MIKE PIRTLE, Post President and Publisher
Posted: Sunday, November 9, 2008 8:10 am

What a strange Election Day we saw in Rutherford County Tuesday.

Nationally, the election tide flowed blue.

Statewide, the ebb was decidedly red.

Call it an election mirror image. One image is left, one is right. They reflect the same vision but oriented in opposite directions.

The changes also share this trait: The winners inherit power in challenging times that in their ultimate resolution or lack thereof could have serious ramifications in the not so distant future.

While that may all be confusing, one thing is clear: We are Red Rutherford.

Just 20 years ago, the Democratic Party owned this county to the extent that for local and even state races a victory in the party primary was tantamount to election.

One or two candidates who lost in the Democratic primary tried again in the general election, but usually ran as independents, avoiding at all costs the dead pool that was the Republican side of the ballot for local candidates.

Now, even then Republicans could and did win state elections, as evidenced by former Sen. Howard Baker and former Gov. Lamar Alexander, and would often be favored in presidential balloting, see Ronald Reagan and George H.W. Bush.

Two things slowly but steadily changed the political landscape here from blue to red.

One, Republicans built on their state and national wins. Alexander in particular gave his party a foundation on which to build at the state and local levels.

Second, as this county, and others in the growth crescent to the south and west of Davidson County, increased in population, attracting newcomers from across the country, those relocating brought their own political affiliations, obviously more GOP than Democratic, and were little or much less impacted by the traditional political power base.

Certainly, a gradual downward dispersal of the perceptions and realities of the political parties’ stands on certain issues pushed more and more voters in this traditionally and expanding conservative area to the Republican ledger.

The first big breakthrough came in the early 1990s when Mike Liles successfully knocked off a somewhat weak Democratic incumbent in a House of Representatives race.

That proved a rallying point for Republicans who eventually began to field their own field of candidates in a party primary for local offices.

As would be expected, early efforts were largely unsuccessful.

But, all politics are local and as the political brand waned the viability of GOP candidates, generally equal to their opponents, rose.

That was assisted greatly in races for state offices as powerful, well-respected Democrat incumbents retired, and were often replaced by GOP candidates, helped especially in recent years by an ill-fated state income tax proposal, ironically proposed by a Republican governor but pushed legislatively by the Democratic power base.

On the state level especially, also at work was the slow erosion of support for a party long time in power as we’ve seen much more in play on the national level in about an eight-year cycle at least since Reagan.

Rutherford Republicans surged ahead in the past 10 years, again helped significantly by the income tax issue, which just keeps on giving, taking both state Senate seats and another representative seat.

Then, Ernest Burgess won the county mayor seat, a huge and symbolic victory for the GOP.

Last week Republican candidate Joe Carr won the marginally Democratic 48th House seat, long held by the late and great state Rep. John Bragg and then for 12 years by the esteemed John Hood.

Carr’s win was huge for his party, representing the margin that threw control of the state legislature to the GOP for the first time since Reconstruction and launching state politics into a huge transformation that will be playing out in weeks to come.

Locally, Carr’s win gives the GOP two of our representatives seats along with Donna Rowland, and both Senate seats, as Jim Tracy, an Energizer Bunny of a candidate, gained re-election handily and remains alongside Bill Ketron.

Democrat incumbent Kent Coleman obviously did well in retaining his seat against a surprisingly strong challenge by Rick Womick in a district that leans slightly to the Republican side.

And Curt Cobb, who represents a small portion of the southwest corner of the county, was re-elected despite losing Rutherford County’s boxes.

Whether Republican candidates were helped by the powerful showing of presidential candidate John McCain is a source of argument.

Some claim presidential candidates don’t have coattails in state legislative races, which probably is true in a direct sense. On the other hand the presidential election brings more voters to the polls than any election, and since a big majority of those voters in Rutherford County flipped the GOP lever at the top it seems likely they would have a tendency to do so down the ballot as precinct results would appear to indicate.

Whether the presidential and state decisions were connected or not, they often tended to be the same.

All in all, Rutherford has turned Red and seems to be safely ensconced there.

(Next week some longtime political activists offer their thoughts on the change in the Rutherford political landscape.)