Clement Comes Out Swinging

Former Congressman Bob Clement used his election night speech to launch attacks on his run-off opponent Karl Dean, wasting no time to take the mayoral campaigns into negative territory.

Clement criticized Dean for putting 950-thousand dollars of family funds into his own campaign.

“I believe that the people of Nashville want you to earn your way to victory, not buy it. And I say again, Nashville’s future is not for sale to the highest bidder.”

Clement then went after his opponent for a 2006 legal opinion Dean wrote, while still Metro Legal Director. Dean said that the charter amendment requiring voters to approve any property tax increase could be struck down in court.

“Karl Dean said it was against the law for the people of Nashville to vote to approve tax increases by referendum by vote of the people. Karl Dean, you’re out of step with the people of Nashville. [cheering]”

Voters approved that charter amendment last fall. Dean’s opinion says Metro Government can only levy and set the property tax rate, based on the power given to it by the General Assembly.

About 350 supporters watched the returns at the Millennium Maxwell House Hotel, and were fairly subdued until Clement closed Dean’s initial lead. Clement said even he was a little worried at times.

“You’d like to have more of a margin and all that. But I knew the last few weeks that it’d really tightened up. So it wasn’t a total surprise.”

The run-off pits Karl Dean, a nearly unknown in Metro politics, against Clement’s well-established political name. Supporter Seth Lasater, says Clement’s contacts from his time as congressman should help the city.

“Because I think if Nashville wants to be a world class city, or even a city that competes on a national scale, we need to be able to contact others in other major markets around the country, and I don’t know anyone else who’s running that could do that as well as Bob.”

In the run-off, Clement says he’ll focus on issues of traffic, education, juvenile crime and illegal immigration. His campaign manager says they’ll be using a lot of advertising to reach as many voters as possible. Clement had about half-a-million dollars in cash on hand as of July 23rd, while Dean had only 9-thousand.

Dean added another 250-thousand of his own money just after the reporting period. Neither camp would say last night how much money they had available for the run off.