Tennessee Republican gubernatorial candidate Bill Lee will need to be wary over the next few days and weeks because he’s likely to find that he’s made a number of statements he never made and holds positions he wouldn’t dream of holding.
He could ask Hamilton County school board members Rhonda Thurman and Joe Smith how that feels.
Lee, in a gubernatorial forum in Nashville Tuesday night, had the temerity not to give a politically correct answer.
When asked whether students at the Parkland, Fla., high school where a deadly shooting occurred in February have had a positive or negative impact on the conversation about guns and gun control, he probably should have answered “yes.” As in, they have had both a positive and negative impact on the conversation.
But Lee, a businessman, chose to say “negative,” while his Republican opponents, Randy Boyd and Beth Harwell, and Democrats Karl Dean and Craig Fitzhugh all said the politically correct “positive.” Republican Diane Black, who often skips these type of events, was not present.