Former Nashville councilman challenges Mancini for TNDP chair

Jamie Isabel, who served as a Metro Nashville councilman from 2003 to 2007 and owns a business called  Dalmatian Creative Agency, is challenging Mary Mancini as chair of the Tennessee Democratic Party. He announced his candidacy to the party’s executive committee, which will elect a state leader next month, according to the Tennessean.

“Our party has lost its way about addressing issues that are very dear and close to the blue collar worker of Tennessee,” Isabel, a self-described moderate Democrat, said in a statement. He added that he wants to rebuild the state party to the success it had when Democrat Ned McWherter was Tennessee’s governor.

Days after the election, Nashville businessman Bill Freeman, a former candidate for mayor of Nashville and Tennessee Democrats’ top fundraiser, called for new leadership to steer Tennessee’s beleaguered Democrats. Isabel was an organizer on Freeman’s mayoral campaign.

If elected, Isabel, 51, said he would be the first African-American to lead the Tennessee Democratic Party.

…Holly McCall, a longtime political and communications operative who lost as a Democratic House candidate in Williamson County last month, had expressed interested in the position but told The Tennessean she is not inclined to run at this time.