In my personal opinion, it would be unwise to do business with this company. Beyond the post referenced at that link, which is also available from Google, I have based my opinion upon this cease-and-desist letter. This letter has also been mentioned here.

I’m conflicted about concerns that an expected mayoral runoff election would fall on the Jewish holiday of Rosh Hashanah this fall. The Tennessean’s Gail Kerr calls the situation a “mess” and calls out Mayor Bill Purcell for not doing anything about it:

From February until his plane leaves today [for China], the mayor could’ve issued an executive order changing the runoff. With the election commission’s cooperation and no legal challenge (and who would challenge it?), it would have stuck. He could have asked the state legislature to create a law superseding Metro’s charter on years when a religious holiday and an Election Day conflict. But he didn’t do anything.

I agree with Kerr and others quoted in the article that holding the election on this major holiday is a mistake. It isn’t respectful toward the city’s significant Jewish population and, as Kerr observes, we would never schedule an election on Christmas or Easter.

At the same time, I think Kerr overstates how Jewish voters will be “disenfranchised” and unable to vote. I sincerely hope the city will change the runoff election date, but voters of any faith or philosophical calling should vote early if any election day falls on any date that is not suitable for them. Let’s change the date, but let’s also look for ways to encourage more people throughout the city to take their participation in democracy seriously enough to take part one way or another, regardless of flawed scheduling decisions.

City Paper reporter Bill Harless has more this morning on Howard Gentry’s modest fundraising tally announced yesterday:

“The truth is — I’m not concerned. We’re running our campaign the way my campaign is run, and we’re touching people — we are moving across this entire city, we are raising enough funds to pay for our efforts to this point. In our account, we have a plus balance, which means that our bills are getting paid. We’re fully staffed, and we’re moving forward,” Gentry told The City Paper.

“If you look at races across the country, and even locally within our state, everybody’s talking about money, money, money. And I have been consistent the entire time saying that my campaign was not going to be defined by money and that I was going to raise what I needed to raise at the times I needed to raise it,” he said.

Gentry acknowledged that it is never “fun to be considered in last place, and, of course, financially I guess it puts me there, but money alone cannot determine [whether this] puts me in last place in this race.

“It is time that someone succeeds in a manner that is not dictated by how much money they have but by their ability to connect to the public and have the public trust. And I just choose this direction,” Gentry said. “And don’t count me out until the race is over.”

He said he would not take “defensive position” about the amount of money his campaign has raised, saying “I think it is more of a concern to political pundits and to the press than it is to me.”

As I said yesterday, I do hope that money alone does not determine this race, especially because I personally do not think that current fundraising leader Bob Clement is the best candidate to lead the city forward, but I also doubt Gentry would be saying all of this if his numbers had been better. At the same time, what else can he say at this point? I applaud Gentry’s candor for acknowledging that his fundraising may have him in “last place” currently and respect his intention to persevere.  I’m curious to see how Gentry’s position and his talking points evolve as the race picks up over the next couple of months.