Charlie Kirk was killed the day of our Democratic Candidate Town Hall. The Democratic Party office in an adjoining county had a visit from an angry man who threatened the volunteer in the office. I got a call around 3 PM from the RCDP Chair asking if I thought we should cancel our Town Hall. I said HELL NO and waited anxiously while he checked with the TNDP who was providing the liability insurance for the event. Fortunately, they were OK with us holding the event. The Town Hall was at a Middle School that was having a sporting event which took up quite a bit of the parking which was not ideal. All of the volunteers showed up to help get set up and new people were personally welcomed as they came in. The only detail I missed was that I should have had a jar for Undecided for the Straw Poll as many people were not able to pick a favorite. There are 4 strong candidates.
There were nearly 150 attendees. One person said they had not seen that many Democrats in the same place in Robertson County in decades. There were 45 people who signed in that were not on our email list which was GREAT. Craig recorded the event so we were able to post it for those that could not attend.
We had a private security person at the door which we planned prior to the Kirk assassination. There were no disruptions. Some audience members did choose to sit in the back on the side out of view of a potential shooter.
The Straw Poll was won by Aftyn Behn who is a passionate young woman in her first term in the TN State Assembly. She is the candidate with the most “fire” and she seems to be consistently appealing to those attending the Town Halls across District 7. I like her a great deal but we will not be able to win the General with a typical Democratic electorate. We are going to need to appeal to Independents and disenfranchised Republicans and it is hard to know if her “fire” will appeal to those voters.
The person who came in second in the Straw Poll, Darden Copeland. is a business man who has never run for office. His life experience is as a consensus builder and he does not have any record in the State Assembly to target by the Republican candidate. He has great confidence that he is the one who can get the votes by Independents and disenfranchised Republicans. I really don’t know who I am going to vote for at this point.
We had a man post a threat on our RCDP Facebook page later on Wednesday so we will now need to have security at our monthly meetings. This is truly hard to believe but that is our current reality.
I was really hoping for at least 200 people to attend the Town Hall but with the parking situation and the fear of a threatening situation, I am satisfied with the attendance. Now to figure out what our next event will be to keep people engaged.
Tamara Unleashed 