Weston WampOff to a rocky start
U.S. Rep. Chuck Fleischmann must feel like the luckiest guy in the world. He doesn’t have to say a word but looks better in the public’s eyes because his opponent in the upcoming Republican congressional primary just shelled out $37,000 for a splashy recreational vehicle that will be his mobile headquarters and then was revealed to have secretly recorded a conversation about the campaign with a former opponent.
Not many 20-somethings like Weston Wamp can peel off $37,000 for a 7-ton RV that he says will be part mobile headquarters, part meeting space and part hotel-on-wheels in the run-up to the 3rd Congressional District primary race in August.
To be sure, there’s nothing wrong with 20-somethings having the money for an RV or for the idea to use it to visit people in the spacious district’s 11 counties. But in a ever-so- slowly improving economy, fancy RVs that get 11 miles per gallon and cost nearly $40,000 don’t endear him to people struggling to make ends meet.
Lamar Alexander’s walk across Tennessee in a red plaid shirt during his successful 1978 gubernatorial race and Fred Thompson’s cross-state trek in a red pickup truck during his 1994 U.S. Senate race, campaign strategies both, probably connected better with the average Tennessean.
But maybe 2014’s pickup truck is a tricked-out RV.