Lauren Pinkston’s “Not Red, Not Blue, Just You” campaign packages faith, casseroles, and small-town vibes. Neutrality might be an aesthetic, but it sure as hell isn’t a plan.
Hi there, Chase. I’m here to offer you an exclusive interview if you would like to dive deeper into any of the issues (with references linked) that I laid out as the base foundation for our campaign. You may not have seen the “Issues” page of my website, but I discuss ACA and 2A, as well as federal regulatory issues for TN farmers and an impending teacher shortage in our state.
I don’t believe it would be productive to address some particular inconsistencies in this article in a back-and-forth online, but I am more than happy to have a conversation with you about my decision to run and the campaign we plan to roll out over the next year.
Please do reach out to us if you would like an interview! I’m always happy to meet someone from my old stomping grounds and someone who is such a wonderful advocate for human rights. Thank you for your fierce support for life-saving policies in Tennessee. We need people like you in this state!
Lauren, I appreciate you stepping into the conversation. But my critique wasn’t about what might eventually appear on an Issues page. It was about what you chose to lead with when you introduced yourself to the state.
Your launch speeches were warm and persona. They were also full of personal testimony, but said almost nothing about the actual laws harming people in Tennessee right now. In a state with so much actively on the line, clarity is the minimum.
And respectfully, the “polarization is the problem / both sides have lost their way” framing doesn’t land here anymore. The harm isn’t symmetrical. Treating it as if it is might feel comforting, but that comfort is not evenly distributed... and it obscures who is actually wielding power in this state.
A lot of your launch language also speaks directly to voters with a very specific political home.The ex-evangelicals, or people adjacent to that world. Folks who are disentangling themselves from the political version of the faith they were raised in, but not yet far enough along to confront how that formation shaped the politics we’re living inside now.
It’s the voter who wants distance from Republican extremism… but not enough distance to confront how that extremism grew out of the worldview they once internalized.
The voter who wants to not vote Republican, but doesn’t want to take responsibility for choosing the only coalition with the power to stop the harm.
I hope you don't read that as a theological critique. It’s a political pattern, and in a structurally lopsided state like Tennessee, that pattern has real consequences.
Independent bids in deep-red states don’t build new coalitions. They do, however, fracture the only coalition capable of slowing extremist policy.
And yes, I read your Issues page. It’s thoughtful and kind... and almost entirely values language. Warm values, but values without any kind of commitment. It reinforces the concern I raised that this campaign is built to comfort people who want politics to feel good again, not to confront the structures harming Tennesseans right now.
I respect the invitation for a conversation. Truly. But my piece wasn’t about your intentions or your sincerity. It was about the distance between the stakes on the ground and the post-partisan, noncommittal launch your campaign chose to lead with. What a candidate centers (and what a candidate avoids) tells voters a great deal.
Chase, seriously, why the attack on Lauren Pinkston, Ph.D., who recently announced her candidacy for Tennessee governor just days ago?
Did you know that she was affiliated with the Forward Party, a centrist third party founded by Andrew Yang in 2021? There is no record of her prior affiliation with the Democratic or Republican parties. Clearly, her candidacy is a distant outlier and she has little or no chance to occupy the governor’s mansion, especially in Tennessee.
Ironically, you have written several articles on “running for office.” Yet, when someone like Ms. Pinkston announces her independent candidacy, you intently castigate her. Sounds a bit like hypocrisy to me. Or did you intend with your articles that only Democrats should run for office? Obese opportunity, young man.
Further, as a student of politics, you must be aware that an independent candidate has never won the Tennessee gubernatorial election since the Volunteer state’s founding in 1796. In fact, the closest an independent or third-party candidate has ever come was when Independent candidate John Jay Hooker (a former Democrat) got 2.4 % in 1994.
Let’s put politics aside (I know it is difficult for a county Democrat chairman but please indulge me).
However, this article did provide some helpful insight into your higher educational experience. You must be a legacy student and proud graduate of Lipscomb University, a private Christian liberal arts institution affiliated with the Churches of Christ. I read with great interest the elements of Lipscomb’s Centering Core and surprisingly agreed with all them. Specifically, elements like the Trinity, salvation by grace through faith, baptism (implied in discipleship), and the priesthood of all believers is in accord with my beliefs.
Here is my favorite: “God the Son, Jesus Christ, is fully divine and fully human, conceived by the Holy Spirit and born of the virgin Mary. He lived a sinless life, died on the cross as a substitutionary sacrifice for our sins, rose bodily from the dead, ascended to heaven, and will return to judge the living and the dead.”
Hi there, Chase. I’m here to offer you an exclusive interview if you would like to dive deeper into any of the issues (with references linked) that I laid out as the base foundation for our campaign. You may not have seen the “Issues” page of my website, but I discuss ACA and 2A, as well as federal regulatory issues for TN farmers and an impending teacher shortage in our state.
https://pinkstonfortn.com/issues
I don’t believe it would be productive to address some particular inconsistencies in this article in a back-and-forth online, but I am more than happy to have a conversation with you about my decision to run and the campaign we plan to roll out over the next year.
Please do reach out to us if you would like an interview! I’m always happy to meet someone from my old stomping grounds and someone who is such a wonderful advocate for human rights. Thank you for your fierce support for life-saving policies in Tennessee. We need people like you in this state!
Lauren, I appreciate you stepping into the conversation. But my critique wasn’t about what might eventually appear on an Issues page. It was about what you chose to lead with when you introduced yourself to the state.
Your launch speeches were warm and persona. They were also full of personal testimony, but said almost nothing about the actual laws harming people in Tennessee right now. In a state with so much actively on the line, clarity is the minimum.
And respectfully, the “polarization is the problem / both sides have lost their way” framing doesn’t land here anymore. The harm isn’t symmetrical. Treating it as if it is might feel comforting, but that comfort is not evenly distributed... and it obscures who is actually wielding power in this state.
A lot of your launch language also speaks directly to voters with a very specific political home.The ex-evangelicals, or people adjacent to that world. Folks who are disentangling themselves from the political version of the faith they were raised in, but not yet far enough along to confront how that formation shaped the politics we’re living inside now.
It’s the voter who wants distance from Republican extremism… but not enough distance to confront how that extremism grew out of the worldview they once internalized.
The voter who wants to not vote Republican, but doesn’t want to take responsibility for choosing the only coalition with the power to stop the harm.
I hope you don't read that as a theological critique. It’s a political pattern, and in a structurally lopsided state like Tennessee, that pattern has real consequences.
Independent bids in deep-red states don’t build new coalitions. They do, however, fracture the only coalition capable of slowing extremist policy.
And yes, I read your Issues page. It’s thoughtful and kind... and almost entirely values language. Warm values, but values without any kind of commitment. It reinforces the concern I raised that this campaign is built to comfort people who want politics to feel good again, not to confront the structures harming Tennesseans right now.
I respect the invitation for a conversation. Truly. But my piece wasn’t about your intentions or your sincerity. It was about the distance between the stakes on the ground and the post-partisan, noncommittal launch your campaign chose to lead with. What a candidate centers (and what a candidate avoids) tells voters a great deal.
That’s all I was pointing to.
Chase, seriously, why the attack on Lauren Pinkston, Ph.D., who recently announced her candidacy for Tennessee governor just days ago?
Did you know that she was affiliated with the Forward Party, a centrist third party founded by Andrew Yang in 2021? There is no record of her prior affiliation with the Democratic or Republican parties. Clearly, her candidacy is a distant outlier and she has little or no chance to occupy the governor’s mansion, especially in Tennessee.
Ironically, you have written several articles on “running for office.” Yet, when someone like Ms. Pinkston announces her independent candidacy, you intently castigate her. Sounds a bit like hypocrisy to me. Or did you intend with your articles that only Democrats should run for office? Obese opportunity, young man.
Further, as a student of politics, you must be aware that an independent candidate has never won the Tennessee gubernatorial election since the Volunteer state’s founding in 1796. In fact, the closest an independent or third-party candidate has ever come was when Independent candidate John Jay Hooker (a former Democrat) got 2.4 % in 1994.
Let’s put politics aside (I know it is difficult for a county Democrat chairman but please indulge me).
However, this article did provide some helpful insight into your higher educational experience. You must be a legacy student and proud graduate of Lipscomb University, a private Christian liberal arts institution affiliated with the Churches of Christ. I read with great interest the elements of Lipscomb’s Centering Core and surprisingly agreed with all them. Specifically, elements like the Trinity, salvation by grace through faith, baptism (implied in discipleship), and the priesthood of all believers is in accord with my beliefs.
Here is my favorite: “God the Son, Jesus Christ, is fully divine and fully human, conceived by the Holy Spirit and born of the virgin Mary. He lived a sinless life, died on the cross as a substitutionary sacrifice for our sins, rose bodily from the dead, ascended to heaven, and will return to judge the living and the dead.”
He is my Lord and Savior! What say you?