Live from Music Row Thursday morning on The Tennessee Star Report with Michael Patrick Leahy – broadcast on Nashville’s Talk Radio 98.3 and 1510 WLAC weekdays from 5:00 a.m. to 8:00 a.m. – host Leahy welcomed all-star panelist and The Epoch Times’ Editor-at-Large Roger Simon in-studio to discuss the change in debate format with The National Federation of Republican Women’s upcoming livestream event July 13th.
Leahy: Well, Roger Simon, you and I have been talking about this. I have to say again, you’ve got this fabulous book coming called Southbound Train, about all of the movement of people here to Tennessee and Florida and Texas, the demographic changes.
And sort of related to that, you and I have been very much following all the back-and-forth of the politics here of the 5th Congressional District.
Simon: Oh, boy, will that be in my book.
Leahy: Isn’t it fascinating?
Simon: It was a gift to me. Sometimes writers just get lucky. In this case, I got lucky. But as I was telling you earlier, The Epoch Times, in concert with the National Federation of Republican Women – The National Federation of Republican Women is a pretty active organization.
Leahy: Very active. Yeah.
Simon: They’re going to be doing a new kind of debate, or political forum, on July 13th. So put that on your calendar.
Leahy: July 13th, by the way, this is about two and a half weeks before the August … about three weeks before the August 4th GOP primary.
Simon: Exactly.
Leahy: For the 5th Congressional District.
Simon: They chose it to be fairly close so that people will be paying attention, as they should.
Leahy: Before we get to the details of the debate, just to set the stage here about how important this particular race is, why do we talk about the 5th Congressional District so much? First, it is Davidson County and Middle Tennessee, but this has to do with who controls the House of Representatives.
Simon: It sure does.
Leahy: And it’s a big part of that. And so we have to look at the House of Representatives. I think it’s 435 members. I think right now it’s like 221 Democrats and 214 roughly Republicans. A switch of about five.
Simon: It changes everything.
Leahy: And so all of the polls are indicating that there’s a huge momentum for Republicans, but there’s also redistricting that goes on every 10 years. And in the Democrat states, they gerrymander it.
The gerrymandering in New York State was very bad. It was so bad that Democrat judges said, no, this is unfair. We’ll see how that plays out. On balance, the redistricting has been slightly to the advantage of Democrats, except in two shining stars, Florida and here in Tennessee.
And you have to credit the Tennessee General Assembly for designing a redistricting that is totally in compliance with the Voting Rights Act of 1965. It has not been challenged in court because they figured out what the rules were.
And working in concert, Speaker of the House Cam Sexton and Lieutenant Governor Randy McNally designed a redistricting plan that met the letter of the law.
But in doing so, they took the 5th Congressional District, which was at the time of the previous district, Democrat plus-20 which has been represented for two decades by left-winger Jim Cooper, a Democrat.
It’s all of Davidson County, parts of Cheatham County, and parts of Dickson. That’s the old district. That’s gone. The new 5th Congressional District is the southern third of Davidson County, the western half of Wilson County, the eastern half of Williamson, all of Maury, all of Marshall, and all of Lewis.
It’s Republican plus-11. If this seat goes Republican, the Tennessee delegation will go from seven R, two D, to eight R, one D. That could possibly be a key element in changing the balance of power.
Simon: Which makes this debate more important, because it’s a debate of Republicans. We call it a bit of a forum because we’re going to change the way the debate is done.
Leahy: Let me just pause here for a moment. What a wonderfully, refreshing idea to change the way a political debate is done. It’s basically, a joint press conference.
Simon: What we remember from the presidential debate of 2020 is how Chris Wallace, in his bias, changed the whole nature of the presidential election. What we’re taking out of it is people like Michael Patrick Leahy and Roger Simon.
Leahy: What! What!
Simon: Because we’re biased, but we’re not alone.
Leahy: I am fair and balanced, Roger, with a conservative worldview.
Simon: We’re not biased alone in the media. Everybody in the media is biased. And we’re replacing, for the questions of the candidates we’re going to do a national hookup via The Epoch Times, which is pretty savvy with this kind of stuff now, and use what we call domain experts to ask the questions.
Leahy: You say domain. Others might call them like subject matter experts.
Simon: Exactly. And for example, questions about China would be asked by a guy like Gordon Chang. Questions about health care would be asked by someone like Scott Atlas.
Leahy: He’s a sharp guy.
Simon: He’s a Trump guy, but he’s more even-handed. And we’ll look for experts that are even-handed because we want information here to be revealed by the candidates about what they know about the subject, A, and what they think about the subject. And to do it in a way that – you can’t eliminate bias altogether. We’re human beings, let’s be honest. But you can do it to a great extent.
Leahy: This will be livestreamed on The Epoch Times platform?
Simon: Livestreamed. And already, we’ve had feedback, like over in West Haven, up there in Frankfort, there’s going to be a viewing party, and we recommend that to happen all over the place.
Leahy: So will this be in the evening?
Simon: No, it will be at the regular luncheon time of the National Republican Women. But people can come.
Leahy: Is it a Saturday?
Simon: No, this is a weekday. It’s July 13th. But we welcome everybody to come.
Leahy: July 13th is a Wednesday. How long will this be?
Simon: About an hour and a half. There’s only so much people can take. (Laughter) Let’s be real.
Leahy: But Roger, now I ask people three hours a day to be with us. You’re right. There’s only so much people can take. (Laughter)
Listen to the interview:
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Tune in weekdays from 5:00 – 8:00 a.m. to The Tennessee Star Report with Michael Patrick Leahy on Talk Radio 98.3 FM WLAC 1510. Listen online at iHeart Radio.
Photo “National Federation of Republican Women” by National Federation of Republican Women.
