Politics Make for Strange Bedfellows

I have been thinking a lot about the Tillman family lately. We are fast approaching the anniversary of that fateful event which took several Romans away from us, including two promising young women, and a vital community leader.

I got to know the Tillman’s, not on an intimate, personal level, but on a friendly acquaintance field, when the family patriarch, Earl Tillman, ran against Paul Smith back in 1998. Mr. Tillman ran a campaign which bespoke his honor and character. He was a man of real integrity - a true Southern Gentleman.

Not so on the Paul Smith side. Campaign tactics were often juvenile, and perhaps bordered on criminal. Indeed, Paul’s Smiths illegal entry in to many local voting precincts, which every child passing through civics and government classes in Georgia knows, was illegal.

I have mentioned it before, but I collected many affidavits that November Day in 1998, from Republicans and Democrats alike, and for several days after, who attested to the fact that Paul Smith had invaded the sanctity of their polling places. It was my first major foray in to Floyd County Politics, and what I saw shocked me.

I know of some really bad tactics Paul Smith is playing this time as well, and if it were not for the fact that a good Democratic friend has asked me not to reveal the details, I would be adding a few paragraphs to this op-ed. ONLY loyalty to that friendship is preventing me from doing so.

While I had planned a wholly different op-ed for this weekend, I got a flyer in the mail this weekend, which changed my thinking. It was a smarmy picture of several locals, seated at a table.

The caption reads: “Who do these conservative leaders trust?

On the back are the signatures of those pictured with Paul Smith:

Preston Smith, State Senate 52

Tom Bennett, Former County Commissioner

Dr. Adam Clemons, GOP State Committeeman

Steven Turner, Young Republicans Chair

What the back of the flyer does not say, is:

Tom Bennett - lied for several days, while he was a Floyd County Commissioner, claiming he knew nothing about what Citizens for Better Parks, Inc. despite the fact that I provided the Commission with documents from the Georgia Secretary of State that he was the CFO. (CFBP, Inc. was a little non-profit, unapproved by Floyd County at the time, but which was still sucking money out from Floyd County coffers via Bob Saylors’ Parks Authority).

Dr. Adam B. Clemons - who is the Campaign Manager for Tom Saltino, Ward Three, but who also happens to have a political consulting firm which has received moneys from Paul Smith to “Consult” Hardly a clean and clear endorsement. He’s Making Money of the Candidate he is endorsing in this picture - oh my gosh.

Steven Turner - Funny story. The week before this picture was taken, I was contacted by Steven Turner, who used two local businessmen I trust, as endorsements. He told me that he loved the passion and zeal I brought to the press here in Floyd County, and wanted to meet with me to talk politics.

I had an ACC meeting to attend that Monday evening, and he had to be in a political photo shoot, so we met late that evening at La Scala. We talked about a whole host of topics, but he kept coming back to a couple of them, over and over, like a broken record. He thought I had been a little rough on Paul Smith, and so I set him straight about what I knew. He was very uncomfortable, and did not want to hear all of stories, of personal experience. He didn’t want to hear about how when I catered at the Palladium one year, how Paul Smith would come up and hang out at the caretakers house for hours at a time. He did not want to listen to how my two workers in the kitchen would walk over and buy herbs and services while Paul Smith was there.

He did not want to know about the illegal campaigning inside precincts on election day in 1998.

Steven Turner, the Chair of the Floyd County Young Republicans, who actually resides in Alabama, according to his e-mails to me, wants Floyd County residents to vote for Paul Smith.

Now, I would not normally share the contents of private e-mails, but I did not realize that I was “Being Worked” by Paul Smith’s man that week. Among many comments about politics in e-mails, Steven Turner wrote:

“Eddie Lumsden is a fun one to watch………he loves himself. What do you think? How bout Duane Reid? He is a “super” businessman? LOL I’m gonna like you! But take what i say with a grain. I shoot from the hip and call it like I see it”.

I responded that I liked Eddie Lumsden and Duane Reid, and I explained the dilemma Reid had been caught in which almost forced his hand to temporarily move to Florida, leaving this very contested seat open.

Steven Turner is a very nice young man, but I find that for a man in his thirties, with no wife and no children to, think he has the moral and political answer for everyone, is a bit presumptuous. ESPECIALYY IF HE LIVES IN ALABAMA. But, see what you think about this big endorser of Paul Smith’s. As he encouraged me to do, check out his website at http://www.myspace.com/AmericanBadBoyNamedCowboy .

Finally, there is Preston Smith. I was just beginning to like him again, trust him again. In fact, Steven Turner and I discussed him that Monday evening several weeks ago, when he was on assignment by Paul Smith to “work me”.

I told him that I had a friend who was hoping he would run for United States Congress, soon, which surprised me, because that would mean Preston Smith would have to run against Phil Gingrey, whose local office is run by the wife of one of Preston Smith’s law partners. But Steven assured me that in his many discussions with Preston Smith, that Preston Smith had expressed to Turner that he was “burned out” and would probably not even seek re-election this next go around.

I took that as Turner’s musings about his own political future. After all, on his website, under politics, he says that he will not be discussing politics for awhile, until the “announcement”.

So this collection of individuals are those who support Paul Smith for City Commission. Paul smith’s paid consultant, an Alabama resident, a former commissioner who had veracity issues of his own, and a confused, burned out State Senator.

Teresa Watson