Is Dr. George Flinn a spoiler candidate for Lamar Alexander?

This following is from Richard A. Viguerie's organization Conservative HQ. Mr. Viguerie is a long time leader in the conservative movement and has sometimes been called the "funding father" of the movement. He was a innovative leader in political direct mail fund raising years ago. Few national conservative or tea party organizations have thrown their support behind Joe Carr in his primary campaign to unseat Lamar Alexander. I do not know how influential Conservative HQ is but at one time Mr. Viguerie was a powerhouse. This could be a big shot in the arm for the Carr campaign. Also, getting coverage in Breitbart could help the Carr campaign.

I report things I think may interest readers. Reporting this news does not constitute an endorsement of the Carr candidacy. I continue to support Lamar Alexander. Rod Williams

GOP Establishment Plays Games: America Loses

by CHQ staff

Our friend Matthew Boyle of Breitbart has an enlightening article posted about the Republican establishment’s latest game to stay in power, and the losers in the game are the people of Tennessee, you the American taxpayer, and your children and grandchildren.

The way the game works is that if you are Lamar Alexander, an establishment

Republican Senator who regularly votes with President Obama (certainly more than any other Senator from the South) and are facing a tough challenge from limited government constitutional conservative state Rep. Joe Carr you recruit a third “spoiler” candidate to split the anti-Alexander vote and help you get reelected.

In this case, as Boyle points out in his article, the spoiler is Dr. George Flinn. Flinn is a perennial candidate in Tennessee who is best known for appearing in a video in a Superman costume.

Flinn, a millionaire radio mogul who became wealthy through a radiology practice, says “Hi, I'm Dr. George Flinn,”on the Superman video. “It makes it fun for you,” he explains (presumably about the costume). “You say, ‘what is he going to do next?’ Sometimes I don’t even know what I’m going to do next!” Flinn continues.

What is now next is a quixotic run for senate in Tennessee, where he entered the GOP primary against incumbent Sen. Lamar Alexander and state Rep. Joe Carr in the twilight hours leading up to the state’s filing deadline, with virtually no groundwork and no announcement.

Except it is not clear that Flinn has any serious policy or political differences with Alexander, the establishment Republican incumbent he is supposedly running against.

“I mean, we’re friends. I like him a lot,” Flinn said in an interview with Matt Boyle. (He calls, Flinn-like, at 10:30pm on a Sunday night says Boyle). Flinn donated $2,000 to Alexander in 2007. He even held a furtive meeting with Alexander in Memphis days before announcing his bid against him. Flinn, Alexander's office, and others have provided various explanations for what transpired at the March 28 session.

The unusual circumstances and timing of Flinn’s entry into the race says Boyle, have convinced Tea Party activists in the Volunteer State that Flinn's candidacy is a setup--that he's a “spoiler candidate” helping out Alexander by splitting the conservative vote. Carr, they note, has been gaining steam in recent polls--and Alexander's moderate record leaves him vulnerable.

Now here’s the part of Matt Boyle’s article that got our attention.

With the exception of a successful 2006 bid for Shelby County supervisor, Flinn has lost every political campaign he ever mounted--two U.S. house campaigns in 2010 and 2012, and a 2002 bid for Shelby County mayor.

Flinn’s top political hand--to whose firm Majority Strategies he paid tens of thousands of dollars for the losing 2010 campaign--was one Ward Baker, now the political director at the National Republican Senatorial Committee--the GOP's official campaign arm which is working to reelect Alexander.

As CHQ Chairman Richard Viguerie points out in his new book TAKEOVER [12] (available today online and through your local bookseller) a big part of the problem with the Republican Party today is, in a word, consultants, especially the small coterie of Washington, DC–based Republican insiders that have come to dominate Republican political strategy and ad making over the past two decades.

A small group of DC consultants, such as Ward Baker and Majority Strategies, have become a virtually closed guild of “you scratch my back, I’ll scratch yours” favor traders who have burrowed into the fabric of the Republican National Committee and the Congressional and Senatorial Committees like parasites.

This growing class of professional political consultants and self-anointed political “strategists,” says Viguerie, that has come to dominate the management of Republican political campaigns over the past two decades generally opts for content-free campaigns instead of campaigns based on conservative ideas and ideology—naturally they want their clients to win, but in their hands politics is all too often reduced to a business, or a game, not a clash of ideas.

The only way to stop Dr. George Flinn from pulling off enough votes from Joe Carr to allow Lamar Alexander to squeak back into office is to cast a lot of sunshine on the desperate games the Republican establishment is playing in Tennessee (and elsewhere) to preserve their power and preserve for themselves the vast sums of money flowing through the national Republican political machines.

The great strength of the Republican Party has always been its grassroots conservative base—the entrepreneurs, small business people, farmers, and working families of Main Street America who donate to candidates, volunteer to knock on doors, make phone calls, and stamp envelopes every election cycle to elect conservatives to office.

These individuals aren’t involved in politics for personal gain—they are involved out of a sense of patriotism and because they want to, as Ronald Reagan said, “preserve for our children this, the last best hope of man on earth.” 

To watch Dr. George Flinn’s Superman video click this link 

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