There are times when I admire the professionalism and dedication of certain journalists at the State Capitol like Tom Humphrey of the News-Sentinel or Andy Sher of the Chattanooga Times-Free Press. Apparently, that professionalism is deceptive, because it is stories like this one that remind me after I have meditated on the need for more journalists like Sher and Humphrey why it is the mainstream press is still completely untrustworthy:
Republican state Rep. Stacey Campfield of Knoxville says he parked his car up on the Tennessee Capitol sidewalk with the hazard lights blinking because he was late for the House floor session.
Campfield, who has a reserved parking spot in the legislative parking garage less than a block away, ran out of the House chamber toward the end of Monday’s floor session to move his Honda Accord.
Asked by a reporter why he parked on the sidewalk, Campfield responded: “Come on, I was late. I wanted to get up and vote!”
There is one thing that even Stacey Campfield's opponents have been forced over the years to admit is that he works extremely hard, and it is highly doubtful that yesterday's House floor session in Nashville was any exception. Campfield was running late getting back from visiting family in Upstate New York over the Easter weekend, and the Tennessee Legislature does not give an extra day to members, as some other States often do, to return from the Easter holiday. The member for the 18th District wanted to make sure he was on the role as present and could cast the first vote before he moved his car. In the hundred or so years that the automobile has likely been used as a common mode of transportation for legislators, Campfield is very likely not the first one to park his car on the sidewalk quickly enough to run answer a vote roll so that he would not be seen to be shirking his duty to his constituents.
Yet when Stacey Campfield does this, a picture of his car gets splashed on the website of the once-respectable News-Sentinel, now reduced to the status of a supermarket tabloid. The editorial board of the News-Sentinel despises Campfield, along with their friends in both the Democratic Party and the old moderate-to-liberal Republican establishment. Why? Campfield is too common, too ordinary, and too conservative for them. We can't have someone who acts on the very principles on which they campaign, they reason, or who believe that their party affiliation is something more than just a label. Since these people have yet to defeat the popular Campfield at the ballot box, they now reason that his running for the Senate is their only hope to oust him. Campfield's enemies in the press and the local establishment know that no Democrat can defeat him, so their only hope to do so is in the Republican Primary in August.
All they have to beat him with is a Halloween mask and a car parked on the sidewalk:
"I was flying home from seeing my family in NY over Easter vacation. My plane was running late. I knew I was going to be late leaving the last airport so I called in and was excused for the day. Calling a fellow legislator, I was informed we had one big bill for the day and it was coming up late in the calendar. When I landed I figured I could still make a large chunk of session so I hustled to the capitol. I pulled up outside the doors of the capitol entrance. Just inside the door is the capitol police (a State trooper). I told him the situation and asked if it was OK to park there for a few minutes while I went in and voted-he was fine with it. I had my flashers on, was off the road and it is a large sidewalk."
A member of the General Assembly parks his car on the sidewalk, with police permission, so that he can quickly go in, cast a vote, and then remove his car to the garage, and it sparks a website report?
Oh no, the News-Sentinel and the establishment press are not the least bit biased against Stacey Campfield-not one bit.
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