- Jim Bryson (politician)
Jim Bryson (born
July 14 ,1961 ) is aTennessee politician , a former Republican member of the State Senate representing the 23rd District, which encompasses Williamson County and part of Davidson County, and the 2006 Republican nominee for Governor of Tennessee.tate Senator
Bryson was elected to the State Senate in 2002, serving in the 103rd and 104th General Assemblies. He served as Secretary of the Government Operations Committee and as a member of the Senate Commerce, Labor and Agriculture Committee, the Senate Education Committee, and the Fiscal Review Committee. He was noted as one of the Assembly's most vocal advocates of Right to Life and anti-gun control views.
2006 Gubernatorial race
On
August 3 ,2006 , Bryson won the nomination to run for Governor againstincumbent Phil Bredesen . Bryson, upon entering the race immediately assumed the position of front-runner for the Republican nomination, since the other announced contenders were political near-unknowns and the state party endorsed him before the primary. Bryson won the nomination with a vote total approximately equal to that of all of his rivals combined.Since his Senate district is considered to be the most affluent and reliably Republican in
Middle Tennessee and his re-election was all but assured, some have questioned why he would give it up. Any Republican candidate would have been a decided underdog in thegeneral election to Bredesen. In the election of November 2006, Republican Jack Johnson was elected to succeed Senator Bryson. [ [http://nashvillecitypaper.com/index.cfm?section_id=9&screen=news&news_id=49001] ]As expected, Bryson was heavily defeated in the
November 7 election, taking only 29.7 percent of the vote. He lost all 95 counties in the state, including Williamson County. It was the most one-sided gubernatorial contest (in terms of margin of defeat) in Tennessee's history.Personal
Bryson was born in
Fayetteville, Arkansas . He married Carol Ratcliff, fromGreeneville, TN , in 1991. They have four children together: Maria, Nadia, Nick, and Alex. Bryson earned hisbachelor's degree fromBaylor University and hisMBA fromVanderbilt University and is the owner of 20/20 Marketing, amarketing firm with offices in Tennessee,North Carolina , andFlorida .References
External links
* [http://www.vote-smart.org/bio.php?can_id=MTN15149 Jim Bryson's entry at Project Vote Smart]
Wikimedia Foundation. 2010.