Fitzhugh suggests GOP would ‘roll right over’ Dean

State House Minority Leader Craig Fitzhugh says Democratic gubernatorial primary rival Karl Dean won’t get very far on self-professed “pragmatism.”

The Memphis Daily News reports that Fitzhugh took aim at the former Nashville mayor’s plans to coexist with GOP supermajorities in the House and Senate during a meeting with the Shelby County Democratic Women in Memphis last week.

“If you get up there in that Republican-led legislature and you’re pragmatic, they are going to roll right over you,” Fitzhugh said.

“I don’t say we have to fight all the time. But you need to understand how this state works. You’ve got to stand up for what you believe in from time to time,” he said. “But you have to also remember that if you don’t have the votes you can’t win but you might as well get what you can.”

Fitzhugh is a banker and an attorney who has severed in the House for 24 years. He referred to Dean as “my learned opponent who has done everything in one building – City Hall in Nashville.” (Before his two terms as Nashville mayor, Dean was the city’s law director and previously its public defender.)

Fitzhugh said the GOP contest has been marked by each of the candidates trying to make themselves out to be the biggest supporter of President Donald Trump.