Mike in the News

MARCH 4 - FORMER KNOX CLERK TO JOIN US SENATE RACE

By DUNCAN MANSFIELD
Associated Press Writer
388 words
4 March 2008
06:50 pm GMT
Associated Press Newswires
English
(c) 2008. The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.

KNOXVILLE, Tenn. (AP) - Mike Padgett thinks it's time for what may seem an ambitious leap from the Knox County Courthouse to the U.S. Senate.

But for a Democratic officeholder of 20 years -- and often the top vote-getter -- in Republican-leaning Knox County, it is only a logical progression.

Padgett celebrated his 59th birthday on Tuesday with a planned announcement that he will enter the Democratic primary for Republican Lamar Alexander's Senate seat.

"Coming from county clerk to the United States Senate is a very, very, very good move in that I am a people person," Padgett said in an interview Tuesday. "I want to serve the public in a way that when they want to speak to their United States senator they are only a phone call away."

Padgett served as Knox County clerk from 1986 until last year. He left office after the state Supreme Court upheld Knox County's government charter and term limits for officeholders. He did not fight the decision as some others did.

"I have been working vigorously over the past few weeks building a team that will include people from all parts of the state of Tennessee," he said.

That likely will include several county clerks. "He knows every county clerk in the state and a lot of those are his friends," said campaign manager Jed Brewer, a former aide to Democratic Gov. Phil Bredesen.

Brewer noted that Bredesen carried GOP-heavy Knox County in the last election and that Knox County was the only one of Tennessee's four largest counties that went for Hillary Clinton over Barack Obama in the February Democratic presidential primary. Both are testaments to Padgett's efforts, Brewer said.

Padgett has the support of former state party chairman Randy Button, who is Brewer's partner in a Nashville consulting firm, and Johnny Hayes, a former Tennessee Valley Authority director and one-time fundraiser for Al Gore.

Former state party chairman Bob Tuke, a Nashville attorney, also has announced that he is running for the Democratic nomination for the Senate seat. Nashville businessman Kenneth Eaton and Chris Lugo, who ran as a Green Party candidate against GOP Sen. Bob Corker in 2006, also plan to run.

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