Shane Reeves, a pharmacist by trade, gave former state Rep. Joe Carr a big dose of reality.

The owner of TwelveStone Health Partners waxed Carr 65 percent to 35 percent in January, capturing 4,720 votes to Carr’s 2,556 in the Republican primary for a vacant 14th District state Senate seat. Reeves will face Murfreesboro Democrat Gayle Jordan in the general vote March 13 to take the post left open by Jim Tracy when he resigned for a USDA job appointment.

Considered a moderate Republican more in the vein of Gov. Bill Haslam, Reeves drew the ire of the party’s far right wing, including numerous news articles by a publication that won’t be mentioned here.

But besides being the conventional favorite, Reeves had a better strategy, plenty of fundraising prowess and, let’s face it, a better foundation.

Sure, Carr had six years in the state House of Representatives to stand on. But instead of building a network of friends in that period, he spent most of his time trying to ship illegal immigrants back where they came, and his priority for returning to Capitol Hill was to stop the Legislature from undoing important things like stopping Hispanic students brought here as babies from getting in-state tuition to Tennessee colleges.

To be sure, Reeves ran to the right, embracing the Trump agenda of business deregulation and lower taxes for ultra-wealthy people, which he happens to be. But he’s more likely to be a Haslamite if he defeats Jordan in the March election and goes to Nashville in early spring.

Carr hammered Reeves for selling Reeves-Sain Drug Store, founded by his father, former Murfreesboro Mayor Richard Reeves, for $66 million, then turning around and using a $1 million state grant and a county tax break to open a new pharmaceutical supply company. Carr called him a hypocrite for accepting tax dollars after hitting a gold mine.

Reeves, in turn, slammed Carr for taking state per diems for hotels and other costs while serving in the House when he lives less than 50 miles from the Capitol.

But, really, the kicker in this race was Reeves’ position as a successful businessman with plenty of friends and family backing him and Carr’s role as a political has-been who can’t seem to get back into the game.

Since leaving the state Legislature, Carr has run for five political posts, three times for Congress, and is falling further and further back every time. He got whipped—by U.S. Rep. Diane Black two years ago—and fared even worse against Reeves.

While this was Reeves’ first political race, voters, mainly Republican voters, appear to be tired of Carr, even if he is brutally honest, sometimes pretty funny and a good interview—when you can find him. For instance, he didn’t return phone calls or texts after the recent defeat by Reeves.

It might be time for Carr, and his backers, to take inventory and see if they have anything left in the tank. It’s a harsh reality, but it might be time to face it.

From Whence It Came

Carr’s contributions derived mainly from people outside Murfreesboro, his own legislative political action committee and groups such as the anti-annexation group Citizens for Home Rule, the Tennessee Firearms Association, Wine and Spirits Wholesalers PAC and, oddly enough, the Tennessee Employees Action Movement, an arm of the state employees association.

All told, he brought in only $43,400 to go with $11,000 he had left over from state campaigns and $100,000 in self-endorsed loans. Carr spent $107,945, paying $32,000 to Gill Media, a company owned by conservative talk radio man Steve Gill, and $50,000 to Navigation Advertising.

One wonders how hard he really worked.

Reeves, on the other hand, had a campaign contribution list that looked like a who’s who of Murfreesboro, including the Adams family connected to NHC ownership, Kent Ayer, president of TDK Construction, Gary Brown of Roscoe Brown, First Bank’s Brandon Burks, attorney Kirk Catron, the Coggin family (which is also connected to NHC), Evan Cope, an assistant county attorney, Gordon Ferguson, CEO of St. Thomas Rutherford Hospital, Sheriff Mike Fitzhugh, Ole South Properties owner John Floyd and even former Democratic Sen. Andy Womack, Realtor Bob Parks and Oakland High School girls basketball coach Jennifer Grandstaff. In addition, he had the backing of retired banker Ed Loughry, whose son, Cannon, is chief operating officer of Reeves’ company.

The list goes on and on.

Reeves also got a financial boost from former Jim Tracy, state Sen. Dolores Gresham, state Sen. Jack Johnson, state Sen. Ferrell Haile, state Sen. Ken Yager, state Rep. Pat Marsh, state Sen. Brian Kelsey and, of course, his father, former Mayor Reeves.

Reeves built a war chest of $320,400, including $150,000 in self-endorsed loans, and spent $268,500, more than doubling up on Carr.

Democrat Gayle Jordan raised $8,625 during the reporting period and spent $2,600. She netted contributions from Womack and retired Riverdale High teacher Steve Cates.

Jordan will be hard-pressed to raise enough money to compete with Reeves during the general election. But at least she’s giving it the collegiate try, willing to take a realistic stand in favor of medical marijuana and giving Democrats a glimmer of hope.

Corlew

Corlew in Politics?

As if we don’t have enough people trying to vault into political positions on the backs of illegal immigrants, former Rutherford County Chancellor Bob Corlew is running for the 6th Congressional District seat being vacated by Diane Black as she runs for Tennessee governor. (Has anyone noticed the recurring theme of vacated political seats? It takes a scorecard to keep up with all of these moves.)

Corlew, who is one of the nicest people you could ever meet (and I say that with complete sincerity), is coming out as a “conservative Christian” in the race for the Republican primary to be decided in August. State Rep. Judd Matheny and former Tennessee Agriculture Commissioner John Rose are in the hunt too.

Similarly to Reeves, he is running to the Trump corner to “make America great again.”

But here are a couple of interesting items from a video announcing his candidacy. (Before going further, it should be pointed out Rutherford County is no longer in the 6th District, so even though Corlew lived here for decades, he now claims he lives in Mt. Juliet, and Rutherford voters won’t be able to cast a vote for him in this race.)

First, he blames politicians from both major parties for making America weaker as the video flashes scenes of the U.S. Border Patrol at work, presumably saying the country isn’t safe because we have illegal immigrants crossing into the country and prowling the streets.

Second, he says he will protect the Constitution the same way he did when he swore an oath to serve in the U.S. Army and to sit as a General Sessions Court judge and chancellor.

Here are the problems: Americans, including a lot of Republican business owners, invited these people into the country with the promise of jobs so they could get cheap labor and deliver lower prices for everything from hotel rooms to houses. A lot of people have made fortunes on the backs of these men and women. It’s become cool, however, to blame these people for every ill in the nation, and hardly anybody wants to admit it.

Granted, more illegal immigrants are showing up in court, and we have plenty of problems near the border and in other areas where undocumented people are committing crimes. But we’ve got a lot of regular Joe American citizens dealing drugs and killing people, and nobody wants to kick them out of the country, even though some of them probably deserve to live on a tiny island somewhere in the Pacific.

For Corlew to use this issue is disingenuous at best, with no plan for dealing with the millions of immigrants who might be here illegally but who outwork many of the people born here.

An even bigger problem, though, was Corlew’s decision in 2012, when he ruled in favor of a group of residents who sued Rutherford County, claiming it violated the Tennessee Open Meetings Act by failing to give proper notice about a meeting when it considered a site plan for the Islamic Center of Murfreesboro.

Corlew said the county should hold another hearing and consider the matter again after giving proper notice. The county appealed the decision.

But before that could be heard, the Becket Fund and the U.S. attorney general’s office filed a federal lawsuit contending the ICM’s federal rights were being violated. A federal judge ruled in favor of the mosque, overturning an order to stop work on the ICM and allowing the building to be occupied.

The U.S. Supreme Court declined to hear the case, probably because the ICM’s religious rights as guaranteed by the First Amendment were being violated.

In short, Corlew allowed the religion of Islam to be put on trial in the county’s Judicial Building, more or less undercutting the U.S. Constitution, the one he swore to uphold.

One final thing: Corlew’s video doesn’t show one black person, Asian, Indian or Arabian, nothing but good white folks. It might play well to the Trumpsters in Wilson County, but it’s not Rutherford County, where he made his bones, and it’s certainly not America.

Oh yeah, one more thing: Corlew wrote a character letter in mid-2017 to a federal judge asking for probation, not prison time, for Joe Russell after he pleaded guilty to corruption in connection with running an unauthorized e-cigarettes operation at the county jail. For those who forgot, it’s the case that landed former Sheriff Robert Arnold in prison. Russell was the mastermind, though, and for a former judge to ask for leniency for convicted felon is questionable at best, unethical at worst. Then again, Corlew was renting a house to Russell and his family.