Lincoln Davis, former Democratic congressman from Pall Mall, said in Knoxville on Saturday that Democrats are right on issues but wrong on messages in the minds of voters.

The issues have been education, Medicare and “reaching out in a fair tax structure” since 1932, with the American public not agreeing in recent elections, he said.

“Democrats need to change the way we message and present ourselves as Democrats,” he told some 30 people at the Boyd Cloud Saturday Morning Democratic Club meeting at Shoney’s on Western Avenue.

Sen. Andy Berke discusses K12 Inc. in a editorial by Gail Collins in the New York Times. To explain what K12 Inc. is, the company owned by conservative talk show pundit and secretary of education under Pres. Ronald Reagen, William Bennett.   LINK

But, lately, the target seems to be low-income families. Andy Berke, a state senator in Chattanooga, Tenn., says that when an educational company named K12 Inc. held a meeting topublicize its online

taxpayer-funded academy, it chose “one of the poorest neighborhoods” in his district. In Pennsylvania, where K12 runs a statewide online charter school called Agora, you can go to the Web site and watch Head of School Sharon Williams explain about “online learning as an alternative to a violent in-school experience.”

O.K., here is my first question: Does full-time online learning really work for disadvantaged kids who may be alone at home all day?

The Jackson Sun is reporting that the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee is targeting the Fightin’ 8th and that freshman representative Stephen Fincher has changed his interests since being elected. Adam Hodge told the newspaper that Fincher has turned his back on rural farmers. The question is who will against him.  LINK

Hodge listed Democratic state senators Lowe Finney and Roy Herron, who lost against Fincher in the 2010 congressional election, as potential candidates for the 8th District seat next year.

Herron, of Dresden, confirmed in a phone interview that he plans to run against Fincher again in 2012 but did not release a statement. Finney, of Jackson, did not return calls seeking comment.

Democrats are pushing Fincher’s decision to switch from the U.S. House Committee on Agriculture to the U.S. House Committee on Financial Services to the forefront of speculation that he has prioritized re-election and not Tennesseans.

The Nooga’s James Harrison has the rundown on both of the senators from Tennessee rejecting the proposal to extend the payroll tax cuts. LINK

The first proposal, favored by Democrats, was rejected in a 51-49 vote, short of the 60 needed to pass. To pay for the cut in payroll taxes, the measure would have placed a tax increase on American singles and couples earning more than $1 million a year, an element that prevented nearly every Senate Republican from supporting the measure. 

The second proposal, favored by Republicans, came nowhere close to passing and was defeated in a 20-78 vote. The bill would have compensated for the continuation of the cuts by freezing federal salaries and seeking additional reductions in federal spending. 

Sen. Lamar Alexander, who voted against both bills, called the proposals a “long term raid on Social Security.”

Nashville activist Chris Sanders writes at his website that Tennesseans need to fight back. He’s right. It’s up to local governments across the state to take a more aggressive stance toward legislation that guts their right to make decisions about their community. LINK

Local governments ought to pass resolutions against all these bills and let their delegations to the General Assembly know that they oppose them.  Republicans and Democrats who respect local control ought to mount primary challenges to members of the General Assembly who support these bills.  And citizens who care about their communities across Tennessee need to start giving state lawmakers a piece of their minds about taking away their rights.  And just to underline the point, the Tennessee Municipal League and the Tennessee County Commissioners Association ought to work against these bills, even though, as Rep. Casada points out, they are mainly targeting Memphis and Nashville.  The reason is simple.  If you allow them to pass these bills, they will keep going.  They didn’t stop with discrimination in HB600.  Sticking together is the only approach that makes sense.

Quick Hits

• Another journalist has been arrested at Occupy Nashville. LINK
• R. Neal has the numbers of how Tennessee is being run as a state. The answer is not very well. LINK
• Steve at Roane’s Views gives some common sense advice on bringing manufacturing jobs back to the United States. He makes a good point. LINK