Over the last few months, you've heard a lot from me about our mayoral election in Nashville. After the general election in August, we were left with two candidates for the runoff.
One of them, former Public Defender and Metro Law Director Karl Dean, was an upstart progressive, someone who ran because he truly believed he could move Nashville forward, not because he was a career politician. The other candidate was former Congressman Bob Clement, a DINO good ol' boy from the Tennessee political establishment. He bragged about voting for DOMA and the Bush tax cuts while in Congress, and attacked Dean because he had the AUDACITY to do his job as public defender, showing clear contempt for the U.S. Constitution. Dean was committed to running a positive campaign, while Clement resorted to smears and pandering.
I am pleased to announce that the voters of Nashville have rejected these old-style politics and have elected the true progressive to be Mayor of Nashville!
Karl Dean won the Metro Nashville mayoral election tonight, claiming victory 10 minutes after rival Bob Clement admitted defeat.
Dean had 52 percent of the vote, with 136 out of 169 precincts reporting.
The tone of this race was exhibited even in the speeches the candidates gave tonight. As I live-blogged tonight, Bob Clement couldn't have been much more of a sore loser, talking about how he would have made a great mayor and how he "couldn't go negative if he tried" (which, as you can see above, is a flat-out lie). Meanwhile, Karl Dean looked to the future, bringing the new Vice-Mayor and several newly elected members of the Metro Council on stage with him.
We've had sixteen years of pragmatic, progressive leadership under Mayors Phil Bredesen and Bill Purcell. During this time, Nashville has become a regional powerhouse, and our economic prospects only look bright. The music industry is still what sets us apart as a city, but it's no longer our only strength. In addition, during my lifetime, Nashville has become a noticeably friendlier city to young people, minorities, and the GLBT community (Tennessee may have voted to put an amendment banning gay marriage onto our state constitution, but more people in Nashville voted against it then would have been thinkable ten years ago).
We've become a more progressive city overall and are moving forward, both economically and socially. Those on the right and in the political establishment would probably say that Nashville was better off in "their day" when they were in control, but the majority of voters decided tonight that in fact, our best days are ahead of us.