Republicans filled the Country Place Restaurant with cheers for unity on Saturday, following a bitter primary that pitted many of the local party establishment against their eventual electoral conqueror, Chattanooga attorney Chuck Fleischmann. Several of the losing candidates took to the microphone in support of the winner, but the one he beat by the slimmest margin did not attend.
She had an excuse, though. Robin Smith had sent a letter to party chair Delores Vinson explaining that she had already made plans to help her daughter move into a college dormitory that day before hearing about the event. But a telling difference between Smith and some of the others who legitimately couldn’t make it was that no surrogate spoke on Smith’s behalf. Veteran political journalist Tom Humphrey noted that Smith “didn’t mention winner Chuck Fleischmann in a distributed post-election statement.”
Even with the obvious hole in the party’s fabric, local and state leaders exhibited a sense that the general election is sewn up. And how could they not? Democrat John Wolfe—not to mention any of the independent candidates—faces a steep climb just to make it to Chuck’s starting point, both financially and demographically. Surely the anticipated ease of GOP victory helps to salve the party’s wounds.