View our 2018 Voter Guide
Tennessee Republicans can feel fortunate they have an embarrassment of riches in their gubernatorial primary to replace term-limited Republican Bill Haslam. Six names are on the ballot, four of those are competitive, and all four have diverse backgrounds and unique strengths.
Of the four, we believe Franklin businessman Bill Lee offers a history of running and growing a company, the experience of being a fourth-generation farmer and an outsider’s perspective on the office of governor.
We also appreciate that he has chosen not to be involved in what seems like daily negative campaign exchanges between perceived front-runners Randy Boyd, a Knoxville businessman whose ideas we also very much admire, and U.S. Rep. Diane Black.
“I think dishonest attack ads are everything that is wrong with politics,” Lee told this page earlier this week. “It’s not something leaders with integrity do. [The ads are] divisive, and they do much more harm than good.”
Although recent independent polls on the campaign have been few, the man who terms himself the “conservative outsider” appears to have momentum in the race. We hope that will allow voters who originally considered Boyd or Black to take a look at the seventh-generation Tennessean.