GOP Eats Its Own in Senate Primary
An already bloody Republican primary for the U.S. Senate seat being vacated by Majority Leader Bill Frist became even bloodier last week when state Representative Chris Clem, a right-wing firebrand from Hamilton County, ripped former Chattanooga Mayor Bob Corker for his long-standing habit of “systematically and consistently” opposing conservative initiatives and Tennessee Republican Party Chairman Bob Davis reminded voters that former Congressman Van Hilleary missed a number of votes in Washington during his failed attempt to become governor of Tennessee in 2002. Clem’s attack came in the form of an email he sent to a group of friends, including several unnamed state legislators. Clem later expanded his broadside, which is published on the TeamGOP blog under the title “20 Years and 20 Reasons Why Many Republicans May Boycott Corker in a General Election.”
Among the 20 reasons, Clem lists: “When Corker became Gov. Sundquist’s Finance Commissioner, Corker made several comments that led many [R]epublican state legislators to believe that Corker supported an income tax and was quite possibly the motivation behind Sundquist’s eventual move for an income tax”; “In 2001, when Bob Corker was first elected [m]ayor, the first thing he did was raise taxes. He was smart enough to realize that if he raised taxes early then he could run for re-election as [m]ayor or for the U.S. Senate in subsequent years long after the memory of him raising taxes had faded. Corker learned this from Sundquist, whose attempt to raise taxes just before leaving office proved disastrous”; and “Consider the long list of [R]epublican state legislators who have endorsed Ed Bryant or Van Hilleary. Compare that to the legislators who have endorsed Bob Corker. You would think the front runner and 800-pound [gorilla] would have the most endorsements. It is not even close. Those that have worked with all three and been in back rooms with all three overwhelmingly do not prefer Corker.”
As for Hilleary, he was socked in the nose by a blindly thrown roundhouse that Davis intended for Harold Ford, Jr., the Democratic contender for the U.S. Senate. On Wednesday, the Tennessee Republican Party shot out a press release in which Davis attempted to criticize Ford for missing votes during the current session of Congress. However, the widely reported story focused on Hilleary’s voting record during his last session in Congress, when he ran unsuccessfully against Phil Bredesen to become Tennessee’s governor. In 2002, Roll Call listed Hilleary as a Congressman that “regularly skipped roll call votes to hit the campaign trail.” Hilleary missed 81 of 231 votes from June 5 to Oct. 5, 2002. According to the paper, other House members during that period missed an average of 12 votes. On October 20, 2002, the Knoxville News-Sentinel, quoting a press release from Bredesen’s campaign, noted, “Since Labor Day, Hilleary’s attendance record has only gotten worse. Hilleary missed 69 of 100 votes cast between Sept. 4 and Oct. 16. That’s just 31 percent attendance at a time when Hilleary takes home $150,000 a year in federal pay from the taxpayers.” A Bredesen campaign official told the Chattanooga Times Free Press, “For the average Tennessean, this is the equivalent of working a day-and-a-half during a five-day work week. If the congressman was working in a real job for a private company, like most Tennesseans do, he could never get away with this.”
This is not the first time that Hilleary has been berated for his less-than-exemplary work ethic while a member of Congress. In March, Hilleary’s boss in the U.S. House of Representatives, former Majority Leader Dick Armey, told reporters, “I just didn’t find Van to be the guy that was attending to work. . . . Van, just frankly, didn’t show up. He was there in town. He was present at a lot of places where the TV cameras were, but he wasn’t at the House, in his office, in the committee rooms, someplace where the real workers were.”
