I had no idea what sort of hornets nest I was stirring up on Tuesday when I posted Jerome Cochran’s candidacy announcement. Apparently, anytime I want my site visits to go through the roof, all I have to do is mention Jerome Cochran or Matthew Hill. What I don’t know is why.
What is it about these two that seem to get people’s panties in a wad? Is it because they’re Christians? Because they’re not a part of the “good ol’ boy” political establishment that’s been prevalent in this area for so long? I just don’t get it!
I know Jerome and Matthew personally, and while – as I’ve mentioned before – we don’t agree on every issue, and I’ll be more than happy to call them out when we disagree, I’m proud to have them representing our area in Nashville (hopefully Jerome will be back there soon!). They’ve never embarrassed us, never been too busy to chat with me, and have always done exactly what they believe to be the right thing – regardless of political expediency.
So, now is your chance to fill me in on why these guys get people so upset. No profanity, please, and try to be at least a little bit civil – but let me know what it is that I’m apparently missing.
March 12, 2008 at 12:27 pm
It’s because the Phil Roe/Kent Williams people are either liberal Republicans or Democrats who cross over. Not conservatives.
March 12, 2008 at 7:52 pm
You don’t even live in Carter County orbe voting on State Representive. Your only reason for posting Cochran “Crap” is to keep something stirred up for the benefit of your website which apparently needs this junk in order to get more veiwers.
March 12, 2008 at 9:22 pm
Both Matthew and Jerome are servants of the people and not the good ole boy network of local leaders(county/city commission and county school board). Where as our good ole boy local
leaders feel they are much smarter to make decisions for the people they serve Matthew and
Jerome actually listen to the people.
Both have also stood on principle, believe your
money is better in your pocket than funding useless projects, and stand for ethics.
Matthew has stood for returning the power to elect School Superintendent back to the citizens.
The City of Johnson City has put up one of their
employees(of course he is not campaigning while
on taxpayers time) to run against Matthew. After all you only hear the power hungry, money wasting, self promoting local officials complain-(NOT THE ACTUAL TAX PAYERS) about matthews performance. Matthew and Jerome serve the people-not the bureacrats.
March 12, 2008 at 10:17 pm
Now I am getting hate e-mails. I guess people do not realize that I feed off of negativity.
March 13, 2008 at 9:06 pm
In regards to Cochran, it is because Williams’ family has nothing better to do than to spend time spewing crap on the blogs to mask the fact that Kent is a liberal and runs on the Republican ticket only because he knows that if he were to run as the dem that he is, he would never have been elected!
Protect the interns in 08!
March 16, 2008 at 1:28 am
I can give a personal perspective on why your writings and support of Jerome Cochran is so controversial. I will mention only a few reasons in respect for space and time. I am a Christian. This has nothing to do with Jerome’s faith.
Mr. Cochran ran a very negative campaign last time, which was one of the reasons he lost. Evidently, he still doesn’t understand that because, as your site proves, they are at it again. I, along with others, have had difficulty in getting Jerome to take any action regarding our concerns, even though he was in a position to do so.
At this time, county commissions can pass a wheel tax by 2/3 majority vote. If they do, by law, the citizens can petition to bring a vote by the people so they can decide for themselves if THEY want the tax. If Mr. Cochran and others would have had their way, the Washington County referendum would never have happened. Mr. Cochran was a sponsor of a bill (#698) in 2005 that, had it become law, would have removed the right of Tennessee citizens to protect themselves against their county commission’s insistence on invoking a wheel tax. Local government representatives (i.e. bureaucrats) supported this bill, such as the County Mayors’ Assn. Take the Washington County wheel tax issue that was just decided and voted down by the people; I saw your comments about that. You were supportive of the people’s right to petition to bring this to referendum. The story of this blatant attempt to push the citizens out of our own government is a long and concerning one, so I’ll just mention the main parts.
After the bill 698 was exposed by the media, Jerome initially defended his stance, but a few of his fellow sponsors in the Senate and the House removed their names from the bill, fearing backlash from the public. One of them said he was mislead by the people who asked them to carry the bill. Jerome was evidently upset with a blogger who questioned the intelligence of anyone who would try to strip the rights of the people to control their government. At the end of his second communication to the blogger, Jerome wanted to let the blogger know that he did, indeed, know what was in the proposed bill. “I not only read the legislation, I ASKED FOR IT TO BE DRAFTED LAST YEAR”. When this letter hit the web and the evidence piled up proving the true intent of these officials, more of them removed their names from sponsorship. Then, after he said he had read the bill, he decided to save face and say that he didn’t know what was in the bill after all. As a Carter Countian, it was embarrassing for my representative to be a part of this. Funny thing, though, several others who sponsored the bill did not remove their names from it, but they did not succeed.
There is much more about this that concerns me and causes me to question Mr. Cochran’s ability to represent the people of Carter County. If it is as you say and he only does things he really believes in, then we truly don’t need him in Nashville. The rights of the people have enough enemies down there. Anyone who would try to take away one of the few rights we have left to control our government or lessen our power does not deserve to be a representative of the people in Carter County – where democracy as we know it today was born.
March 16, 2008 at 1:10 pm
I was recently contacted by a bogus telephone research group that was covertly campaignng for Cochran — and somewhat lamely — conducting an obvious “push” poll survey against Kent Williams that coincidently called on the same day that the Johnson City Press ran a news report of Cochran announcing his 2008 run for the Carter County seat within the Tennessee General Assembly. The push poll just coincidentially highlighted the same points that the Johnson City Press had quoted Cochran listing as his own contributions as a state legislator championing special interests (Gregory) over his constituents back in Carter County.
Cochran clearly lacks imagination…
You figure that someone who wanted to hang around for a couple if decades as a member of the Tennessee General Assembly would not bungle the Northern Connector highway project and provide a telephone number for your constituents to call you during the evening hours when they were getting home from work…I imagine that John Gregory and those other twits at the Tennessee Conservative PAC did not have any problem contacting the former state represenative by telephone at his home; hell, the Tenn Cons probably paid enough in campaign contributions over the years to have Cochran tethered to a “Bat Phone” in his basement!
March 17, 2008 at 10:36 am
Three of my friends got one of those phony calls. Two of them had about the same thoughts on the call. They are both nice, quiet people who try to be helpful, so it did not surprise me that they took part in the “poll”. They thought they would do their part. Imagine their surprise and anger when they realized this was just a smear call, not anyone interested in how people wanted their government run. Neither of these people were totally sure of who they would vote for, that I know of. Well, now they know. One of the ladies said it best. She said she couldn’t vote for someone who utilized these techniques and was so disingenuous. How could anyone ever believe what he said? Trust means a lot. The other person who received the call had already read the paper, so when the wording being used started making her recall what she had just read, she knew what was going on and that no real poll was being taken. She just hung up and said she was glad she was already voting for Williams, because she would have been very hurt if a candidate she was supporting did something like that. I think this says it all. Who is advising Cochran? I would hope this bad judgement is not all his own.
March 17, 2008 at 3:44 pm
When a blogging GOP State Rep was asked about it, he simply said “He admitted to it.”
March 17, 2008 at 9:54 pm
I have an idea, since all of these right wing nut jobs think they are personally campaigning for Jesus, why don’t they just change their name to Jesus. That way, everyone will be sure to vote for the right candidate. After all, who wouldn’t vote for Jesus. Heck, people might be afraid for burning in hell for voting against Jesus. Just an idea for those lusting after political power. …………… Didn’t Jesus turn down political power?? Have I missed something??
March 17, 2008 at 10:56 pm
Well, I doubt you will post this, but you did ask. My biggest beef with Sullivan Countian Hill is his claim to be a Christian, while then running really negative, lying campaigns. Hill just barely beat Patton, who should have been beaten easily given his income tax stance, only by saying that Patton was an abortion supporter, which he is not. Then Hill spent $100,000 of another Sullivan Countian’s money against Fred Phillips, just barely beating him too. Hill pushed the firefighter union bill and has very little to show for his two terms. But my biggest beef is that on the radio he said you are not patriotic if you don’t support the war in Iraq, but never mentioned that he protested against the U.S. military. That may be his right, but I have two brothers in Iraq now and they are not the least bit proud of Hill.
March 18, 2008 at 1:01 am
WHICH blogging State Rep? Bet I could tell you. He has his own reasons for saying that, if, in fact he did put that in his blog. A lot of people know what his agenda is, anyway.
March 18, 2008 at 7:14 am
Jay,
That is what bothers me the most about Matthew Hill. He has the audacity to question a persons patriotism for not supporting a war in which we now know we were duped into. He does this while knowing he opposed military action in the Balkans just because it was a Democrat in office. He does this whle knowing he has never had the courage to be a patriot and wear the uniform. He sits in the comfort of his home, church, and radio station questioning others patriotism while brave young men die everyday in a senseless war. Seems to me that if he is the patriotic American he says he is he should take tomorrow off and stroll on down to the Armed Forces recruitment office and support this war with his own blood and sweat instead of letting others do it for him. Does anyone really think Matthew Hill would subject himself to hostile fire? This type of thnking is so reminiscant of the college Republicans http://www.huffingtonpost.com/max-blumenthal/generation-chickenhawk-t_b_56676.html who blindly support this war but will not go fight it. If it were not so pathetic it would be sad.
March 18, 2008 at 9:23 am
I personally protested the war in the Balkans with Rep. Hill. He was all too willing to protest that day. For what reason?? I don’t know. Perhaps he thought it was cool to protest against Clinton. Perhaps he really considered the futility of the war in the Balkans. Who knows. I for one will do my part to fight in a war when I find one that I philosophically agree with. So far in my life, I haven’t found one that my country has been in that I agree with and I’m 42. I even have questions about the war in Afghanistan. I’m with you Chris. But in defense of Matthew, I can tell you that Rep. Hill did try to sign up one time but he had some sort of physical malady that prevented it. At least that’s what he told me so I will have to give him the benefit of the doubt. I don’t agree with him if he questions our patriotism for questioning the Iraq war for sure. I suspect Rep. Hill is just caught up in partisan politics like most of our politicians, which is a good reason to keep them in there as short a time as possible and let knew people come in. Just my thoughts.
March 20, 2008 at 1:11 am
Melvin wasn’t that supposed sign-up pre 9-11?
If the U.S. Armed Services will allow double amputees to remain within active service, I suspect that the military will be all so glad to issue Hill a pair of boots (or two), a rifle, and a medical waiver for his service in the Middle East.
March 20, 2008 at 3:32 pm
Elmer,
I agree totally.Perhaps he had a pimple on his butt like Limbaugh or had better things to do like Cheney. Maybe he was busy dropping out of college and lying on his resume like the pugnacious Hannity. Perhaps he had a mysterious knee problem like Neal Adolph Boortz. Maybe he would have served but like Tom Delay said “So many minority youths had volunteered…that there was literally no room for patriotic folks like myself.” The list of conservative CHICKEN HAWKS goes on and on. Can anyone name one loudmouth conservative talking head who questions others patriotism daily and has put on the uniform and fought for their country? Anyone? Anyone? Hill is no different. A “physical malady” is rather vague and convenient don’t ya think? I’m sorry but I can’t respect a CHICKEN HAWK. Especially when I have seen young men die for this nation.
Gary,
Perhaps he is “just caught up in partisan politics like most of our politicians”. But that is no excuse. The false patriotism which resides in stench filled radio show studios are an insult to those who proudly served this great nation. The unfortunate thing about this war is that people like Shammity, Beck, O’Lielly Snoortz, Oxylimbaugh, and Hill can get away with this false patriotism. It isn’t personal to enough people. The sad reality is that to really end this war we need the draft. When enough “fortunate son’s” come back with half a leg things will change. Make no mistake, it won’t change until everyone has to sacrifice.
March 20, 2008 at 9:52 pm
Chris,
Well said. Can’t add much to that.
Gary