I think Bill is qualified, and he appeared to be a good communicator, at least in a small group setting. He handled some tough questions well.

Though not a huge staff, being a DA is an executive position, and certainly a challenging one in Shelby County with the caseload they maintain. I’ve not heard of any budget overruns or shenanigans in the Shelby DA’s office. As far as I can tell, the only who has more executive experience on both sides in the campaign is Haslam, and his membership in Mayors Against Guns bothers me a good bit.

One thing I didn’t mention (which I should have) is that Gibbons spoke highly of Norman’s drug court, and wants to increase funding for drug courts based on Norman’s throughout the state. We discussed criminal justice quite a bit, actually. I didn’t get the vibe he was an overzealous prosecutor-type. Before he became DA he was in private practice, mainly doing civil work.

CCA is going to give money to whoever the GOP candidate is – I don’t know how involved they will be in the primary. Everyone has some unsavory supporters at times, but I can think of much worse (a la, ProEnglish, and, well, The Teamsters to name a couple).

As far as many of your other questions, we’ll see. Like I said, I’m not on board, but I certainly wasn’t turned off by what I saw.