NASHVILLE — Sounding a defiantly populist note, U.S. Rep Zach Wamp, R-Tenn., today questioned the family ties of his gubernatorial foe, Knoxville Mayor Bill Haslam, to Pilot Corp.

“He’s just asking to be our party’s standard bearer and I just think that’s problematic,” Wamp said to a group of reporters. “Our party’s gotten a rap over the past 10 years, whether it’s Wall Street, whether it’s pharmaceuticals.”

Pilot, founded by Mr. Haslam’s father in 1958, is a petroleum company that runs about 300 truck stops in 40 states.

“It’s frankly just the biggest of businesses where our party has gotten a rap for being in bed with the special interests,” Rep. Wamp said.

The congressman’s remarks were made as Republican prepare to assume the reins of power in the entire Tennessee General Assembly for the first time in 140 y ears.

Vowing that his campaign is going to be a “populist, firebrand, work-for-it kind of campaign,” Rep. Wamp said he will appeal to “ordinary, taxpaying, wagon-pulling families.”

Mr. Haslam, whose family members are major GOP fundraisers, has said it will take about $5 million to run in the GOP gubernatorial primary. He has not ruled out relying on his own wealth but has emphasized that he will try to avoid it.

Rep. Wamp said “the fact is, they can have a family meeting and raise three times as much money as I’m going to raise over the entire course of this campaign, which is $5 million.”

For complete details, see tomorrow’s Times Free Press.