Put this in a campaign ad:
Republican Sen. Bob Corker heaped lots of praise Wednesday on one of the candidates looking to succeed him when he leaves office at the end of the year.
Unfortunately for Rep. Marsha Blackburn, the likely GOP nominee for the Tennessee seat, it was Democrat Phil Bredesen who was the beneficiary of Corker’s remarks.
Corker, chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, predicted that Bredesen could appeal to some Republican voters in Tennessee but said he doesn’t know if that will be enough for him to win the race.
“I think he’s got real appeal — I don’t think it, I know it,” Corker told reporters Wednesday at a Christian Science Monitor breakfast meeting in Washington. “The question is, in a state like ours that is still a red state, is it enough? I don’t know the answer to that.”
Corker, a two-term senator who decided not to seek re-election, said he plans to vote for Blackburn in November. But he said he won’t campaign against Bredesen, a former Tennessee governor and former Nashville mayor whom Corker has worked with and considers a friend.
“He was a very good mayor, a very good governor, a very good business person,” Corker said.
While Corker has endorsed Blackburn, don’t expect him on the campaign trail:
"I'm not going to campaign against someone who I've been a friend with and worked with, you know? So that's the way it's going to be," Corker said at a Christian Science Monitor breakfast. Corker has declined to run for a third Senate term in November.
Despite the challenges Bredesen faces in a state President Donald Trump won with more than 60 percent of the vote, Corker told reporters he thinks the former governor has about a 6 percentage point advantage in the race right now. The winner of the seat will help to determine whether Republicans hold or expand their narrow 51-seat majority in the Senate.
Corker also told the audience that "any Republican senator who hasn't been conflicted over this presidency is either comatose or is pretty useless in their blindness."
Democrats face a daunting task in trying to take the Senate. The party's senators and independents who caucus with them will defend 26 seats in November, including 10 in states Trump carried in 2016. Republicans only face re-election in nine states.
A competitive Tennessee race could change the calculus for the parties. Democrat Doug Jones' special election win in deep-red Alabama last year not only narrowed the GOP majority in the upper chamber but also gave Democrats hopes about competing in more challenging states this year.
Corker has shown some support for Blackburn, who has served in Congress since 2003 and pledged to back Trump's agenda. On Wednesday, he said he sent her campaign a contribution check for an undisclosed amount of money, adding that he is "supportive." However, he said he never had the close working relationship with Blackburn that he did with Bredesen.
And U.S. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R. KY) is having a hissy fit over this:
Republican tensions have flared even in contests where there are no competitive primaries. Corker lavished praise Wednesday on Tennessee’s leading Democratic contender, former governor Phil Bredesen, calling him “a very good mayor, a very good governor, a very good business person,” who could win in November.
The remarks set off alarm bells at the highest levels of the Republican Party and supporters of the leading GOP candidate in the race, Rep. Marsha Blackburn, interpreted them as a personal slight. McConnell’s allies spoke with White House aides about organizing a public response.
President Trump called Blackburn on Wednesday from his club in Palm Beach, Fla., and told her he disagreed with Corker’s comments and promised to help her campaign, according to two people familiar with the call who requested anonymity to speak candidly. Trump tweeted his endorsement of Blackburn on Thursday afternoon.
McConnell and Corker, who has said he will support Blackburn, had a lengthy discussion on the Senate floor Wednesday about his remarks, according to three people with knowledge of the conversation. McConnell told Corker his comments were unhelpful — both in the Tennessee race and in the larger battle for the Senate majority, the individuals said.
McConnell also reminded Corker that Republicans were in the current situation only because Corker had decided to retire. Bredesen, a top Democratic recruit, entered the race after Corker bowed out. The conversation did not end on a confrontational note, the individuals said.
Corker declined to comment on the conversation, as did a representative for McConnell.
But Democrats have seized on Corker’s comments as a boon for their chances in November. “I’m glad he’s sharing his views with the people of Tennessee,” said Sen. Chris Van Hollen (Md.), who chairs the Democratic Senate election effort. “He’s got a lot of credibility. He’s also giving firsthand testimony.”
Of course, the clown who couldn’t get Rick Saccone, Luther Strange and pedophile Roy Moore elected will hit the campaign trail for Blackburn:
President Donald Trump endorsed Republican Rep. Marsha Blackburnin Tennessee's Senate race on Thursday and committed to campaigning for her.
The president's tweet of support for the congresswoman came a day after outgoing GOP Sen. Bob Corker said he would not campaign against former Gov. Phil Bredesen, the leading Democratic candidate in the race. Trump called Blackburn a "wonderful woman who has always been there when we needed her."
Trump aims to give a boost to Blackburn in a red-state race Republicans cannot afford to lose in November. She became the preferred Republican candidate in the race after Corker declined to run for a third term. Trump had pushed Corker, an ally of the president who occasionally offers criticism of him, to run for office again.
Republicans hope to keep or expand their 51-seat majority in the Senate and have a favorable path to doing so as 26 Democrats or independents who caucus with them face re-election. Only nine Republican incumbents have to run this year.
Of course Republicans are worried about losing this seat after what happened in Alabama. Of course it’s still a red state but Bredesen’s campaign manager, Bob Corney, sounds very confident about Bredesen’s path to victory:
In his two gubernatorial campaigns in the 2000s, Bredesen was able to pick up some Republican support.
Bredesen campaign manager Corney said in his memo that "we are running a hyper-local campaign that focuses on the issues that affect Tennesseans every day, in all corners of the state. Our campaign is reaching out to Democrats, Independents and Republicans alike — the winning formula that helped deliver all 95 counties in Bredesen's previous campaign and the bipartisan approach that made him a successful Governor."
Corney also points to efforts to get Corker to re-enter the Senate contest, saying it "created an awkward situation" for Blackburn "while others began openly questioning whether she can win."
And he touts what he calls Bredesen's "cross-over appeal."
But the Blackburn campaign and other Republicans believe Tennessee is a far more red state than Bredesen encountered either in his 2002 campaign and 2006 re-election effort. Trump won Tennessee by 60.7 percent over Democrat Hillary Clinton's 34.7 percent.
The campaign and GOP allies plan to do their best to link Bredesen to Democrats in Washington.
Republicans are eager to tie Bredesen to Nancy Pelosi because Bredesen has spoken out against the GOP Tax Scam:
Still, there are clear policy differences between Mr. Bredesen and the president. Mr. Bredesen said Mr. Trump’s promised wall along the border with Mexico was “political theater, not anything practical.” He also criticized the Republican tax overhaul for providing “crumbs” to the middle class — echoing a description previously used by Ms. Pelosi that Republicans eagerly seized on.
“I think they did something which was clever politically, but I couldn’t have swallowed morally, which is I think they threw a few crumbs to the middle class to give these huge breaks to wealthier people and corporations and so on,” Mr. Bredesen said. “And I think I would have called that out as strongly as I possibly could have.”
Ms. Blackburn speaks proudly of the tax overhaul, and she has allowed little distance between her and Mr. Trump.
“What we need in the U.S. Senate is a senator who is going to stand with President Donald Trump,” she told the crowd at a county Republican Party dinner in Murfreesboro this month, where a handful of young supporters wore red T-shirts that said “Marsha Marsha Marsha” on the back.
Let’s stick it to McConnell and help Corker’s friend win. Click here to donate and get involved with Bredesen’s campaign.