Political winds are shifting for state GOP

Gov. Bill Haslam looked long and hard at the 2018 GOP primary for the Senate seat Bob Corker is leaving. He saw a “battleground.”

While the governor said last week he was prepared for that fight, it’s at least one reason he decided against a run. It’s also indicative of a broader political shift within the Tennessee GOP and elsewhere in the country, one that has seen establishment-lane Republicans overpowered by the Trump-aligned conservative wing.

“We live in a divided country,” Haslam said, pointing to the last seven presidential elections.

“The people who think, ‘I always want to send somebody out there that’s going to say exactly what I think,’ I think are ignoring the fact that there’s at least as many people on the other side who see the world totally different. The result is a Washington that is broken because neither side is willing to say ‘I get it. Half of the country feels very differently. What can we work out to make it better?’”

The term-limited governor went on to paraphrase former U.S. Sen. Howard Baker, saying people need to consider that other people might be right.

But compromise is taboo for many in politics. That debate — whether to find common ground or stand your grand — may already be settled on the GOP side of Tennessee’s Senate contest.

When U.S. Rep. Marsha Blackburn announced her candidacy Thursday, it not only immediately catapulted her into front-runner status, but also marked the latest harbinger of the Republican party’s new direction.

In her announcement video, Blackburn railed against Senate Republicans who “act like Democrats or worse.” She said she’s OK with liberals labeling her a “wingnut” or a “knuckle-dragging conservative.” Blackburn said she wanted to run because of the dysfunction in the Senate.

Where Corker and U.S. Sen. Lamar Alexander have made efforts, if limited, to reach across the aisle and break the

partisan divide often associated with Washington, D.C., Blackburn is expected to take an entirely different approach if elected, frequently playing to the base of her party and President Donald Trump.

The fact no candidate in the Haslam-Corker-Alexander mold has emerged to challenge Blackburn in the primary is a “microcosm of the national issue for the Republican party,” said historian and Pulitzer Prize-winning author Jon Meacham.

“An interesting distinction here is that moderate conservatives like Lamar, like Corker, like Haslam, have increasingly less maneuverability. The way they can win is really by the strength of their own personal appeal,” Meacham said.

“But when they stop running … in their absence, then you have self-described knuckle-dragging conservatives.”

With Haslam’s exit, there are few obvious Senate candidates who fit the traditional pro-business moderate Republican mold.

Former U.S. Rep. Stephen Fincher, who may still enter the race, did fight with the right wing of his party during his final year in Congress. But Blackburn and former Americans For Prosperity-Tennessee leader Andy Ogles, the only other declared candidate, have already tried to stake out the “drain the swamp” position in the race.

Speaking to reporters Thursday, Haslam said his party is at a crossroads, in Tennessee and nationally.

“If you look at what the Republican Party has traditionally stood for, we’ve stood for low taxes, the private enterprise system. We’ve been believers in foreign trade, that actually added to the economy,” Haslam said.

“I think some of those items are up for debate in the Republican Party right now and I think that’s a historical split from where the party has traditionally been.”

Party officials have long tried to tamp down any talk of internal feuding. Tennessee Republican Party Chairman Scott Golden said Republicans of all stripes tend to share the same core values.

“I think fundamentally, all of the people you mention believe in lower taxes, greater personal responsibility, limited government and the sanctity of human life,” Golden said referencing both the gubernatorial race and candidates for other seats.

“[Tennessee] has been a conservative state and now it’s a conservative Republican state … it is incumbent upon us to keep our folks moving in that direction.”

But the soul of the party is up for the taking at every level in Tennessee, as evidenced by the wide array of Republicans in the 2018 gubernatorial race, leadership vacancies in the statehouse and countless legislative seats set to change hands.

Among the gubernatorial candidates, Republicans will have the choice between what some view as moderates to far-right leaning defenders of the president.

“If you look at the presidential nominees prior to Trump, they’re all conservative but they, through the prism of ’16 and now ’17, they look like establishment figures who are out of touch with the base.”

— PULITZER PRIZE-WINNING AUTHOR JON MEACHAM

Although some gubernatorial candidates, including former state Sen. Mae Beavers and U.S. Rep. Diane Black, have tried to closely tie themselves to the policies of the president, Haslam said voters are fickle and their own views on state and federal issues don’t always align.

“People have a really different view of what they want out of their state government and the arguments they’re interested in on the national scene,” Haslam said.

“The issues change really quickly from we want you to maintain infrastructure, keep our taxes low, provide jobs to issues around immigration and trade. While they become issues in governor’s races, they’re not really.”

Although he says he’s not running as an extension of Haslam, businessman Randy Boyd is seen as a continuation of moderate Republican leadership. If he or outgoing House Speaker Beth Harwell loses to Black or another Trump-aligned candidate, that may prompt state lawmakers to bring forward controversial measures that have languished under Haslam and Harwell.

Some conservatives blamed Harwell and the people she appointed to lead committees as the reason bills that would allow carrying a gun without a permit or legalizing school vouchers traditionally faced difficult paths in the House.

But a new speaker means new committee leaders, and combined with an influx of proTrump state Republicans, the change may give those bills life. Other measures, like making the Bible the state book, may not be vetoed by the next governor.

It’s hard for Meacham to reconcile that landscape in Tennessee, a state that had a Democratic governor as recently as 2010. A presidential historian at heart, he looks to the previous GOP presidential nominees as the latest sign the long-referenced fight between wings of the Republican party may be over.

“If you look at the presidential nominees prior to Trump, they’re all conservative but they, through the prism of ’16 and now ’17, they look like establishment figures who are out of touch with the base. The base has clearly moved right, and what we’re seeing I think with what may happen in the Senate race here is Tennessee doing the same thing,” Meacham said.

“Tennessee’s story is the country’s, and vice versa.”

Reach Dave Boucher at dboucher@tennessean.com. Reach Joel Ebert at jebert@tennessean.com. Reach Jordan Buie at jbuie@tennessean.com.