GOP Chairman Aids Governor’s Petition Push
A hamhanded attack by Tennessee Republican Party Chairman Bob Davis steered thousands of additional supporters to the Bredesen for Governor online nominating petition over the weekend. The background: On Friday, Davis and conservative bloggers attacked Bredesen’s re-elect campaign over an email blast sent earlier in the week. Their claim: The campaign violated state law after a technical error resulted in 0.3% of the emails being inadvertently sent to a handful of state employee email accounts. Of course, the attack was bogus. But media and Internet coverage of the criticism generated a 450% increase in traffic to Bredesen’s campaign web site over the next 36 hours. The net result: Between Friday night and Sunday morning, more than 3,300 Internet users rushed to add their names to Bredesen’s online petition. So much for Davis’ surgical strike. Meanwhile, with 280 days left until the November 7 general election, the GOP continues searching for a credible candidate.
