Your are probably right. The chances are small that Tennesseeans would elect a liberal Massachusetts Democrat to high office.

Semi,

Gov. Bredesen has some Massachussets roots and he is a Democrat, but you'd be hard-pressed to find any evidence that he's much of a liberal. On fiscal issues, he has governed like a conservative, holding the line on taxes and slashing spending. He's very pro-business, to the point of pushing through a workers' comp reform that infuriated Big Labor. Now he's taking the budgetary axe and reform hammer to TennCare, the Left's favorite healthcare-giveaway in the nation. (TennCare was created after Hillary's healthcare plan failed and was intended to be a model for the nation. It is a liberal program. And Bredesen is hacking away at it.)

As for social issues, Bredesen is liberal. But he doesn't push a social-issues agenda.

He did push a reform of Tennessee's driver license policy - we had been giving them out to any illegal alien with a forged identity document, homeland security be damned. Bredesen's reform toughens the policy somewhat and gives the state the ability to track illegals. Stupidly, we're still giving illegals the right to drive, but his reform could hardly be called "liberal". Moderate, perhaps.

I don't know about his stance on the Iraq war, but even if he opposed it before the fact or now, I guarantee you that you'll never see him carrying a sign at an International ANSWER protest, or giving a speech like Al Gore's recent rantings.

Do you wonder if Gov. Bredesen would set himself up for a Presidential run after a second term in office (should he be re-elected, which I think at this point appears likely)?

He's not a great Democrat but if they ever wised up and decided to be a little more moderate, he would be an ideal candidate.

Governors have a pretty good success rate of being elected to the Presidency.