WKNO TRANSCRIPT
CHRISTOPHER BLANK (Host): Democratic candidates for Shelby County Mayor had their first in-person forum this week. One thing is clear, most say big changes are needed. With us to talk about that and other issues is political analyst Otis Sanford. Welcome back.
OTIS SANFORD: Thank you, Chris. Good to be with you.
BLANK: Well, first of all, Otis, the county primaries are May 5th. What's a Democrat gotta do in the next couple of months to show he or she can lead this whole county?
SANFORD: Well, I think the number one thing, collectively, would be to show leadership, knowledge of the issues, and experience. This is a political job. This is a government job and it's also a management job.
BLANK: Memphis City Council Member JB Smiley, who is likely a front runner at this point, did not hide his left-leaning views. And at times you might have thought he was running against Donald Trump. Is there a risk of coming off as two-partisan in this race, maybe even down the line if he does get the job?
SANFORD: Oh, I think so. But I think he's sort of calculating here with the primary that only staunch Democrats will be participating in the primary, and most of those voters just don't like what's going on on the Republican side. Certainly not with Trump, not with the legislature, not with the governor. It's a risk, because whatever he's saying now -- and he is saying some very left-leaning stuff -- it's going to carry over if he does win the primary. So, I think he needed to be a little careful about that. But he's all-in on the partisanship here.
BLANK: One moment that jumped out at me was when Criminal Court Clerk Heidi Kuhn rattled off a list of government agencies and officials who do not get along locally. Now, politics has never been ripe with kumbaya stories, but in your years as a journalist covering local government, is there more dysfunction now than usual?
SANFORD: Well, I think I can safely say that there's slightly more dysfunction now --or the inability to get along now -- than there were over the last, say, decade or so. But I'm not going to say that this is the worst we've ever had. We had a lot of dysfunction on the county commission many, many years ago. What's happened recently, if you look at the county commission, you had a lot of rancor primarily fueled by one guy, who's no longer there, and that's Edmund Ford Jr. And so there may appear to be the inability to get along. I think Heidi Kuhn made a good point there. I don't think it is the worst we've ever seen, but it does need to get better.
BLANK: Well, I want to turn for a minute to a story out of Middle Tennessee. Immigration and Customs Enforcement is looking to build a new giant detention center for undocumented immigrants. They tried in Mississippi, they tried in New Hampshire. A suburb of Nashville was the latest to decline this facility, which would have brought over 7,000 jobs and more than $100 million dollars in tax revenue. Otis, does this look to you like shifting views on ICE even in conservative communities, or is this just a case of not in my backyard?
SANFORD: I think it's a combination of both. I don't know of anybody who wants a detention center, which is really tantamount to a concentration camp if you really ask me. Nobody wants that in their backyard, no matter where you are, no matter how you feel about illegal immigration. But I think it's also for some people, whether it's in Middle Tennessee or anywhere in Tennessee, there are a growing number of people who just don't think that the administration is doing this the right way. They're too heavy-handed, they are snatching up any and all people, and so there's a lot of pushback to that. But for the most part, people just don't want these concentration camps located in their backyard, and they are making sure that people know about that.
BLANK: In a tweet, Marsha Blackburn noted the failure here. And I think it also showed the problem of when you're running for governor of Tennessee, but your whole political identity is tied to Donald Trump. And I wonder, given the president's current poll numbers, could Trump attachment be less important in Republican primaries this year?
SANFORD: Well, I think you're going to see, Chris, where Marsha Blackburn is concerned, as this campaign goes on, she's going to be talking about Donald Trump less and less. And yes, that tweet, while it still offered some praise for Kristi Noem, for example, it did acknowledge that people don't like what's going on with this administration, especially as it relates to the immigration crackdown that they're doing. But I think Marsha Blackburn is in for a tough campaign because whoever is the Democratic nominee, they're going to tie her to Donald Trump every single day, and every bad thing that this president has been linked to and his plunging poll numbers. So, while I would say six months ago, Marsha Blackburn was on cruise control to become governor, with the way this administration is viewed right now and her close connection to it, I think it's an albatross for her right now. And I'm not saying she's going to lose, but I am saying the road is going to be rougher for her.
