Friday, July 20, 2007

Briley, Dean, Dozier, Eaton, and Gentry address New American, Friends & Supporters forum

Early voting now; Election Day August 2

New Americans, choose your Nashville Mayor





Mayoral candidates David Briley, Karl Dean, Buck Dozier, Kenneth Eaton, and Howard Gentry appeared at the New Americans mayoral forum at University School of Nashville last night. Congratulations to Christina Allen, Mary Griffin, the Tennessee Immigrant and Refugee Rights Coalition, and others who planned and supported this important event.

If you attended the forum and have any thoughts about the comments made there or the candidates themselves, please send your thoughts to me and I may post them here. Same goes for any photos, videos, or audio taken.

Each candidate exhibited some strengths:



Most likely to acknowledge unfamiliarity with some issues but be willing to investigate
Buck Dozier


Most sophisticated answers
David Briley


Most heart-felt answers
Howard Gentry


Most likely to seem like Mayor Purcell
Karl Dean


Best use of humor
Kenneth Eaton


As for Eaton's humor, his zingers were that he would like to learn Spanish, but what people try to teach him, he can't repeat in public; and that surely some people in the audience didn't agree with everything he said during the forum, but that he wasn't sure if even he agreed with everything he said.

As they described their views on certain issues, more than one candidate indicated that constituent contact informs their opinions. A lesson, then, to New Americans, friends, and supporters: VOTE, and when you're not voting, WRITE and CALL your elected officials.

Definitely, vote if you can.

Update 7/23/07: Comments from readers:

"I am impressed and very appreciative of the candidates' willingness to participate. ... Candidate Gentry, was very thoughtful and I could see his words have been marinated by personal experience, history and struggle. ... At least Mr. Buck [Buck Dozier] is what he says he is. And I have no doubts about it. ... A final message to our distinguished panelists, Mr. Eaton and Mr. Dozier: the U.S. Constitution protects all the people that are in this country, legal or illegal (if there is such a definition)."

"I didn't like how David Briley told the Tennessean how wonderful the 287(g) program was and then last night he said there were problems with it. It seemed like we were being fed whatever he thought we wanted to hear."

No comments:

Post a Comment

Related Posts Plugin for WordPress, Blogger...