Bredesen camp: Blackburn ‘dodging debates and attending expensive fundraisers’
NASHVILLE — As Tennessee Republican U.S. Senate candidate Marsha Blackburn joins President Donald Trump in Johnson City Monday for a campaign fundraiser and rally, Democrat Phil Bredesen will be in Chattanooga’s Bessie Smith Center for what the campaign calls its “Choose Chattanooga” ideas forum.
Bredesen’s campaign put its stand-alone event together after efforts by the Times Free Press to host a Senate debate for the same day fell through Sept. 6.
That came after Blackburn’s campaign informed the newspaper it “would not be part of our debate schedule.”
Trump’s visit to Northeast Tennessee was announced last week as part of a five-state tour seeking to bolster support for Blackburn, now locked in a tough fight with Bredesen, and Republican candidates in other states in advance of the Nov. 6 election.
It also comes as the outcome of the president’s pick for a U.S. Supreme Court vacancy, nominee Brett Kavanaugh, remains unclear.
On Sunday, Bredesen campaign spokeswoman Alyssa Hansen fired a shot across Blackburn’s bow, charging in a statement that while “Congresswoman Blackburn is dodging debates and attending expensive fundraisers with her D.C. friends, Governor Bredesen is actually listening to voters.
“He believes that the issues that are important to Southeast Tennessee deserve as much attention as those that are important in other areas of the state and is looking forward to hosting his ‘Choose Chattanooga’ Ideas Forum,” Hansen added.
Tennessee voters “have a choice,” Hansen said. “If they want more of the same shouting and bickering from Washington, then Governor Bredesen is not their candidate. However, if voters want to hire someone who has a track record of getting things done, then Governor Bredesen is applying for the job.”
In a tweet last month, Blackburn sought to blame the collapse of the proposed debate Oct. 1 debate on Bredesen having “refused to debate in Chattanooga simply because it was @FoxNews offering to cover it. He clearly is not interested in reaching across the aisle to hear the concerns of all voters, regardless of party.”
When announcing a day earlier that the Chattanooga Senate debate had fallen through, Times Free Press Editor Alison Gerber said the newspaper had “extended an invitation for a debate and changed the date to accommodate a request by the Blackburn campaign, to which the Bredesen campaign agreed.”
She also noted Fox News had approached the newspaper about joining the debate as a partner. “But we had not made a decision on their offer,” she said. “Fox News was never a confirmed partner.”
The Chattanooga event is to be moderated by Garry Mac, a long-time fixture in local media, a former top aide to the late Chattanooga Democrat, U.S. Rep. Marilyn Lloyd, and now a host and political commentator on WGOW Talk Radio 102.3.
Bredesen’s campaign says members of the community who would like to submit a question for consideration can do so on social media using the hashtag #ChooseChattanooga. Those wishing to tune into the forum can do so via the Bredesen Facebook page starting at 6 p.m.
DEAN, LEE: SET FOR FIRST DEBATE
On Tuesday, the state’s political action moves to Memphis where Democrat Karl Dean and Republican Bill Lee have their first general election debate at the University of Memphis.
The contest to succeed term-limited Republican Gov. Bill Haslam has been overshadowed at times by the Blackburn/ Bredesen slug fest in a brutal U.S. Senate contest.
In sharp contrast, the governor’s race has been a snoozer so far, much to the benefit of Lee who leads 52-43 percent in a recent CNN poll and 55-35 percent in an earlier Fox News survey.
The pressure is on Dean, a former Nashville mayor, to make up ground with voters.
Still, Lee, a Franklin businessman and political outsider who won his multi-candidate August GOP primary as his two main rivals bludgeoned each other, may have his own challenges.
“I don’t think the mayor’s out of the governor’s race,” said Bruce Oppenheimer, a Vanderbilt University political science professor and veteran observer of state politics.
He noted Dean is well known in Middle Tennessee from his two terms as mayor, although not so much in East and Middle Tennessee.
But Oppenheimer said Lee, who has run as a genial “conservative outsider” and “man of faith,” has “more at stake in this sort of thing where he’ll be on stage with the opposing candidate and where people don’t know a lot about him.”
“They don’t know a lot about him in policy terms,” Oppenheimer said. “They don’t know how knowledgeable he really is other than he seems to be a likeable guy.”
In a brief interview on Saturday at a stop in Ashland City near Nashville on his 95-county “Believe in Tennessee” tour, Lee said he’s ready for the first of his three one-on-one debates with Dean. “We had debates in the primary,” Lee noted. “I look forward to any opportunity really to get before voters and let them see me and hear my heart for my state.”
He said “I just want people to hear what I’ve said all along which is what’s most important, I believe, to Tennesseans. Good jobs, good schools, safe neighborhoods. Those are the things I think are the most important issues and the ones I hope we will be able to discuss.”
An attorney before entering politics, Dean has pushed for more debates and joint appearances in the general election, accepting joint invitations to both candidates from various groups to speak.
He contrasts his stances to Lee’s positions on various issues. For example, Dean advocates for expanding the state’s Medicaid insurance program to some 280,000 low-income working adults largely by taking advantage of federal funding under the Affordable Care Act.
Dean argues it would have helped prevent closure of 11 rural hospitals in addition to helping many. Lee is opposed, saying the problems of soaring health care costs and Tennesseans’ dismal health rankings make the issue more complex.
In a recent interview, Dean said what he thinks is “really key for me” is his record in Nashville “during both difficult times and really great times. I mean, I think I worked on helping to create the great times. I was mayor, my first time was the Great Recession, which was an enormous challenge, and then the flood which was an enormous challenge.”
But he noted he “was also the mayor during the boom that came from a lot of the investments we made. So I’ve had a pretty broad experience. “
He said his top priorities are support of public schools, health care and economic opportunity.