TN GOP Three-Way

The Tennessee Senate race to replace the retiring Majority Leader, Bill Frist (R-Panderville), has garnered national attention, especially because of the star power of the Democratic candidate, Harold Ford, Jr., who at 36 would become the first African-American senator from the south since, oh, you know when. The three-way race for the GOP nomination has gotten less ink, but truth be told, that's where the real action is.

In all the early polls, Van Hilleary, an undistinguished former congressman from the infamous class of 1994, took an early lead over his fellow Newtoid, Ed Bryant, a one-time House impeachment manager, and Bob Corker, a former state Secretary of the Treasury and Mayor of Chattanooga. Hilleary's early edge came from name recognition and credibility with the base: he was the GOP nominee for governor four years ago, but lost to the Democrat, Phil Bredesen. Hilleary and Bryant are both hard-core conservatives, while Corker has a reputation for what we used to call "sanity" but we now refer to as dangerously "liberal" ideas. Or at least that's what Bryant and Hilleary have been charging in their ads. As most of you know, TN leans strongly GOP, so this primary should produce the presumptive favorite. Ford must hope for three things: that 2006 shapes up to be an anti-Bush tidal wave, that the GOP nominates someone who looks extreme, and that, in the process, the troika bloodies up their eventual nominee.

So how's it looking on the ground? If I had to bet, I'd say that Corker wins by a surprisingly comfortable margin, despite having been a distant third a few months ago. Why? Well, first of all, there's money. Corker has raised more than Hilleary and Bryant combined, despite the fact that they've both run statewide campaigns in the last five years (Corker hasn't since 1994, and that was a weak run against Frist for Senate.) It shows too. Corker is everywhere on TV, and his commercials are pretty good. He's got a really light touch, and his ads make him seem likeable and human, even when he's, say, bashing illegal immigrants. (In one ad, he's walking along a desert fence line, making one wonder, "I didn't remember barbed wire and cactus sealing off the TN-AL border!") He's put his mom in one of his ads, and she's become a kind of campaign mascot. Plus, Corker signs are everywhere--especially in wealthy neighborhoods in Nashville and Chattanooga. Hilleary and Bryant, hard to find.

The main line of attack against Corker is that he's a tax and spend "liberal" who's squishy on "moral" issues. In response, Corker has moved to the right on pretty much everything. He's no longer pro-choice on abortion, where he's been aggressively courting the Xian right (although he downplays his exceptions for rape and incest). He's hawkish on Iraq, and he's also been riding hard on illegals. He even puts the banner "Republican" in a prominent place in his ads, violating that old rule that you must blur the party label distinctions to cater to the middle of the electorate. To put this in a nutshell, Corker just seems to want this race more than the other guys, and he'll do what it takes to win. He represents the old, moderate, Howard Baker money wing of the state GOP, and he seems to have figured out how to neutralize the grass-roots Xian cons. Hilleary and Bryant have yet to do him any damage, and he's now leading in the polls.

All of this is bad news for Harold, Jr., who is running an aggressive campaign of his own. Ford has been bashing away on national security and gas prices, but he's facing an uphill battle, and recent polls show him faring worse against Corker than against either of the other guys, which makes intuitive sense. This race is still anybody's to win, but right now, Corker looks like he's the white boy to beat.