The Epoch Times, the Nashville Republican Women, Williamson County Young Republicans, and Davidson County Young Republicans hosted a unique debate on Tuesday evening with TN-5 candidates combat veteran Jeff Beierlein, Maury County Mayor Andy Ogles, and State Senate aide Tres Wittum participating.
Former Speaker of the Tennessee House of Representatives Beth Harwell was invited but had a conflict and was never scheduled to appear. Kurt Winstead confirmed his appearance but backed out at the last minute, organizers say.
The debate was unique because subject matter experts asked the candidates questions, instead of journalists or political analysts.
On the issue of inflation, Jeff Beierlein said, in part, “In the first six months of this fiscal year, we brought in around 2.1 trillion in revenue and federal government treasuries. Biden outspent that by 30 percent. The American Rescue Plan was a total frickin’ disaster and to think of putting more dollars ahead of the goods we can produce, you’re not going to drive inflation – you’re clearly out to lunch. We clearly don’t trust the same people. We’ve been lied to by our federal government.”
Maury County Mayor Andy Ogles said on the issue of cutting spending and Biden administration excess, “When you look at wanting to cut the budget, it’s in my blood.”
“This administration has turned into a criminal enterprise. They’ve attacked out oil industry. They’re driving inflation. The last two trillion dollars that was spent was totally unnecessary,” he added.
Tres Wittum pointed out the issues of COVID spending and public/private partnerships.
“I think a lot of people in the country hear about these – whether they be trillion dollar bailout bills or help the economy bills, and wonder how come it really never trickles down to me. You pay for it, but it doesn’t actually get to you. It goes to a lot of countries that don’t even like us,” he said.
“Congress has the right to spend, but what are they spending it on?” he asked.
“During the COVID spending, they gave a lot of money to public/private partnerships,” he later added.
“There’s too many private businesses that actually aren’t private,” said Wittum.
Epoch Times Editor-at-Large Roger Simon served as the moderator. Simon is also an All-Star Panelist of The Tennessee Star Report with Michael Patrick Leahy.
Another All-Star Panelist of The Tennessee Star Report with Michael Patrick Leahy, Dr. Carol Swain, served as the subject matter expert on education.
Swain was joined by Gordon G. Chang, the author of The Coming Collapse of China and The Great U.S. – China Tech War on the panel of experts.
Hans von Spakovsky, an American attorney and senior legal fellow in The Heritage Foundation’s Edwin Meese III Center for Legal and Judicial Studies served on the panel, as did economist and founder of The Brownstone Institute, Jeffrey A. Tucker.
The panel was rounded out by Dr. David Bell, an Australia public health physician, and Ron Vitiello, former acting director of ICE.
– – –
Aaron Gulbransen is a reporter at The Tennessee Star and The Star News Network. Email tips to [email protected]. Follow Aaron on GETTR, Twitter, Truth Social, and Parler.
You’d think a serious, qualified candidate would welcome questions from subject experts, take the opportunity to shine as a well-informed problem solver.
Harwell and Winstead couldn’t assume their canned and rehearsed “solutions” would impress the experts, so they didn’t show up.
Harwell was proven to be ineffective at best as Speaker and was really just a lukewarm RINO. The good ole boy (lawyer) and political general (no one achieves the rank of general without being political) is just a Democrat running as a Republican because a donkey does not have a chance.
Andy Ogles was a lot of talk, canned responses. The whole point of the debate was to answer the questions, not campaign, Andy.
Beth Harwell made a fatal “no-show” mistake, especially since the Nashville Republican Women were one of the hosts for this event. What’s up with that, Beth?
Another mistake. Kurt Winstead asked for the time of the debate to be moved, which was done, and he didn’t even show up. Thanks a lot, Kurt.
Choices?? Most of the candidates are standard run-of-the-mill political types. There’s one person in the race who might have some integrity and hope for our future, but he’s unknown and untested.
BTW, Kudos to the Epoch Times and Nashville Republican Women, Davidson and Williamson County Young Republicans for hosting the debate, to the All Star panelists for their time and expertise and to Roger Simon’s wife for suggesting the unique format which should be adopted as a standard political event.
Of course General Weathervane after all his introductory ads and his substantive ads doesn’t need to appear before some debate few voters know or care about. Beth, with her 20 years in the General Assembly, 8 as Speaker, along with campaign ads similarly doesn’t need to appear.
With a few days to go before early voting I have finally heard and seen the first Ogles ads at long last. The question every conservative must ask as we seek to defeat the “Tough ole [former Democratic] General,” “Is this belated evidence of an Ogles campaign enough for Andy to win?” I think not, VOTE HARWELL.
Stuart, for the record, this was by far the best attended debate in this election and was watched by 45 thousand viewers (and growing) in the livestream, numbers that are far in excess of anything that has ever happened in Tennessee in an election of this nature and probably nationally. So Winstead and Harwell may have erred deciding, for whatever reasons, to be absent.
Also, The Epoch Times is the number three download for news apps, behind only the NYTimes and the WSJ/. To insult Them is not a wise move.