Republican Election Problems in Tennessee 2006
a.. tennessean.com
Sunday, 03/12/06
With no Bredesen rival, GOP focuses on its gains
Hard fight for Frist seat’s good, leaders say
By BONNA de la CRUZ
Staff Writer
MEMPHIS —Republicans own both Tennessee seats in the U.S. Senate, but in-house bickering in the race to succeed Bill Frist is hanging all their dirty laundry out for public view.
The GOP has a majority in the upper chamber of the state legislature, but political deal-making left a Democrat in control as speaker of the Senate.
And most vexing for Tennessee Republicans, there’s plenty to bash the Democratic governor about, but they can’t get anyone to challenge Phil Bredesen.
For a state that has gone red in past elections, the state’s Republican Party seems a little bit blue.
“It’s disappointing we don’t have a strong, viable candidate for governor,” said Patricia Heim, a Nashville Republican who is on the Davidson County Election Commission.
“It’s frustrating, but we’re also focusing on some real opportunities like securing a majority in the General Assembly or at least increasing our margins.”
She was among 2,000 delegates from mostly Southern and Western states who gathered at the Southern Republican Leadership Conference at the Peabody Hotel this weekend. It was touted as one of the largest gatherings of Republicans before the 2008 national convention.
Even with a backdrop of slumping poll numbers for President Bush and Congress’ rejection of his Dubai port deal, Republicans put up a unified front with only momentary glimpses of fissures within the party.
“In the long term, they’re doing great. Tennessee will likely lean Republican for a while,” said Christian Grose, an assistant political science professor at Vanderbilt University.
“In the very short term, this could be a bump in the road. … This is probably one of the lower points for Republicans.”
Whether this low point gets lower may be up to the voters: Democrats are aiming for multiple victories in November, from keeping their majority in the state House to winning back the U.S. Senate seat Frist took in 1994 and will be relinquishing.
“We do not underestimate them at all, but it appears the Republican Party in Tennessee is in considerable disarray,” said Bob Tuke, chairman of the Tennessee Democratic Party.
The Democrats think the GOP’s majority in the state Senate is vulnerable, and they are even talking about taking a shot at an open U.S. House seat in upper East Tennessee, an area so heavily Republican that no Democrat has won the seat for more than 100 years.
“We’ll be all right at the end of the day,” said Bob Davis, chairman of the Tennessee Republican Party. The party will have a candidate for governor by the April 6 filing deadline, he said.
“There are so many good things going on for Republicans in our state,” Davis said. “We took over the state Senate two years ago. (Democratic state Sen.) Don McLeary changed parties. Ron Ramsey will probably be the next lieutenant governor. We’re four seats short of a majority in the House. … I’m optimistic.”
‘Strong candidate’ to come
State Rep. Beth Harwell, state Senate Majority Leader Ron Ramsey and banker Scooter Clippard all thought about running for governor.
Then they all thought better of it.
Republicans have yet to come up with a candidate for the only statewide office not in GOP hands.
Meanwhile, Bredesen’s poll numbers remain strong despite troubles over TennCare, the Highway Patrol and harassment scandals in his administration.
He is raising money, and he has patched up rifts with disgruntled constituencies, such as labor unions, Tuke said.
But his popularity among moderate and business-minded Republicans may be the key reason none of the state’s big-name Republicans has volunteered to take him on, Tuke said.
Some of the state’s most prominent and moneyed Republicans are supporting the Democrat for a second term.
They include Pitt Hyde of Memphis, who founded AutoZone, and Marguerite Sallee, a former policy advisor to Tennessee’s other Republican senator, Lamar Alexander.
Ramsey, an auctioneer from historically Republican northeast Tennessee, said too much is being made of the absence of a GOP challenger.
“That does not measure the strength or lack of strength of the Republican Party. That measures the personal wealth of Gov. Bredesen,” Ramsey said, a reference to millionaire ex-health-care executive Bredesen’s ability to personally bankroll his campaign.
Primary fight ‘good for us’
Despite their problems fielding a candidate for governor, Republicans had no such trouble finding U.S. Senate candidates. Former congressmen Ed Bryant and Van Hilleary and the ex-mayor of Chattanooga, Bob Corker, are running.
In the last several weeks, Bryant’s campaign flogged Corker over thefts by Chattanooga city employees that may have occurred while he was mayor.
Corker bashed Hilleary because he “joined with Harold Ford Jr., and the Democratic Party in baseless, negative attacks” against Corker’s support of a 45-day review of the Dubai port-management deal.
And Hilleary and Bryant have been at each other’s throats as they compete for conservative voters.
Republicans say this is healthy.
“I don’t fear good primaries. They’re good for us,” Heim said. “It energizes a lot of people and gets us organized.”
Democrats are banking that the vicious tone the primary has taken will make it hard for fence mending come November.
The front-running Democratic candidate, U.S. Rep. Harold Ford Jr. of Memphis, has already started his general election campaign.
Last week he began airing a commercial that takes Bush to task for “outsourcing” national security to foreigners to operate American ports. That deal collapsed last week in the face of bipartisan opposition.
“In a state that leans conservative,” Ford is “taking a conservative stance that can help him appear moderate and in touch with the average voter,” Grose, the Vanderbilt assistant professor, said.
But putting a Democrat in the open Senate seat “is still a long shot,” said political scientist Coleman McGinnis, who is retired from Tennessee State University.
“People have to keep in mind that this is still, by and large, a very conservative state.”
That’s not keeping Democrats from thinking they can make a good showing in one of the most conservative regions, upper East Tennessee, where five-term U.S. Rep. Bill Jenkins is retiring.
The strongest GOP politician in that region, Ramsey, does not plan to run for the congressional seat.
Tuke said, “They have second-tier candidates in there, so we think we could do something.”
Vying for control
State Senate Republicans are looking to make their big move next year to take complete control of the upper chamber, but first they will have to combat Democrats who think they can take away the two-vote GOP majority in the November elections.
One reason Ramsey has passed up chances at higher office is that his party has the support of most Senate Republicans to elect him speaker next year, he said.
Democrats, though, said they have targeted Senate races, including two in Middle Tennessee, to try to win back a majority.
Two years ago, Republicans won a one-vote majority but failed to capitalize on it when they couldn’t keep enough of their party members in line to force Democrat John Wilder from the lieutenant governor’s post.
The majority is now two seats, after Sen. Don McLeary of Humboldt, a freshman who won as a Democrat, changed parties.
But with Wilder still at the helm, Democrats have retained control of some Senate committees, where legislation lives or dies on Capitol Hill.
Action on key Republican issues from tort reform to a taxpayers’ bill of rights has not moved forward.
Ramsey points out how a Republican majority has shaped Tennessee policy.
The state’s new ethics bill was passed with a coalition of House members and Senate Republicans over the objections of some Democrats. And just last week, a GOP-backed anti-abortion resolution got approved in the Senate.
McLeary is on the Democrat’s list of targets this year, Tuke said. “He abandoned his constituency, and we will beat him.” •