Walk that line
February 26, 2009
Democratic gubernatorial candidate Kim McMillan in the Memphis Flyer:
In the course of a two-hour conversation, McMillan ran the gamut of subjects from tax strategy (“We have to live within our means; people in Tennessee are not ready to change our system of taxation”), to the importance of having got an early start (she was the first gubernatorial candidate to announce, in mid-2008), to the necessity of creating a network of small donors (à la the presidential campaign of Barack Obama).
She talked about her experience as a two-term majority leader in the House and the challenges of dealing with a small group of people who, as elected officials themselves, have egos and developed agendas (“It’s not easy to convince people like that that you’re the one who ought to be in charge”). And McMillan noted the two recent instances in which she successfully walked a tightrope between embittered Democratic factions — when former state senator Rosalind Kurita, also of Clarksville, was opposed by fellow Democrat Tim Barnes in last year’s election; and, more recently, when rank-and-file candidate Chip Forrester took on the establishment-backed Charles Robert Bone to get elected as state Democratic chairman. It was clear indeed that one of McMillan’s gifts is that of conciliation, and, while the Democrats who heard her out last week were maintaining a wait-and-see attitude toward a not yet complete gubernatorial field, she at the very least held her place in line.
Indeed, during the Senate dust-up McMillan was neither here nor there promoting Barnes or bashing Kurita. That seems like a good balancing act given that she’s from Clarksville- the nucleus of the 22nd Senate District which Barnes wrested from Kurita.
