There were two reasons that Haslam beat Zach Wamp (and neither had anything to do with the snarky and smarmy editorial commentary on the Wamp campaign by Harry Austin of the Times-Free Press). The first, obviously, was money; Haslam spent a lot, more than twice of his opponents combined, and money helps build name recognition.

The second was the fact that Haslam has executive experience, while Wamp has been a legislator. Governors are executives, period, and while I believe that Zach could have learned on the job, there are real differences between the jobs done by legislators and executives, and Haslam had a leg up in that department.

Granted, in 1994 Don Sundquist defeated Phil Bredesen, and Sundquist was a congressman and Bredesen was the mayor of Nashville, but that was an extraordinary Republican year, and I think that had Sundquist been a trash collector, he still might have won. I’m not sure how that will work this year, given that while President Obama and the Democrats in Congress are unpopular, I have no idea if that public anger is going to translate to the Tennessee governor’s race.

However, the Democrats have a much different problem and while McWherter, who has a large beer distributorship, is the son of the original “Boss Hogg” himself, Gov. Ned Ray McWherter and has a lot of name recognition, especially among Democrats, he never has run for office before. Just as I would not try to take over McWherter’s business tomorrow, I find it difficult to believe that a guy can run straight from a business to the governor’s office.

There are a couple of things that are important to remember. First, experience matters and while Knoxville is an East Tennessee city, and the three divisions of the state are important in Tennessee, nonetheless he does have statewide support and he does know how to campaign. Lest anyone think that name recognition is enough, I give you Bob Clement, who did not win an election of any account until he was elected to Congress in Nashville, which ALWAYS votes Democratic.

(I still have not forgotten that the General Assembly actually carved a West Tennessee congressional district especially for Clement, and he still managed to lose the election in 1982 — a really bad year for Republicans — to Sundquist. Having seen Clement myself on the stump, I am not surprised that he lost.)

In other words, name recognition can go only so far, and then experience and campaigning begin. Now, I suspect that McWherter can do some serious fundraising, and he did not have to spend anything close, being unopposed in the Democratic primary, to what Haslam did to win the Republican contest. However, I doubt seriously that McWherter can outspend Haslam, so he really will have to out-campaign him.

While politics may run in McWherter’s blood, it is one thing campaigning for one’s father — an extremely able politician, and one of the best I have seen — and actually following on the footsteps of one’s father. Remember that before he was elected governor in 1986, Ned Ray McWherter was Tennessee Speaker of the House for many years and was perhaps the most powerful politician in the state even before becoming governor.

Then there is this thing about a beer distributorship. Now, I really don’t care much what McWherter does for a living unless he is a federal prosecutor, given that I believe most pimps are more honorable these days than U.S. attorneys, but I see that McWherter already is trying to blunt the edge, at least among the tee-totaling Baptists and Methodists of Tennessee.

His Web site says he has a beverage distributorship, without mentioning what beverages he is selling.

Furthermore, because of the politics associated with regulation of alcoholic beverages, beer distributorships often tend to be very political in nature. For example, when Jesse Jackson threatened Anheuser-Busch with a loud boycott, the company quietly created a lucrative distributorship in the Chicago area and gave it to Jackson’s son.

So, it is one thing in my view to build a successful business like Pilot Oil and quite another to get a beer distributorship. Now, this says nothing about the skills of either man, but I am thinking out loud and am wondering how well the “I am a successful businessman” line will play in the McWherter campaign.

There is one unfortunate thing I believe will be part of this campaign, and that is near-nihilistic negative advertising. While McWherter is a Democrat, he hardly is an Obama Democrat, and Haslam is not exactly a Tea Party type. Thus, their actual political positions are not going to be that far apart, and that means that the voters are going to be inundated with pretty useless information, such as McWherter’s claim that Haslam is “hiding something” because he doesn’t put all of Pilot’s finances on a Web site. Gee, I doubt that McWherter is going to tell us everything about himself, either.

So, while McWherter no doubt will be a spirited campaigner, I figure that Haslam will get the nod from the voters. Experience is going to matter in this election.

­—Bill Anderson

In my thinking, that “something else” always was running for the U.S. Senate, not governor of Tennessee. It generally is a more natural move to go from a U.S. Representative to the Senate, although in 1994, Don Sundquist made the move that Wamp wants to do, winning the gubernatorial election and defeating current Tennessee Governor Phil Bredesen in the process.

But, here we are just weeks away from the primaries, and next month, voters will decide if the Republican nominee will be Wamp or Bill Haslam, mayor of Knoxville. My sense is that the real election is the Republican primary, and whoever wins is going to be the next governor.

Obviously, Haslam will outspend Zach, although I think that Wamp has done an impressive job of raising money, and certainly his campaign is not broke. Nonetheless, it is hard to win elections when one’s opponent has deeper pockets, and I think that Zach knew this would be an uphill fight no matter what.

Although the polls have Haslam in a double-digit lead, my sense is that Zach has gained in recent weeks and it remains to be seen whether or not he can pass Haslam, who in my view is a very strong candidate. Should Wamp win the nomination and the election, what kind of leadership do I think he would provide? I will try to answer that question in this column.

Wamp’s experience for the past 16 years has been as a legislator and a dealmaker. Obviously, there is nothing wrong with either, and while I have not agreed with all of Zach’s votes (his support for the ill-conceived TARP comes to mind, although I suspect he would like to have back that vote), I do think that his overall voting record has been positive and certainly better than what we have seen from the current Congressional leadership.

However, as governor, Zach cannot legislate; he must be an administrator, and an administrator that is effective enough not only to deal with executive branch agencies, but also to work with the legislature. I’m not sure which job is more difficult, to be honest, but having spent almost all of his political life as an elected representative, I am sure that Zach has insights into dealing with the members of the Tennessee General Assembly.

There is one thing that Wamp cannot do: engage in deficit spending. Unlike the federal government, which has been running deficits for years, states and localities must balance their budgets or go broke. They cannot borrow their way out of such a situation, and they certainly cannot print money.

Because the policies of the Obama administration are going to guarantee that the U.S. economy will be in the tank for a long time, whoever becomes the next governor of Tennessee is going to be dealing with budget crises, and that also means that the main newspapers and a lot of other “progressives” are going to demand a state income tax. That is guaranteed.

Interestingly, many of the states with the worst budget problems also have high income tax rates, which serve to encourage the legislatures (and governors) to spend beyond their means. So, while I know that there will be the pressure to enact an income tax, nonetheless Tennesseeans will be better off without one, and I hope that either Zach or Haslam remembers that simple truth.

So, what kind of governor will Zach be if he wins the election? I believe that he has too much energy and too much political experience to be a failure. In fact, I believe that Wamp, if elected, will be a highly effective governor and in a few years, people will be throwing his name around for the Republican nomination for president.

Since I have not talked to Zach in many years, I have no idea if that is his goal: to be president of the United States. If he wishes to go that route, certainly he will have a better shot as governor of Tennessee than as a representative or even a senator. But if he wants to be president, he first needs to win the primary, which means he has to come from behind to do it.

I don’t have a crystal ball, and while I follow the news in Tennessee more than I follow the news in Maryland, nonetheless I cannot make a prediction. Zach is an excellent campaigner, a good stump speaker, and is very charismatic, especially in person. Whether or not that makes up for the financial advantages that Haslam enjoys, plus Haslam’s connections across the state, is something that the voters will decide.

Now, that district is outside the purvey of East Tennessee, but nonetheless I believe that Ms. Scott sets a good example, and I hope that others in the eastern portion of the Nation’s Greatest State pay attention to her. She is not running as a Republican or Democrat, but rather an “independent,” and really a Libertarian. While that will cost her some votes, I hope that the voters of that district pay attention to the person and not the party.

Who is Heather Scott? She was born in Texas but went to Middle Tennessee State University in Murfreesboro and from there the transformation from Texan to Tennessean was not difficult. (Texas also has a place of higher education that calls itself UT and has burnt orange for a color. The last time I was there, I was a member of the True UT track team that won the NCAA championships in 1974.)

For the last eight years, she has served on the Wilson County Commission, which means this is someone who actually knows how to run a political campaign and be elected. (Libertarians often know how to run for office, but rarely get elected.) Furthermore, she has tried to remain true to her libertarian principles, and that can be difficult when one is in a governing situation.

I visited her Web site, electheatherscott.com, and found it to be refreshing. There were no promises that she would find clever ways to tax others so that her district could receive money it had not earned. Instead we find someone who actually cares about liberty, private property rights, the right to bear arms and more. On her philosophy of governing, she writes:

“The protection of individual rights is the only proper purpose of government. Government is constitutionally limited to prevent the infringement of individual rights by the government itself. Individuals are in control over their own lives and no one should be forced to sacrifice his or her values for the benefit of others. As long as they are not forcibly interfering with the rights of others, Tennesseans should be free to pursue their own dreams in their own ways, without interference from government.”

When is the last time you read something like that on a politician’s Web site? And there’s more:

“Property owners have the full right to control, use, dispose of, or in any manner enjoy, their property without interference, unless the exercise of their control infringes upon the valid rights of others. I am opposed to all government interference with private property, such as confiscation and eminent domain, and support the prohibition of robbery, trespass, fraud and misrepresentation. After the Supreme Court decision in 2005 where the Court held that the economic benefit a community might receive from private development qualified as “public use” under the Takings Clause of the Fifth Amendment, I sponsored a resolution approved by the Wilson County Commission which prohibits the enactment of eminent domain for private use in Wilson County. As State Representative, I will support a similar ban on the state level.”

This tells me two things. First, she respects private property rights and sees them as a larger issue regarding liberty. Second, she understands that the states need to deal with things like eminent domain as opposed to trying to convince Congress to do something about the outrage the U.S. Supreme Court gave us five years ago.

I have no idea how much political support Ms. Scott has, but I hope that she has enough to be elected. The important thing is that she does have a political record and has been an elected official. Winning an election — any election — is key to understanding the electoral process.

All too often, Libertarians run for office knowing they will lose and lose big. I have had two good friends in Alabama running for statewide office as Libertarians, and while they garnered a large number of votes — by far larger than most Libertarians had received in that state — nonetheless they never had a chance to win.

Ms. Wilson strikes me as someone who is running to win, and I hope she does. We need voices in government that remind us that elected officials are not our masters, and it is their job to protect our rights, not to take them away.

Dr. William L. Anderson is an assistant professor of economics.  A native of Chattanooga, he received his bachelor’s degree in communications from the University of Tennessee, his master’s degree in economics from Clemson University and his Ph.D. in economics from Auburn University.

An accomplished writer, Anderson has written for national publications such as Reason Magazine.  He has served as a reporter and editorial writer on the staff of ETBJ for over 18 years.

In another profile this month, I look at Bill Haslam, mayor of Knoxville and someone with Orange Blood, which matches my blood type as well. Thus, when I think of Bill, I think of UT football, basketball and, of course, the Lady Vols. But there is more to Tennessee than East Tennessee (or, at least I think that might be the case).

Yes, yes, I know he went to Emory University in Atlanta, but nonetheless I don’t think he cheers for the Gators or the Crimson Tide, and his family is one of the most important UT boosters. (Now, I like boosters, as when I was at UT on the track team. We had a nice, big budget and had a nationally-oriented program. Boosters played a role in that situation, so don’t diss UT boosters in my presence.)

Of course, Haslam is not running for the office of Top UT Booster, nor is he about to be president of the UT System, a job that seems to have had its problems in recent years. Instead, he is running for governor, and he is running on his record as the mayor of Knoxville for the past seven years. In fact, as I see it, the Republican gubernatorial primary this year is reminiscent of the 1994 general election in which Congressman Don Sundquist was running against Nashville Mayor Phil Bredesen.

Obviously, there are differences. For one, Bredesen and Sundquist were in opposite parties, while Haslam and Zach Wamp are both Republicans. However, we have a battle between an executive and a legislator, and the issues surrounding them really are thematic in politics and deserve a harder look.

Unfortunately, from what I can tell, Haslam supporters in and out of the media have decided to resort to the Marilyn Lloyd tactics of nearly two decades ago when she narrowly defeated Zach in the 1992 3rd District Congressional election. It was in that campaign that Lloyd’s camp showed the infamous “mug shot” of Wamp, taken when he was arrested many years before at an altercation. The charges were dropped. It was actually illegal to use that picture, but this is Congress and so Lloyd broke a law in order to be elected so she could help make more laws. Yeah, go figure.

So, what has appeared at various newspaper offices this year? Oh, the mug shot. Forget the fact that it was taken more two decades ago and forget the fact that Wamp has put together a good record as a member of Congress. And forget the fact that he has not engaged in egregious conduct while in Washington and has forged a good personal reputation.

No, Tennesseans are supposed to vote for Haslam because cops took a mug shot of Zach Wamp during the 1980s.

However, I know that Haslam wants to win the primary, and it is all the rage to demonize one’s opponent. But I also want to know what Haslam will do if elected, not just what kinds of pictures his supporters in and out of the media stoop to distribute. So, I have looked at Haslam’s campaign Web site to see what I could glean from the positive face he puts on for voters.

In looking over his issues page, I do find myself more hopeful than what I have seen regarding the negative side of his campaign. For example, he is much more open to home schooling and educational alternatives than most Democrats are going to be, as they are tied to the teachers’ unions and other groups that continue to march their bands into the wall and wonder why they aren’t going anywhere.

Furthermore, I appreciate his business experience, as the guy actually has made a payroll and knows the difference between a profit and a loss. Furthermore, Knoxville has the reputation of being a well-run city, and I always like going back there for my track team reunions and the like. That he says he does not support an income tax is a good thing, for if Tennessee ever implements an income tax, we can bet that sooner or later the sales taxes (after being cut initially) will go up again.

Now, I am not much of a “good government” type, as I think that “good” and “government” are oxymorons. Nonetheless, I prefer a governor who actually is thinking “economy,” as opposed to the wild spendthrifts in California and my residential state of Maryland. One can bet that if he is governor, Bill Haslam will not run Tennessee into the ground financially.

On health care, it somewhat is a wash, although I do appreciate his stand on malpractice reform, and I think he makes more sense than do most people in government when it comes to government-funded health care. (He could be Mitt Romney of Romneycare fame, who created a state version of Obamacare, both of which are disasters.) I also appreciate his stand on opposing unfunded mandates. (Are there any other kinds coming from Washington?)

As for crime, my first reaction to yet another candidate who is “tough on crime” is: please, no.

The goal of a governor should not be to incarcerate as many people as possible, and the way to do that is to put the emphasis on dealing with violent crime, as opposed to spending millions to arrest people for engaging in acts of mutual consent. (I really wish that at least one candidate would run on a “crime” platform that would emphasize the demilitarization of local and state police forces, as opposed to turning them into paramilitary forces, which has been the case.)

So, my assessment of Bill Haslam is mixed in that there are things about him that I like and things that I wish were different. I wish that he would take a higher road in his campaign, as I have the same attitude toward a candidate using Zach’s “mug shot” that I had toward Duke University students who insisted on waving Wal-Mart bags and chanting “Wal-Mart, Wal-Mart” at a member of the UT Lady Vols basketball team a couple years ago. (She had been caught shoplifting on a dare when she was in high school.)

Nonetheless, would he make a good governor for Tennessee? I hope so, for we are in for some rough years ahead, and I want to see good leadership if he is elected in November. I may not live in Tennessee any longer, but it still is my home.

Dr. William L. Anderson is an assistant professor of economics.  A native of Chattanooga, he received his bachelor’s degree in communications from the University of Tennessee, his master’s degree in economics from Clemson University and his Ph.D. in economics from Auburn University.
An accomplished writer, Anderson has written for national publications such as Reason Magazine.  He has served as a reporter and editorial writer on the staff of ETBJ for over 18 years.

No red flags

Not having met Mr. Roberts, I have to go with what I see in the news and also on his campaign Web site, and there is a good bit there that I like. Furthermore, there are not a lot of the red flags that I often see with conservative Republicans. (For example, there is no “tough on crime” portion in which he promises to continue the drift toward federalizing literally every violation of state law, something that I have seen too many times with both Republicans and Democrats.)

Before going into details about his stance on the issues, let us first talk some politics. Mr. Roberts is running for a seat that has been held by Democrats as long as I have been alive, and the only truly close election was in 1994, when Mr. Gordon won by one percent. That is significant, as 1994 was a very exceptional year for Republicans, the year that Zach Wamp first won in the Third District.

It is hard to know what will happen this year. While odds obviously favor the Democratic candidate, continued unhappiness with President Obama is not going to make it easy for a Democrat in Middle Tennessee — or elsewhere in Tennessee —save Nashville and Memphis, which are the Ultimate Democratic Safe Seats.

Historically, voting for Democrats in Roberts’ district has been part of the “yellow dog” tradition, and I am not sure that is going to continue indefinitely. Thus, if there is a year in which a Republican could take this seat, it is 2010. The question, then, is whether or not Mr. Roberts can be successful.

As readers know, I analyze candidates from the point of view of libertarianism, although there is a wide range even there. For example, I could be labeled a “Ron Paul Republican,” which is someone who believes that we need limited government (VERY limited), and the USA should stay out of foreign wars unless we are directly attacked. Neither Democrats nor most Republicans like my points of view, as either I am seen as “favoring the rich,” “favoring corporations against the people,” or “not wanting the United States to be strong abroad.” While these straw phrases don’t accurately describe my political views, nonetheless I understand how my viewpoints are going to be interpreted.

On the issues

That being said, let me analyze Mr. Roberts’ campaign. Professionally, he is a Certified Public Accountant, which I like, as he actually understands things like time value of money and the issues of good and bad assets. My sense is that he sees through the outright criminality of the U.S. Government’s “budget” practices and I surmise that in private conversation, he might wonder where the government gets the moral authority to accuse others of financial fraud.

There is something else I like, and that is his admission of nearly having a major business failure, but being talked out of considering bankruptcy by an elder in his church. (Yes, THAT is something I can appreciate — a church elder that is willing to give tough advice and show tough love.) Why is that important? Simple; it demonstrates character.

A person who is willing to suck it up, delay gratification, and pay off his debts is someone who understands what it means to be someone of his word. There is far too much glibness in public life today. How many members of Congress have actually made a payroll at some time in their lives? I don’t mean a payroll in which the funding comes from the hide of taxpayers.

I don’t know Kerry Roberts, but I guarantee you I can respect a man who has gone through something like a near bankruptcy, who has stared down the real possibility of a humiliating business failure — and come out on the other side. Most members of Congress have absolute contempt for the people who have sent them there, and the people who must produce extra to carry the weight of an Imperial Congress along with an Imperial Presidency. My sense is that if he is elected, Mr. Roberts will show respect for people in his district that is borne from personal experience.

As for the issues, I noted earlier that I don’t see the red flags. Now, he is fairly general in pushing a platform, but that is what one should expect from a candidate for Congress. Furthermore, he is one of the few people who actually understands the specific costs that new congressional mandates place upon businesses — large and small — and he understands the deadweight effect that these laws produce. I guarantee readers of this column that Mr. Roberts’ Democratic opponent will claim the government is not creating enough new burdens.

“First, do no harm”

Primum non nocere, which translated into English means, “First, do no harm,” is a standard phrase in medical ethics. (It often is incorrectly associated with the Hippocratic Oath, which does urge doctors to “abstain” from doing harm.) I believe that in taking the oath of office, each member of Congress should include Primum non nocere along with pledging fealty to the U.S. Constitution.

Certainly, there is no worse enemy of the Constitution than the U.S. Government, and that is because too many members of Congress have caused immeasurable harm.

My sense is that if Mr. Roberts is nominated and wins the general election in November, he will do less harm than his opponents. This is not a backdoor endorsement (I do not do endorsements), but rather a simple observation.