Under the Radar It hasn't drawn enormous public attention, but there's an election next week. by JACKSON BAKER Presidential Primary Yes, Virginia (and South Carolina and Michigan and California and all the rest of you bellwether states), there is a preferential primary for president in Tennessee next Tuesday, March 14th. And never mind if the main action will probably be over with by then. · DEMOCRATS -- Even though this week's Super Tuesday voting in several key states across the American continent was expected to mark the technical end of Democrat Bill Bradley's effort, he has been a political Dead Man Walking for some time. The supporters of Vice President Al Gore in Memphis -- who included virtually every active local Democrat -- turned out at the Election Commission Saturday for a pre-election rally. In truth, it was more of a celebration -- including a variety of local Democratic luminaries. Bradley, the victim of a long-pending Gore sweep in this week's Super Tuesday elections, was expected to head for the exits. In every sense, the Democratic presidential primary in Tennessee next week will be No Contest. Gore wins! And the Alpha Male himself will probably make a highlighted appearance in Tennessee to mark the occasion. · REPUBLICANS -- The predicament of Republican insurgent John McCain was also somewhat precarious as this week got underway, with the likelihood that an expected strong showing by Texas Governor George W. Bush in most of the key Super Tuesday states would mean a de facto end to the contest. McCain's people were not being quitters, however. They arranged for a "Veterans' Bus Tour" (including former POWs) to make stops at several Memphis sites this Tuesday; they scheduled a $25-a-head cocktail buffet/rally at the Admiralty Inn in Millington for Thursday evening; and there was even talk of a McCain visit to Memphis on Friday provided the campaign was still on (there is also talk among the faithful that a defeated McCain should continue his run as an independent). Bush state chairman David Kustoff was prepared to match that effort -- and then some. Besides the visit to Memphis this Tuesday of the candidate's mother, Barbara Bush, at a $1,000-a-head fundraiser at the Crescent Club, Kustoff indicated that the governor himself would be making a town hall appearance somewhere in Tennessee during the next week, during which he, too, like Gore, might be taking a victory lap. Local Races Assessor: DEMOCRATS: Incumbent Rita Clark is unopposed and assured of winning her primary. But when the general election season begins after next Tuesday, that's when, as the song says, her heartaches will begin. She will then face not only a challenge from the winner of next week's Republican primary but one from former assessor Michael Hooks as well. Hooks is running as an independent but has strong and well-established ties with local Democrats and, as an African-American candidate whose family name still counts for much among black Memphians, could not only be the spoiler of Clark's hopes but also stand to profit from having two white opponents. REPUBLICANS: There is a five-way scramble in the GOP primary, with three candidates -- former assessor aides Bill Stewart and Francis "Bubba" Winkler, as well as longtime real estate appraiser Grady Frisby -- all claiming, with some justice, to have experience in the field of real property. The point is significant, in that many of incumbent Clark's well-publicized problems stem from her admitted ignorance of the subject at the time of her surprise election in 1996 over incumbent Harold Sterling. Stewart and Frisby both have active claques boasting their acumen. For his part, Winkler has made several impressive performances at candidate forums, indicating a familiarity with the office. Even so, the Republican race is quite likely to come down to a contest between two state legislators -- State Senator Tom Leatherwood and State Representative Joyce Hassell, both East Shelby Countians who have announced their pending retirement from the General Assembly. Of the two, Leatherwood is favored both because he is thought to have bedrock support among the outer county's teeming conservative element, and because he has raised substantially more money than anybody else. Hassell is hardly a slouch, however, as her habit of dusting off legislative opponents who took her too lightly should indicate. Whoever wins either primary -- or the August general election itself, for that matter -- will have to face the fact that the Assessor's office is one which is perilous for its holder -- with no incumbent among the last several having succeeded in a re-election bid. As unlikely as it is that the several technocrats who seek the assessor's job will be elected, they are the ones who would presumably be most immune from its abundant pressures. Clark got in hot water last year -- and is currently vulnerable -- because of extensive publicity concerning various faulty property assessments, some of them system-wide and some which seemed to have been designed to accommodate prominent political figures. Whoever wins the office will face an imminent county-wide reassessment of property mandated by the state for the next calendar year. General Sessions Court Clerk: REPUBLICANS: Incumbent Chris Turner, a former Democratic state legislator who has found a political rebirth of sorts as a Republican, ousted the controversial John Ford, who was doubling as state senator four years ago. Little suggests that his opponent, firefighter Tom Watson, is anything but a token opponent, although the likable Watson has won impressive votes in a previous race or two on the strength of his name, reminiscent of a golf champion. Watson also is in danger of adding the term "perennial" to his name, however -- a fact which doesn't augur well for him. DEMOCRATS: There are five members of the opposition party vying for a shot at Turner in August. Three of them have to be reckoned as serious. There is young Matt Kuhn, for example, already a veteran manager of numerous successful political races and one who has considerable administrative experience as well. The likable Kuhn has been attending to his major problem -- name recognition -- by some relentless pounding on doors, and though so far he is virtually the only candidate for any local office without yard signs, one of his advisers indicates there may be a last-minute blitz of signs bearing his name. An obstacle to Kuhn is veteran politician E.C. Jones, currently a city councilman from the Frayser-Raleigh area, a heavily Democratic working-class part of the city. Jones, too, is well-liked and has a much larger pre-existing base constituency. Moreover, he has leftover campaign money and -- not least among possible advantages -- his middle-aged, white-haired, somewhat paunchy looks are probably better suited to the public conception of what a clerk looks like than Kuhn's svelter Generation X look. Meanwhile, there is State Senator Roscoe Dixon, a formidable figure in the black community, who has always sought a headliner position in local government -- or at least one which offers good pay and good patronage possibilities. People are already figuring the almost even-steven demographic and political odds on a Dixon-Turner race in August. The consensus seems to be that the outcome might be a fair test of the current balance between whites and blacks as well as between Republicans and Democrats and, as such, a proper augury for the 2002 countywide general election races.