- JB
- U.S. Rep. Zach Wamp
Zach Wamp, the Chattanooga congressman who’s one of four Republican candidates for governor, was in Memphis for two days this past week, and he promises he’ll stick to a pace of visiting Memphis and Shelby County for “two days every month until I’m governor.”
Some of the stops for Wamp during his Thursday/Friday stop over were: a meet-and-greet in Collierville, appearances on the Ben Ferguson show on WREC and at meetings of Guns and Ammo and the NRA, a get-together with local supporters at the Crescent club, and a Friday morning tour of the Kipp Academy, a local charter school.
After the Kipp Academy tour, he talked briefly with the Flyer, citing his recent endorsement by the conservative organization Red State (which he quoted as saying, “the last thing we need is any more squishy moderates in the state of Tennessee.”
Wamp also indulged in some speculation about possible future-tense dropouts from the Republican gubernatorial field by Lt. Governor Ron Ramsey and District Attorney General Bill Gibbons of Memphis. He himself vowed to stay in “whether Ramsey stays in and whether Gibbons stays in” or whether the GOP primary is “a two-man race, a three-man race, or a four-man race.”
As for presumed Republican frontrunner Bill Haslam, the mayor of Knoxville, Wamp said the “question of the race for October” that he got from people on the stump was, ‘We know you would make the best governor, but what about Haslam’s money?’” Wamp concluded about the Haslam campaign, “If that’s all they have after ten months of campaigning, that’s an empty suit.”
More on Haslam: “His money’s going to give him some name recognition, but there’s not much to connect the money to.” As for Haslam’s door-to-door campaigning in Bartlett last month, Wamp was scornful: “That’s a Tom Ingram stunt. It’s trying to make a rich guy look like a regular person.”
