CORDOVA LEADERSHIP COUNCIL – POLITICAL FORUM – CITY OF MEMPHIS CANDIDATES
For Additional Information Contact:
Gene Bryan
486-9679

The Cordova Leadership Council in affiliation with the Memphis Area Home Builders Association invites residents to The Future of Cordova Politics - City Candidates Forum to be held Thursday September 13, 2007, at the Memphis Home Builders Association offices at 776 North Germantown Parkway. The event will get underway at 6:00PM. People are encouraged to arrive early and participate in a candidate meet and greet prior to the beginning of the program. Sponsors for the night’s event are the Bartlett Area and Germantown Area Chambers of Commerce. These communities in Shelby County share significant boundaries with Cordova and the various Council Districts.

Activities include presentations by the mayoral candidates, a question and answer panel with candidates from Districts 1 and 2, and a meet and greet with candidates from Super District 9.

Early voting for the October 4th City wide elections begins September 14th. Cordova’s early voting site is the Bert Ferguson Community Center located at 8505 Trinity Road. This is a new early voting location and replaces the Agricenter on Walnut Grove Road. Other early voting locations can be found on the Shelby County Election Commission website.

Cordova residents like other citizens in Memphis will have six races in which to vote: City Mayor, their District race, three seats in Super District Nine and the City Court Clerk race. City Council District One encompasses nearly all areas north of Dexter Road, from Whitten Road to Berryhill Road and City Council District Two encompasses the remainder of the Cordova area within the City of Memphis.

For additional information please contact Gene Bryan at esbryan@bellsouth.net or 901-486-9679.

Got a question for the mayoral candidates? Submit it and start a conversation.

In the spirit of the CNN/YouTube presidential debates, Mediaverse and the Tri-State Defender want to use the same style of voter-generated questions for an upcoming conversation with Memphis mayoral candidates. It’s called the Memphis Digital Conversation.

It’s not a debate. No podiums. It’s a much-needed, conversational forum, where the candidates will directly address voter concerns, not their own.

We need your video questions to make it happen!!!!

So, if you live in Memphis, get a video camera, or a web cam, or a picture phone and record your thought-provoking question in a 30-second video. You can submit as many single-question videos as you want.

(FYI: It is possible to make a creative, insightful and passionate video with your clothes on and using polite language that would make your Mother proud. We really like those videos.)

Upload your videos to http://www.youtube.com/group/memdigital. The deadline to submit is Aug. 31.

We’re planning a digital conversation for September. Date, times and location will be announced in the upcoming week. Visit mediaversememphis.com for updates.

Join the conversation, Memphis! Help us spread the word!

Presented by The Main Street Journal, The Dutch Treat Luncheon, the League of Women Voters

What: August Dutch Treat Luncheon
When: Saturday, August 18 - 11:30 AM - 1:00
Where: The Butcher Shop, Cordova

Join us for the biggest candidate event in the 2007 Memphis City Elections as the candidates for Memphis City Council and Memphis City Mayor gather together. Join the Press and Political Bloggers covering this race, along with lots of voters from around Memphis, as we gather to decide the future of our City. This is the one event you do not want to miss - dialogue, connections, issues, ideas, and great food.

Everyone will be there, will you?

The oldest and most influential political gathering in Memphis for over 50 years. Come be a part of the dialogue that is shaping Great Memphis.

Open to all. Great food. Shared community. Meaningful discussion.

25th National Prayer Dinner for Israel
Tuesday, March 8 - 7PM

Marriott Memphis East - Grand Ballroom
Thousand Oaks Blvd, off 1-240 - 901.362.6200
Special Hotel Rate: $89 - Mention this Event

Featured guests include:

• Ben Kinchlow, Former Host of the 700 Club
• Earl Cox, Israel Always
• Memphis City Councilwoman Carol Chumney
• Rabbi Micah Greenstein, Temple Israel
• Nina Katz, Holocaust Survivor

Tickets on Sale Now $45 per person. $90 per couple. Seating is limited.

For more information, or to reserve your tickets, please call 901-729-2396 or email mainstreetj@aol.com.

LeMoyne-Owen College is located at 807 Walker Avenue in Memphis, near Elmwood Cemetery.

UPDATE: The following is an excerpt from our November issue:

On the River: 9th Congressional Debate
By Mick Wright

Following the final debate of the 9th Congressional race, Republican Mark White confided that he had expected the evening to be about “bigger issues.” Instead, divisions caused by partisan loyalties, racial concerns, and political reputations had once again dominated the discussion.

The debate, presented by WMC-TV and the Main Street Journal, was held at Brownlee Hall on the small campus of LeMoyne-Owen College, a historically-black institution. One floor below the stage, about a dozen spectators who had arrived too late to be seated were huddled around a black and white television with poor reception and a 5” screen. They had settled for this arrangement after finding that the building’s two TVs were inoperable, thankful that someone had brought a portable unit.

So while the candidates debated, the night’s unofficial focus group was busy adding its own layer of discussion to the mix. One woman had a bumper sticker for Independent candidate Jake Ford stuck to the back of her sweater. She couldn’t help agreeing when White challenged the news media to “start being more positive.”

But much of the rhetoric exchanged that night seemed appropriate for that little screen, the product of politicians either too short-sighted to offer a greater vision for the city or too sly to keep from pandering to its most basic anxieties – promising to provide more jobs, higher wages, greater access to healthcare, and better education.

Ford said his main issue was “working-waged Americans earning a piece of the pie,” a theme carried over from a campaign commercial that finds him sitting around a kitchen table making a promise to help people get their fair slice.

Of course, this give-me-mine attitude is a far cry from President Kennedy’s famous line, “Ask not what your country can do for you, but what you can do for your country.”

It was Kennedy, by the way, whose optimistic drive led Americans to be the first to land on the moon (apologies to Nicolas Carraway). But Democratic candidate Cohen admitted that he had “never been very fond of the space program, really,” opting instead to divert NASA’s budget to fund more medical research.

Admittedly, space travel isn’t always the first priority for those with a low income. That point can be easily understood in a place like LeMoyne-Owen, which has recently been on the brink of financial disaster.

Our investments in NASA, though, have led to significant advances in science, communications, national security, weather forecasting, and, yes, medical technology as well.

The real question advanced by the debate was not who would lead Memphis, but how. Would our representative be able to make the tough choices of a visionary and lead us on a brighter, bolder path?

As Kennedy said, “We choose to go to the moon in this decade and do the other things, not because they are easy, but because they are hard.”

Mark White For Congress Fundraiser
Tuesday, June 8, 2006
Owen Brennan’s
6150 Poplar
5:30 PM - 7:00 PM
$50 suggested per couple

Bryant and Hilleary Agree:

Conservatives Should Be United in Efforts to Expose the Truth about Bob Corker’s Record of Raising Taxes, Increasing Spending and Debt, and Supporting Abortion Rights

BRENTWOOD, TN – Republican U.S. Senate candidate Ed Bryant today sent the following letter to Van Hilleary in response to the letter Hilleary sent him this morning. A copy of both letters are attached below.

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Nashville, TN - Van Hilleary candidate for Tennessee’s U.S. Senate seat today called on his fellow conservative opponent Ed Bryant to join him in a “conservative truce”. Hilleary emphasized the importance of electing a sincere conservative to the U.S. Senate and of mutually refraining from campaign attacks on fellow conservatives. Hilleary is optimistic Bryant will agree.

“We are at a point in our nation’s history where it is critical that we elect a solid sincere conservative to the United States Senate. In this primary all three candidates sound conservative but the truth is only Ed Bryant and I have conservative records to match our words. Bob Corker on the other hand, sounds conservative but his record is anything but conservative. Bob Corker has raised taxes, run for the U.S. Senate as a pro-abortion rights candidate, is supported by the pro-income tax wing of the Party and has a history of supporting democrats and of voting in Democrat primaries,” said Hilleary. “Unfortunately for Tennesseans, Bob does have enough resources to deceive voters into believing he is something he is not. That is why I feel it is important that Ed Bryant join me in pledging to focus our campaigns on spreading our own conservative messages and educating Tennesseans about the real Bob Corker and his record. I hope Ed will agree.”

Below is a text of the letter sent to Ed Bryant:

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I just wanted to take a second to thank all of my friends, family, and supporters for being there for me over the past 8 months. I always asked a lot from each of you, and everyone delivered more than I expected. Although we did not receive a majority of the votes, we were all winners yesterday for being a part of the Democratic process!

I also want to publicly congratulate Commissioner-elect Mike Ritz for his victory yesterday and offer my full support to him over the next four years. I must say that Commissioner-elect Ritz, his family, his friends, and his supporters have been so kind and encouraging to me and my family during the course of this campaign. I am honored to have been a part of such a positive campaign, and I hope that what I added to this race helps to make Mike Ritz a better, stronger Commissioner for the great citizens of Shelby County.

Congratulations to all of the other winners in the Republican Primary. Fellow Republicans, let’s get ready to unite and charge to victory in August and November!

Thank you again, and I look forward to whatever may lie ahead.

Mike Rude