Memphis City Councilwoman Jerri Green, who kicked off a multi-county tour for her gubernatorial campaign last week at the venerable Germantown Democratic Club at Coletta’s Restaurant on Appling Road, made the ritual comparisons of herself as David up against the Goliath who was her presumed foe to be, Republican U.S. Senator Marsha Blackburn.
But Green didn’t leave it at that. She asked her Democratic auditors to imagine the worst, that she might run a good campaign and just fall short. “What if I lose?” she asked. It’s the kind of question that long-odds challengers rarely pose. She turned that speculation into a positive by comparing the situation to the one faced years earlier in “ruby red Georgia” by Democrat Stacey Abrams, an African-American who not only won her state’s Democratic nomination for governor in 2018 but came within 1.7 percent of defeating the heavily favored Republican Brian Kemp in the general election.
And, Green asked, what happened two years later, largely as a result of the phenomenal gains in voter registration achieved during the Abrams campaign? “We got two blue senators in ruby red Georgia!”
She shifted to another possibility and another example. What if she did win, just barely, and had to face the reality in office of a Republican legislative supermajority? That, she said, was precisely the situation faced by Democratic governor Andy Beshear in Kentucky, also a ruby red state. Beshear, now in his second term, is able to use his executive position to curb the worst excesses of his state’s GOP supermajority. Not only that, Beshear has earned a place on the short list of possible Democratic nominees for president in 2028.
The lesson of Green’s two examples was clear: Never mind the odds. A vigorous Democratic campaign could have unexpected and far-ranging results, even when confronted by the current GOP power monolith.
Green, whose campaign slogan is “One Tough Mother,” followed up the Germantown Democratic Club stop last Wednesday with a full-fledged rally Thursday at the Wiseacre Brewery Co. site on Broad, and from there intended to head east, making stops in places like Chattanooga, where she campaigned on Saturday.
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