The campaigns to become or remain mayor of Nashville, or to retain or gain a seat on the Metro Council, are now fully underway.
Every day, invitations to attend a fund-raiser for any number of candidates are arriving in the mail or by email all across the city. The need for the campaign cash has one major purpose: to pay for advertising.
The money pays for more than commercial time, a mail piece or an advertisement in this publication. It pays for the people who write and produce the ad.
As a gesture of goodwill to all of the candidates throwing their hat in the ring this year, I thought I’d save you some campaign cash and write an ad for you to use free.
Here is your script. You’ll have to find your own babies to kiss. If the concept looks like it was stolen from a gubernatorial campaign ad that ran last year, well you get the picture.
There are two ways to run a government: the “Capitol Hill way” and the “Nashville way.”
The Capitol Hill way means intruding upon the rights of a local people while waving the flag of “state’s rights,” printing money that can’t even be used at Chuck E. Cheese and telling individuals that they are terrorists or members of a cult because you don’t subscribe to their religion.
It means crying about not having an elected attorney general like 43 states do, while curiously remaining silent that the way a lieutenant governor is selected in this state is even more at odds with the way 43 other states choose theirs.
The Capitol Hill way is to claim that a bill that imposes a mandate against the will of a local government is about jobs and has nothing to do with discrimination, but then admit to being a little bit afraid of what is between the undergarments and in the mind of the person standing next in line in the bathroom.
The Nashville way is different. It is about telling people they have value in the workforce and as a person no matter who they choose to hold hands with. It is not waiting for a handout and giving a helping hand when natural disaster strikes.
It is the Nashville way to respond to proposed laws that limit the languages of our diverse people with a vote for every voice to be heard, regardless of what language that voice speaks.
“I’m (insert candidate name here). If you’ll hang tough with me, we’ll keep running our city the Nashville way. If those guys on Capitol Hill don’t like it…well, we will just give them the boot.”
Contact the writer at kwhitehouse@nashvillepost.com.