“I never close any doors,” Crafton said. “I just have to evaluate and see who else throws their hat into the ring. I want the mayor to have some competition and to have to discuss some issues. I don’t think he’s earned the right to run unopposed with some of the decisions he’s made. So, I think at the very least, he needs to be challenged.” Craddock and Crafton both ran unsuccessful local campaigns last year for Davidson County Criminal Court clerk and Juvenile Court clerk, respectively. The two council members, who were outspoken opponents of Dean’s Music City Center push, seem to believe Dean has turned more vulnerable following his recent retreat on his desire to redevelop the Metro-owned fairgrounds. “In the last two or three months, I’ve had a lot of people who have come up to me and encouraged me to do that,” Craddock said of running for mayor. “Quite frankly, I’ve not decided to do it. I don’t know.

[T]he opposition's apparent ignoring of campaign finance law by advocating for the defeat of both charter amendments, while organized as a single-issue committee instead of as a political-action committee, as required by law, was the final nail in the coffin. Why was this harmful? As a single-issue committee, they could accept unlimited corporate campaign contributions, which they did. As a PAC, which is the required entity to advocate for two or more issues, they couldn't have accepted any money from corporations. It appears more than half of the $300,000 raised by the opponents of the English amendment came from corporations. Oops! That means they would have had only around $125,000 to spend on the election vs. our $51,000. I guess those pesky PAC rules would have been inconvenient, wouldn't they? In my opinion, taken together, these three strategies ensured the official English amendment's failure.

In the end, 32,149 people voted for the Metro Charter amendment that Crafton proposed. That vote total would have been enough to propel him into a runoff if he had sought one of the five at-large council seats 18 months ago.

Nashville English First raised $84,467.76 for its campaign, according to a disclosure being released today. Of that, ProEnglish of Arlington, Va., contributed $82,500, Davidson County Election Administrator Ray Barrett told The Tennessean this morning after Metro Law Director Sue Cain authorized him to release the disclosure.