WASHINGTON - The parade of presidential hopefuls marching through Tennessee this year has been almost exclusively Republican as candidates in the crowded GOP field fight to gain a foothold in a state that has been reliably red in each of the past four presidential elections.
But the battle for the Democratic nomination begins in earnest today when the party's front-runner, Hillary Rodham Clinton, makes her first campaign swing through the state with appearances in Memphis and Nashville.
The last time Clinton ran for president, she easily carried the Volunteer State by beating a young Democratic senator named Barack Obama by more than 83,300 votes. But her backers say her return today is a sign she's taking nothing for granted in her latest quest for the White House - not even Tennessee, where she ran so strongly in 2008 and where one recent poll gave her a solid 44-16 lead over her most formidable challenger, U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders of Vermont.
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