Tennessee Democratic Gov. Phil Bredesen is apparently resorting to less than honorable tactics to win Sen. Bob Corker’s (R-TN) U.S. Senate Seat.
Bredesen will face off against Republican Marsha Blackburn on Nov. 6.
Corker is retiring from the U.S. Senate.
In an emailed statement to The Tennessee Star, Tennessee Republican Party Chairman Scott Golden said Bredesen is masquerading as a moderate.
“Phony Phil Bredesen can pretend to be Republican-lite all he wants, but he can’t escape his liberal record. Phil donated $33,400 to Hillary Clinton’s campaign,” Golden wrote.
“Phil admitted he’s Chuck Schumer’s handpicked candidate. Phil’s campaign called Trump voters ‘idiots.’ And now he’s relying on Bernie Sanders supporters to raise him money. Tennesseans aren’t fooled by Phil’s attempts to manipulate Republicans’ words to serve his own political purposes.”
In a new Chattanooga Times Free Press column, Clint Cooper called out Bredesen for using what he described as “deceptive advertising” in a new commercial.
“On Monday, the campaign, which had previously employed well-done ads in which the former Tennessee governor talked moderately and said earnestly he was ‘applying for the job,’ released a commercial in which some Republicans who don’t support him are shown saying kind things about him,” Cooper wrote.
Among them — Corker, U.S. Rep. Chuck Fleischmann, and former House Republican Caucus Chairwoman Debra Maggart.
“The idea is to give viewers and listeners the idea that those Republicans are supporting the Democrat for Senate and not Republican Marsha Blackburn. They are not,” Cooper wrote.
All three of them say they support Blackburn.
“Maggart, in an email to the Times Free Press, not only said she was not behind Bredesen’s campaign but also charged the former governor’s campaign ‘chopped and spliced my sentence together, and my entire point was changed. So much for really working across the aisle when he had to manipulate my point to serve his purpose.’”
Bredesen and Corker are friends. For that reason, Corker will not campaign against him, according to the article. “Fleischmann and Maggart, though, were none too happy with the use of their statements, which were made some time ago and which they thought they had spoken in good faith,” Cooper wrote.
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Chris Butler is an investigative journalist at The Tennessee Star. Follow Chris on Facebook. Email tips to [email protected].
