March 2, 2007
Lunch with Dean
Mayoral candidate Karl Dean hosted a lunch meeting today for area bloggers. About a dozen folks showed up at the Flying Saucer, among them Bruce Barry, Hutchmo, Ned Williams, Nathan Moore and myself. I have lots of notes to review, but I’ll offer this brief post in the meantime.
Dean strikes me as a cross between Bill Purcell and Phil Bredesen. As he noted during lunch, Nashville has been blessed to have 16 years of great mayoral leadership under those two leaders, so that’s definitely a compliment. (Since they have reportedly struggled to get along at times in the past, I’m not sure how they’d feel about this comparison, but it rang true for me today.)
Dean sounds a little like Purcell when he talks: He has a lot to say, and he did ramble at times. He carefully and thoughtfully weighed his responses to many questions. There is a deliberateness about Dean that reminds me of Purcell. I left with the impression that Dean would not take any issue affecting the city lightly or make any decision without considering its consequences. That’s good leadership.
He reminds me of Bredesen because he comes across as intelligent and highly practical. Sure, he mentioned similar lofty ambitions for his leadership vision the way most other candidates do, but I got a strong sense that Dean would focus most on what he could help the city get done. Discussing his experience as Metro law director and as public defender, he couched himself as a problem solver who seeks to get to the heart of an issue and figure out what to do about it. This approach appears to fit with his emphasis on his experience in the executive (as in to execute, to get things done, to do) branch of government as opposed to the legislative area. Dean was sure to point out that three of his opponents, David Briley, Howard Gentry and Buck Dozier, are current council members and that Bob Clement is known best for his time as a congressman.
Describing Dean in this way, I realize that I’d still like to see and learn more about Dean’s own voice and personality. Compared with the other major candidates, he entered the race fairly late (in December) and is arguably a lesser known, though respected, community leader. Until recently, Dean has been fairly quiet on the campaign, apparently focusing (quite successfully) on catching up on fundraising since he announced his candidacy later than everyone else.
It’s still awfully early in this race, so there’s plenty of time remaining for Dean to raise his public profile, but I generally like what I have seen so far and what I heard today. He is an electable candidate in this race, but in my opinion so are three of the other four candidates. (I’m hoping personally that Clement is not, but that’s up for the voters to decide, not just me.)
I’ll share more about today’s discussion and issues that were raised over the next few days. Stay tuned.
![Rob Robinson](http://thinktrain.net/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2007/02/Rob.jpg")
Ned Williams said,
March 2, 2007 @ 11:28 pm
Rob,
It was a pleasure to break bread with you today. I should probably do my own digging on this, but I was wondering what your thoughts are about Clement. I’ve heard other Democrats say, like you, that they don’t like him.
Is he too much of a retread? Too blue-doggish?
thinktrain » Karl Dean on education said,
March 5, 2007 @ 1:11 pm
[...] Dean covered a lot of territory during the blogger lunch meeting he hosted on Friday, and I have several pages of notes from the event. Here are several items from [...]
rrob13 said,
March 5, 2007 @ 1:18 pm
Thanks, Ned. I enjoyed lunch, too, and I’m glad we were seated close enough to talk this time.
I’m a recent Democrat voter, in large part out of frustration over the war, and while I skew pretty liberal these days, I come from a former position of being a moderate Republican. In the interest of full disclosure, I would not rule out voting for a moderate on either side of the aisle or a viable independent candidate in a national or statewide election.
All that said, my impressions of Clement spring more from my time as a Republican than they do from anywhere else, since he hasn’t been in office recently. Honestly, I just have a sense that he knows the “game” too well and isn’t someone I feel like I can trust. With Briley, Dean, Dozier and Gentry, I get the sense that the main thing they each would like to do is help the city. I feel like Clement just wants the job. I want to keep an open mind in the months ahead to give him a fair shake, but that’s where I’m coming from, at least for now.
That was the long answer. I guess the short one is that I do feel like he is too much of a retread.