Distinctions Without A Difference: Dean, Fitzhugh Debate (Kinda)

KNOXVILLE, TN -- Opting, perhaps, to leave the acrimony to their ever more fractious Republican counterparts, former Nashville Mayor Karl Dean and State House Minority Leader Craig Fitzhugh of Ripley didn't find a lot of room for disagreement in Sunday night's debate at Knoxville's Pellissippi State Community College.

Going it alone after the GOP side of the debate was cancelled when three candidates - Diane Black, Randy Boyd and Beth Harwell - pulled out, Dean and Fitzhugh took the opportunity presented by an only-blue event and largely - if not universally - agreed on every topic, with differences, when they did present themselves, so minor they could probably be worked out over lunch.

An earlier debate saw Fitzhugh attack Dean, particularly about his role in drawing the National Rifle Association's national convention to Nashville's Music City Center and in spending of federal flood money after the disastrous 2010 Nashville flood. Those topics didn't come up Sunday night. While the moderators didn't make a point of raising them, Fitzhugh never pivoted an unrelated question into a chance to raise them either, as candidates so often do.

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Instead, the pair spent their time nodding in agreement. Both agree Tennessee should expand Medicaid, though Fitzhugh virtually guaranteed he could get it done with his legislative experience and connections, while Dean seemed to indicate he'd rely on the governor's bully pulpit to steer the effort.

Both agree Tennessee should implement sports betting, now allowed nationally after a Supreme Court decision overturned a broad federal prohibition. Fitzhugh wants to fast-track it so Tennessee is on the vanguard of legal bookmaking, seeing it as an opportunity to grab revenue in a state with limited options for raising funds. Dean wants it done quickly so Tennesssee isn't left behind as it was with the lottery. Dean did emphasize he thought it important all the legal and constitutional p's and q's are minded, a rhetorical flourish that didn't exactly have the crowd leaping to its feet with enthusiasm.

Both men are pro-choice and neither thinks Roe v. Wade is in danger of being overturned. Both men oppose corporal punishment and both think school resource officers, rather than armed teachers, are the best option for school security. Both have charming stories of courting their wives (Fitzhugh dropped a ring off the bed in a trailer when he proposed; Dean met his wife at a law school dance because both were on crutches at the time). Both say kneeling during the national anthem is a free speech issue protected by the First Amendment and that protest is supposed to make people uncomfortable. Fitzhugh, a veteran, added he doesn't really like it when people wear the flag as a cape.

Both men said they would have vetoed the so-called sanctuary cities ban which Gov. Bill Haslam allowed to become law without his signature. And both think the bust of Nathan Bedford Forrest should be removed from the Capitol (as does Haslam for that matter).

The only major moment of anything resembling disagreement came during a response to a question about Dean's ad in which he says he would help "forgotten Tennesseans," which some have seen as an allusion to President Donald Trump's promise during his victory speech to help "forgotten Americans."

Dean rejected the notion he was specifically trying to appeal to Trump voters, saying instead he was trying to appeal to everyone and that people in "small towns and rural areas" are often forgotten and lack the strong tax base to properly fund schools, for example. In a coda, he said he would include some suburban areas and urban centers - particularly Memphis, which borders two other states and thus has tougher economic competition - as places that are forgotten.

Fitzhugh bristled at the notion Memphis was "forgotten," instead preferring to say "there are those that are in the shadows of those skyscrapers that we need to help."

"They just need a little opportunity. It's not they're forgotten. I haven't forgotten them. We don't need to forget folks, we need to lift them up," he said.

With Dean's ad saying he'd help those he lumped in as "forgotten," it's hard to see what the difference is between his stance and Fitzhugh's, beyond the choice of adjective.

Photos via U.S. Army Corps of Engineers/Tennessee General Assembly