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Robin Smith, former Chairman of the Tennessee Republican Party and congressional candidate.File Photo/Chattanooga Times Free Press
Robin Smith, a veteran politician and U.S. Rep. Chuck Fleischmann’s top Republican rival last year, said she will not run for Congress in 2012.
“No one sees this coming,” she told the Times Free Press on Thursday. “Nobody told me, ‘Robin, don’t run,’ during this process.”
Smith hyped a Friday morning radio interview in which she would state her “congressional intentions,” but she announced no such thing, citing business opportunities and an already crowded field waiting to unseat Fleischmann.
A health care consultant and former Tennessee Republican Party chairman, Smith lost the 2010 GOP primary to Fleischmann by 2 percentage points after an acrimonious campaign.
So far, Fleischmann’s two Republican primary opponents are political science professor Jean Howard-Hill and Weston Wamp, the 24-year-old son of former Congressman Zach Wamp, who Fleischmann replaced this year.
No Democrats, independents or third-party candidates have entered the race.
For complete details, see tomorrow’s Times Free Press.
Chris Carroll covers federal politics for the Times Free Press. A Chattanooga native, he went to Red Bank High School and graduated with honors from East Tennessee State University. Chris investigated violent crime, municipal government and hospitals before taking the political beat. For tornado coverage, he and Pam Sohn won a first-place Tennessee Associated Press Managing Editors deadline reporting award. In 2010, Chris won the Golden Press Card Award of Merit and another deadline reporting ...
I'll hold my nose and vote for Fleischmann
As a grown businessman, I went into the lavatory at my downtown company and looked myself in the mirror as someone who criticized a lady with more class in a strand of hair than most folks will have in their lifetime. Ms. Smith, I worked against you. I'm sorry. But I will find ways to support you in the future. I'm glad you chose the radio to make your announcement. I think we all understand what a Christian servant leader sounds like. May God bless you and your family, A former supporter of Chuck Fleischmann
Clearly she didn't ask me, any of my friends, co-workers or most of the persons in the 3rd Congressional District, or she would have been told, many times, "Robin, don't run."
Thank you Robin for making the right choice!
So, this "potential candidate," who crashed and burned so famously in a weak field in 2010...goes on the radio to announce she's NOT running? This is news? Why is she any more important than the guy who patches potholes on Main Street? He's not running either! Someone, please give this sad woman some attention. She's starving for it.
@I think we all understand what a Christian servant leader sounds like.
Or its imposters.
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