May 20, 2005

Is Bredesen Really Vulnerable?

Nashville Scene political writer Roger Abramson says Tennessee Gov. Phil Bredesen will "win in a walk" in his re-election bid next year. Matt White insists Bredesen is vulnerable. For the record, Roger is often right, but this time I think Matt is. Bredesen is clearly vulnerable. Abramson notes that Bredesen currently has good "approval" numbers among Republican voters - but those voters were asked their opinion of Bredesen in a vacuum as there is as yet no declared Republican challenger. They may well be giving Bredesen high marks in part because they are comparing him to his disastrous predecessor, Gov. Don Sundquist. But Sundquist set a very low bar.

Give them a choice between Bredesen and a bona fide conservative Republican challenger - and not just a "thumbs-up or thumbs-down" question about Bredesen - and Bredesen's numbers among Republicans are likely to drop.

Meanwhile, the 2006 ballot will include the proposed amendment to solidify the state's current legal definition of marriage, bring social conservatives to the polls in large numbers.

And Bredesen's support has already dropped sharply in West Tennessee, where a Democrat must do well to win statewide. It is dropping in West Tennessee because of Bredesen's disastrous handling of TennCare.

Right now, Bredesen is poised to give more than 320,000 Tennesseans a reason to vote against him, by cutting that many poor, sick, old and disabled people from the TennCare rolls. Demographically, a large majority of those 323,000 people are likely to be Democratic voters. And many of them have family who will be hit with huge financial burdens and a great deal of mental anguish and anxiety when Bredesen tosses them off the TennCare rolls.

It's happening because Bredesen broke his promise to reform TennCare.

Bredesen only won the governor's mansion by a scant 50,417 votes out of the 1.6 million cast. A well-funded Republican challenger who convinces those 323,000 souls that she or he "will keep the promise Phil broke" on TennCare might just erase that margin.

And then there is specter of a income tax. Bredesen left the door wide open to the income tax in a second term. That leaves a large opening for any GOP challenger to hammer home this simple and undeniable message:

The only way to guarantee Bredesen won't push for an income tax in the second term is to deny him a second term.