Davidson Co. "Election Guide" Posted in the Williamson Co. Seat

"Friends of Charlie Tygard" sent out an "Election Guide," which looks like a neutral voter resource above the fold on the front page, but it quickly becomes a Tygard Campaign promotion piece the farther you read in. We received ours yesterday. The postage mark indicates that the guide was posted in Franklin, rather than in any town in Davidson County.

Notable on the front page is a "story" on the Mayor's race, which quickly segues into the Vice Mayor's race, which quickly segues into the election of the Vice Mayor and one at-Large member based on experience, which quickly segues into Charlie Tygard and his "proven track record," which should have segued into the warts on that track record if there were some intellectual honesty in this campaign material. The Mayor's race story ends with a comment by prominent Republican-funder Lee Beaman about Mr. Tygard's ethic.

Also mentionable on the front page is an attempt to tie into the illegal immigration issue, pairing Mr. Tygard with Sheriff Daron Hall, who has received a lot of positive mainstream press for his illegal immigrant background check program. Not mentioned is Mr. Tygard's vote for "English Only/First," which was a not-so-veiled attempt for Metro Council to scare legal and illegal immigrants into assimilating faster than they are already trying to. Given the connections between anti-immigration and "English Only/First," I can understand why the Tygard Campaign would not want to mention his entire voting record, but again, let's be intellectually honest.

Also, this connection between Daron Hall and Mr. Tygard has got me wondering about a curious sequence of events where the Sheriff's Office received money from Metro Council with a lot of help from Charlie Tygard. Then, the Friends of Tygard received a campaign contribution from Mr. Hall a few months later. Now we come to find out from Tygard's mailer that "The Sheriff's Community Service Group" helped build an inline hockey rink for Youth, Inc., a non-profit to which Mr. Tygard has been personally connected. Do these guys seem a little too tight on the contributions/funding front for two Metro officials?

Finally, the "Election Guide" has the garden-variety menu of endorsements on the last page that mentions the general group of "Nashville Neighborhoods" in the same list with the Greater Nashville Hotel/Motel Association and the Metro Police Teamsters Union. There may be some neighborhoods that endorse Charlie Tygard, but there are other neighborhoods whom he alienated with his sponsorship of the Car Wash Exemption Bill. He needs to take responsibility for that fool's errand, too. However, he should not have insinuated generally that neighborhoods in Nashville support him.