Ralph Bristol

 by Ralph Bristol, Facebook, May 9, 2026- John Rose, my congressman, is running for governor, against Marsha Blackburn, our U.S. Senator. 

I don’t know if this is John’s first commercial, but it’s the first one I’ve seen, and I thought it was pretty good – very positive, highlighting his own qualities and accomplishments, which appear impressive, but for reasons we all know, he just couldn’t help himself. 

He had to include a positive statement about President Trump in his commercial. He’s “tough, like Trump,” which he said twice in 30 seconds. 

At least he picked one of Trump’s potentially best characteristics, instead of his worst – his economic policies.  But his references to Trump significantly detract from the value of his commercial for everyone but Trump’s MAGA base. 

So, it’s a matter of mathematics whether the inclusion makes the commercial better or worse, as a campaign tool.  Did it win voters or lose them?  His pollsters obviously think it will win primary voters. 

It didn’t necessarily lose me, but it overcame the positive reaction I had to the rest of the commercial.  

I haven’t seen Marsha’s first commercial yet.  The first ones are always the most positive, and then they start to turn ugly.  I know Marsha much better, as a policy maker, than John, and neither leaves a positive policy impression, so I am likely as not to write in a different name for governor, since I have no knowledge of any of the other candidates, and one of these two will almost certainly be the eventual winner. 

This interests Boomer Power only in that one of them will be in a position to either help or hurt my mission to control the cost of the federal government, since half of what state governments spend comes from the federal government, which remain in danger of letting its debt create the worst recession the world has ever seen – greater than the Great Depression.

It will be a lot like the Great Depression, except that the world’s people, especially Americans, are MUCH more dependent on government help than they were then.  And, that will disappear, because the U.S. government will no longer have access to affordable credit to finance that help – and people will be on their own for the first times in generations.  

Both John and Marsha helped usher in the debt that is the greatest single, domestic threat to our nation and our constitution.  Unless one of them expresses convincing contrition and persuades me that they can and will spend their gubernatorial terms repairing their damage to our federal budget, I’ll likely be voting for someone else. \

Ralph Bristol is the former long-time morning talk radio host broadcasting on Supertalk 99.7 WTN. He was one of the less provocative and bombastic of conservative radio personalities, more thoughtful and grounded in conservative ideas. He left talk radio in 2018 and retired. He lives in Nashville. 

Rod's Comment: 
I had the same reaction as Ralph. I know I will not vote for Marsha. She has been a shameless Trump bootlicker. I had assumed I would vote for John Rose. After seeing his commercial, in which he goes out of his way to wrap himself in Trump's mantle, I am unsure whom I will vote for. 

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