The Knoxville News-Sentinel
January 19, 2006
Harwell Keeps Option of Running Open
By Tom Humphrey
NASHVILLE - Despite a statement issued a day earlier, Republican state Rep. Beth Harwell said Wednesday that she has not ruled out running against Gov. Phil Bredesen this fall.
A poll conducted for Bredesen, meanwhile, shows the incumbent is the state’s most popular politician among those mentioned in the survey. A summary presented to Bredesen campaign activists last weekend and provided to media showed Bredesen getting a positive rating from 60 percent of Tennesseans versus 38 percent negative.
The same survey showed Harwell with a 9 percent positive rating and a 5 percent negative rating with others having no opinion - apparently because they do not know her.
In an interview, former state GOP chairman Harwell said her final decision on whether to become a candidate for governor likely will not come until shortly before the April 6 deadline for filing papers to enter the race.
“April is the question. A lot can happen between now and then,” she said. “If there is another good person who is looking at the race, I want that person to feel free to step forward.”
But Harwell said she believes it “extremely important for the whole process, for the whole state” that Republicans field a qualified and credible candidate against Democrat Bredesen. If no such person steps forward by April, Harwell said she had not flatly ruled out the possibility of putting her name back in contention.
Harwell said last year she was considering a run for the Republican gubernatorial nomination and would give her decision in January. Late Tuesday, she sent out a statement to media that was widely interpreted as meaning she would stay out of the race, but she was not available for elaboration afterwards.
Here is the full text of that statement:
“I have been encouraged to consider a bid for governor. Over the holidays my family and I decided that, for now, my work is in the State House, and I intend to do everything I can to ensure a better Tennessee for our children and our grandchildren.
“I can think of no higher honor than to serve the people of Tennessee as their governor. But right now my focus is helping to restore trust on Capitol Hill and in state government.”
When asked to elaborate Wednesday at the state capitol, where legislators are holding a special session on ethics, Harwell initially smiled and simply said, “I stand by my statement.”
But when pressed, she acknowledged that including phrases such as “for now” and “right now” stopped well short of bowing completely out of the race and that she had not done so.
“I take it that she’s somewhat leaving those options open,” said state Republican Chairman Bob Davis, who said he discussed the statement with Harwell.
“She’s going to focus on her task at hand right now, which is to try and come up with the best ethics legislation we can have and help clean up a little of the problem on Capitol Hill,” Davis said. “We’ll see what happens then after time goes by.”
