Corker-Blackburn drama risks must-win Senate seat for GOP
The GOP incumbent’s kind words for former Democratic Gov. Phil Bredesen have given centrist Republicans tacit permission to break ranks.
By BURGESS EVERETT and RACHAEL BADE 05/03/2018 05:00 AM EDT
Republicans are increasingly unnerved by the rift between retiring Sen. Bob Corker and Marsha Blackburn, the GOP congresswoman vying to replace him, saying it could cost them a must-win seat in Tennessee.
The duo’s chilly relationship has spilled into the open after Corker praised Blackburn’s Democratic opponent and refused to even utter her name in multiple media appearances this spring. The retiring senator’s remarks have boosted former Democratic Gov. Phil Bredesen and agitated Blackburn’s supporters, who want Corker to help heal the state party, not inflame its divisions.
Corker’s lukewarm support for Blackburn is more than an annoyance: The center-right coalition he represents is critical to Blackburn’s prospects in the race. But Chamber of Commerce-type Republicans are generally fond of Bredesen and his past stint as the state’s governor, seeing him as a pragmatic get-things-done kind of pol, as opposed to a hard-edged conservative ideologue in Blackburn.
“He’s a person that would get things done,” Tom Cigarran, a former Corker donor and chairman of the Nashville Predators hockey team, said of Bredesen in an interview Wednesday. “Marsha Blackburn, not so much.” Cigarran, who credited Bredesen with revitalizing downtown Nashville and reforming Medicaid, is backing the former Democratic governor and said people in his social and political circles are, too — “unless they are far-right fanatics.”
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https://www.politico.com/story/2018/05/03/tennessee-corker-blackburn-senate-republicans-565945
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