Blackburn pierces Bredesen with partisan politics

By , Daily Memphian Updated: October 15, 2018 1:14 PM CT | Published: October 12, 2018 5:32 PM CT

Congresswoman Marsha Blackburn’s partisan attacks appear to be trumping former governor Phil Bredesen’s moderate politics as early voting approaches for the Nov. 6 election for an open U.S. Senate seat.

Bredesen, for months, has said he wants to go to Washington, D.C., to take on difficult issues such as immigration reform and health care. But Blackburn is painting him as a pawn for Washington Democrats and somehow playing off his campaign’s contentions that she’s part of the D.C. swamp.

Blackburn, a Franklin Republican representing Tennessee’s 6th Congressional District, netted a big boost last week with a New York Times poll showing she’s up 54 to 40, 14 percentage points, on Bredesen, with a 4.2 plus or minus margin of error.

New York Times surveyors made 28,670 calls and spoke to 593 people as they sought to find out whether a former Democratic governor “can flip a Senate seat in a deep red state.” Bredesen and Blackburn are battling for the post being vacated by Republican Sen. Bob Corker.

Besides the obvious advantage head-to-head in the poll, Blackburn found more people are taking a liking to her. She received a 51 percent favorable rating while Bredesen netted a 44 percent favorable rating in the Times poll, a reversal from most other polling that showed voters had a poor view of Blackburn.

The Times numbers come on the heels of another bump in polling in early October from YouGov, which showed Blackburn up 8 percentage points on the Nashville Democrat after they’d been virtually tied for more than a month. Those numbers were put together amid a roiling Senate confirmation of new U.S. Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh, accused by Christine Blasey Ford of sexually assaulting her 30-plus years ago at a high school party.

One of Bredesen’s biggest problems could be his disinclination to use attack politics, and using any other strategy could prove phony.

“You’ve got to go back to fundamentals. Tennessee was Trump’s second strongest state in the South,” said Michael Nelson, a Rhodes College political science professor and regular columnist for The Daily Memphian. “That means any Democratic candidate for statewide office is really trying to climb a mountain, and it’s not really a criticism of Bredesen per se, but he hasn’t been able to climb that mountain. It may just show that may be beyond the realm of possibility for him.”

During debates and public appearances, Blackburn chastised Bredesen for waiting too long to say how he would have voted on the Kavanaugh confirmation and accused him of holding out at the direction of liberal New York Sen. Chuck Schumer, who could become the Senate Majority Leader if Democrats win control of the chamber in November.

Bredesen, who contends he waited until the confirmation hearings were complete instead of vaulting into a decision based on party affiliation, ultimately said he would have voted for Kavanaugh. And in the first debate, he said he wouldn’t vote for Schumer.

Nelson considers Bredesen’s strategy on Kavanaugh a potential “miscalculation” because there aren’t that many pro-Kavanaugh voters up for grabs. Meanwhile, he lost support from some major financial donors for the stance.

Nevertheless, Blackburn refused to take him at his word and – even after Bredesen asked for a “civil” debate as they stood in Howard H. Baker Public Policy Center at UT-Knoxville for their final debate – launched a political assault linking him constantly to former Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton and Senate Democratic leaders such as Schumer, Bernie Sanders and Dianne Feinstein.

“She called us deplorables,” Blackburn said of Clinton and reminded the audience that Democratic U.S. Rep. Steve Cohen of Memphis said he wished she would “jump off a bridge.” Cohen said at the time he was joking.

Even when asked in their final debate if Tennesseans would be in good hands if the other one is elected, Blackburn said, “I think it would be in better hands with me.”

“Tennesseans want somebody who is going to work hard to get Donald Trump’s agenda done,” Blackburn said, noting she would take “Tennessee values to Washington.”

Bredesen, on the other hand, said he would accept the election’s outcome and called for an end to “tribalism,” saying he would even support Blackburn if she is elected. He pointed out, though, somehow Blackburn managed to mention Hillary Clinton more times in the second debate than she did Schumer’s name in their first match.

Going for the throat

Repeating her performance in the first debate, Blackburn jumped on Bredesen at the start, despite his request for civility, accusing him of being soft on sexual harassment during his time as governor. Some experts believed it could have been an effort to gain the support of college-educated, suburban women upset by the Kavanaugh confirmation process and allegations of sexual assault.

Bredesen acknowledged he had a problem with one member of his staff and released him the next day, but even his campaign accuses Blackburn of resorting to “negative attacks and outright lies, a sign that she has truly become Washington and has nothing to show for the nearly two decades that she has been there.”

University of Memphis political science professor Michael Sances points out the winner will likely be the one best able to define the other.

“It’s not just about who’s going to represent Tennessee but also about the issue of who wins the race in Tennessee could decide control of the entire Senate. So that makes party even more salient,” Sances says. “So, Blackburn’s going to push that as hard as she can. Bredesen’s going to try to localize the race, focus on Tennessee issues, distance himself from the national party, try to paint Blackburn as the real Washington insider.”

They agreed on very little, including whether Social Security is a trust fund. Both did raise their hands to indicate they favor enhancing a red flag system to stop mentally ill people from obtaining guns.

But Blackburn used the opportunity to point out she received an A rating from the National Rifle Association while Bredesen got a D. She also got a dig in by noting Bredesen attended a fundraiser by former New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg, a gun-control proponent.

Bredesen replied that he’s been a gun owner his entire life and a strong supporter of the Second Amendment but believes the best way to exercise those rights is by putting “reasonable laws” in place. The former governor, who once had an A rating from the NRA, said his grade dropped when he vetoed the “guns in bars” bill. He called the bill allowing conceal-carry permit holders to take weapons into restaurants and bars “crazy” and “stupid.”

The Corker question

One area they did agree on was giving Corker an A for his performance.

Bredesen noted he and Corker developed a strong relationship while working on economic development projects such as bringing the Volkswagen plant to Chattanooga.

“He was enormously helpful on that,” Bredesen said, adding he would be similar to Corker in efforts to work across the aisle.

Blackburn claimed she has worked with Corker on human trafficking and was to hold an event with him Friday in Chattanooga and at one point in the debate said she is accustomed to working in a bipartisan fashion, though she failed to say how.

Corker, however, didn’t support her until it was clear she was the only Republican candidate for his seat, and he said he wouldn’t campaign against Bredesen because of a friendship they developed during the Democrat’s years as governor.

Making people wonder whether his new relationship with Blackburn is forced, Corker told the Washington Examiner this year, “The reason I speak the way I do about the governor (Bredesen) is there’s just been such an intertwined working relationship on and off for 23 years,” he told reporters after an event. “I just have never had that kind of working relationship with the congressperson (Blackburn). I’ve known her professionally, but it hasn’t been like we’ve been close friends and worked on issues together. I can’t think of a single piece of legislation we’ve ever worked on together. I just don’t have knowledge there.”

Things may have changed somewhat since he made that statement. Corker’s spokeswoman, Micah Johnson, said this week the senator has made the maximum contribution to her campaign and plans to vote for her in November.

“He has also attended fundraisers for the congressman and attended a rally in Nashville in September in support of her nomination,” Johnson said.

During the debate, Blackburn said she wants to keep Corker’s desk on the same side of the Republican aisle and noted, “We don’t want it to go over there with the Washington Democrats.”

Big money

Outside groups such as the National Republican Senate Committee and Democratic-backing Senate Majority Forward are pouring millions of dollars into the campaign, reportedly nearly $20 million so far, because of its importance in control of the Senate, which Republicans control 51-49.

The Republican Senate Committee kicked off a recent ad saying “left-wing radicals” want Bredesen elected so Democrats can try to impeach Kavanaugh and Trump.

Bredesen, who has said repeatedly he isn’t running against the president, started his own ad pointing toward Blackburn’s co-sponsorship of opioid-related legislation that even she agreed had “unintended consequences.”

In the ad, longtime Drug Enforcement Administration Agent Jim Geldhof says the bill supported by Blackburn made it more difficult for the federal government to block illicit drug shipments that made it to pill mills.

The ad also points out Blackburn has received more than $800,000 in campaign contributions from pharmaceutical companies.

Bredesen has said fixing that problem would be his first move if elected and called her out publicly for doing little over the past year. Blackburn, in response, points out the bill she co-sponsored passed unanimously in the House under President Barack Obama. She said she is backing new legislation designed to punish opioid offenders and rein in the problem.

Topics

Marsha Blackburn Michael Nelson Michael Sances Phil Bredesen
Sam Stockard

Sam Stockard

Sam Stockard is a Nashville-based reporter with more than 30 years of journalism experience as a writer, editor and columnist covering the state Legislature and Tennessee politics for The Daily Memphian.


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