Ads take swipes at donors in Senate contest
BLACKBURN VS. BREDESEN
NASHVILLE — Tennessee’s U.S. Senate race is all about the money right now — as in who has given to whom — with both parties respectively attacking some donors to Republican Marsha Blackburn and Democrat Phil Bredesen in guilt-by-association attacks.
State Democrats are hitting Blackburn, a Brentwood Congress member, as well as the Tennessee Republican Party and the National Republican Senatorial Committee, over campaign cash given to all three over the years by prominent Tennessee GOP mega-donor and auto dealer Lee Beaman.
Beaman is now engulfed in an ugly, scandalous divorce from his fourth wife, Kelley Beaman. She alleges in court filings that her husband made her watch sexually explicit “training videos” featuring him with other women and more than once persuaded her to engage in “sexual encounters” with prostitutes, The Tennessean, Nashville Scene and ScoopNashville.com have reported.
Beaman, meanwhile, accuses his estranged wife in one of his own filings of making “false and unsubstantiated allegations of abuse.”
In the case of Bredesen, a former governor, a state Republican Party attack video hit social media after he described being “embarassed by the circus” exhibited by senators in both parties during U.S. Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh’s confirmation hearings.
Bredesen, who has positioned himself as a moderate pragmatist in the Nov. 6 contest with the sometimesfiery and staunch conservative Blackburn, also told reporters he had not yet decided how he would vote on Kavanaugh’s nomination if he were in the Senate.
Regarding the Beaman/ Blackburn hit, Mark Brown, a spokesman for Democrats’ Tennessee Victory 2018 coordinated effort, said “Congresswoman Blackburn’s enthusiastic receipt of financial support from alleged abuser Lee Beaman, set against her opposition to the Violence Against Women Act, is troubling.”
Brown said as a “first step in setting things right,” Blackburn, the state GOP and NRSC “all should refund Beaman’s dollars” and give the collective $290,000 in Beaman donations made over the last 17 years to anti-domestic violence programs operated by “worthy charities like the YWCA. Anything less would be turning a blind eye to Beaman’s alleged abuse.”
Asked about Democrats’ demand to return an estimated $38,600 that Beaman gave to her Senate and congressional campaigns, as well as $66,500 to her political action committees over the year, Blackburn told reporters Friday that “we are keeping the Beamans in our thoughts and prayers, this is a tough time for them.”
The Tennessean, meanwhile, reported that a Blackburn spokesperson gave a similar response on whether Beaman continues to serve as one of three co-chairs for Blackburn’s pro-life coalition, saying “this is a difficult personal and family situation. We’re praying for the Beaman family.”
State Republicans, meanwhile, are hammering Bredesen with the “Phony Phil’s ‘Circus Pals’” ad on Facebook and Twitter.
It begins by borrowing from a Bredesen ad discussing Kavanaugh’s Supreme Court nomination. That comes to a screeching halt as an image of a Times Free Press headline stating “Bredesen says ‘embarassed by circus’ in Senate over Kavanaugh nomination” flashes and a jaunty tune from a piano and kazoo crank up.
The ad shifts to a series of comments or questions regarding Kavanaugh raised by Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer of New York as well as remarks made in the Judiciary Committee hearing by Democrats Cory Booker of New Jersey, Kamala Harris of California and Dick Durbin of of Illinois.
“So I will oppose him with everything that I’ve got,” Schumer is shown saying as a caption citing the leader’s $10,000 contribution to Bredesen flashes.
Getting the same treatment are Booker, who contributed $5,000 to Bredesen’s effort, and Harris, who gave $10,000.
The ad then shifts to a Republican senator who charges that “Democrats plotted a coordinated protest” for the hearings. … I just want to be clear, none of the Democrats participated in that phone call or that strategy?”
Next comes Durbin, who says “there was a phone conference yesterday. So many issues were raised” as his $5,000 contribution to Bredesen is listed on screen.
The 30-second spot begins wrapping up with a black-and-white photo of Bredesen with a caption reading “a vote for him” before shifting to the four Democrats with another caption saying “is a vote for them.”
Contact Andy Sher at asher@timesfreepress.com or 615-255-0550. Follow him on Twitter @AndySher1.