Republican gubernatorial hopeful Bill Haslam will begin broadcast TV advertising in at least the Chattanooga media market for a 16-day period beginning Feb. 12, the Chattanooga Times Free Press has learned.
“I know they have placed a buy for February and the Olympics are a big part of that,” said WRCB-TV Channel 3’s president and general manager Tom Tolar this morning, confirming several sources’ accounts that Knoxville Mayor Haslam’s campaign is starting campaign advertising.
WRCB is an affiliate of NBC which is broadcasting the Olympic games. They start Feb. 12. The buy includes at least one other Chattanooga television station, WDEF-TV Channel 12.
Reports are it is a statewide buy. In an e-mailed statement to the Times Free Press, Haslam campaign spokesman David Smith declined to go into specifics about the buy.
“We’ve got a plan in place,” Mr. Smith said. “This is part of that plan, and people will see it unfold over the course of the campaign.”
According to his latest campaign financial report, Mayor Haslam was sitting on $4.22 million in campaign cash as of Jan. 15, giving him a huge advantage over other Republican and Democratic candidates. The Haslam campaign now appears ready to exploit that.
In a July poll commissioned by his campaign, U.S. Rep. Zach Wamp, R-Tenn., said he had far greater name identification than GOP rivals Haslam, Lt. Gov. Ron Ramsey and Shelby County District Attorney Bill Gibbons.
Andy Sher is a Nashville-based staff writer covering Tennessee state government and politics for the Times Free Press. A Washington correspondent from 1999-2005 for the Times Free Press, Andy previously headed up state Capitol coverage for The Chattanooga Times, worked as a state Capitol reporter for The Nashville Banner and was a contributor to The Tennessee Journal, among other publications. Andy worked for 17 years at The Chattanooga Times covering police, health care, county government, ...
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