident where the Party Chairman ran the countywide campaign. I was honored to serve along with Nick McBride as the Treasurer who also served with me as an equal in the coordination of the KnoxGOP campaign.
I attempted to recruit candidates for D.A and Court Clerk. The perception was that Nichols has a huge war chest and ability to raise money within the Bar Association, which makes it difficult to persuade lawyers to put their law practice on hold and for established successful lawyers to take a pay cut to be D.A. for eight years.
It is the same situation with the Court Clerk, there is a perception that he has a warchest or the ability to raise money quickly, especially with friends in Nashville. It is difficult to convince someone to be an underdog or to convince a successful businessman to take a pay cut to run the Clerk’s office.
During the write-in process, Mr. Kelvin Moxley offered himself to the Republican party unfortunately the 5% threshold is very difficult to reach in Knox County with the Republican Party holding a majority status.
