NASHVILLE – Charges and counter-charges are flying in the Republican gubernatorial primary as Zach Wamp launched his first television attack ad against rival Bill Haslam, labeling the Knoxville mayor a “billionaire oil man who price-gouged working Tennesseans when we were hurting the most.”
It also takes Mr. Haslam to task for raising property taxes in Knoxville by 15 percent during his first year in office and for having “teamed up with New York Mayor Bloomberg to take away our guns.”
Early voting in the three-man GOP contest between U.S. Rep. Wamp of Chattanooga, Mr. Haslam and Lt. Gov. Ron Ramsey, R-Blountville, began on Friday. The latest public poll in the Aug. 5 primary shows Mr. Haslam ahead although rivals have questioned the survey’s methodology.
Rep. Wamp’s 30-second spot began airing statewide on Friday, according to Wamp spokesman Sam Edelen, who did not address questions about how much the campaign is spending on the ad.
It features Chattanooga businessman Rusty Criminger, who dishes out a folksy yet slashing critique of Mr. Haslam all while sitting down for breakfast at Nikki’s Drive Inn, a Chattanooga eatery.
“Been thinking about our governor’s race here in Tennessee,” Mr. Criminger says in the ad. “This Bill Haslam ain’t our guy. He’s a billionaire oil man who price-gouged working Tennesseans when we were hurting the most. Then blamed his employees.”
Mr. Criminger goes on to say, “Haslam raised taxes in Knoxville 15 percent. Blamed his predecessor. He even teamed up with New York Mayor Bloomberg to take away our guns. And that’s just wrong. Bill Haslam is trying to buy this election, but we just can’t afford a big oil man as our governor.”
Mr. Haslam came back swinging on Saturday in a news release in which he charged the Wamp ad was “grossly distorted and misleading.”
“The congressman knows better,” Mr. Haslam said. “He knows I am a staunch supporter of our Second Amendment rights. He knows Knoxville has the lowest property tax rates in 50 years, and he knows and is on record praising my family’s business for its role in this state as a good corporate and community citizen.”
He said “everything” the congressman did on Friday “… smacked of a desperate, failing campaign throwing Hail Marys – resorting to personal attacks and pleading for more free media time, sure signs of a campaign in trouble.”
The gas-gouging charge stems from April 2009 when the Haslam family’s Pilot Corp. and Pilot Travel Centers chain of truck stops were among 16 companies or individuals that settled with Tennessee Attorney General Bob Cooper over gas-price gouging allegations during Hurricane Ike in 2008.
Prices hit as much as $4.99 at four Knoxville-area Pilot stations. The company was fined by Georgia and Kentucky officials as well.
Mr. Haslam, a former Pilot president, was not in charge of Pilot at the time. But he has an ownership stake in Pilot and steadfastly refuses to specify that is. He also has declined to say how much money he makes from Pilot. While he is described in the Wamp ad as a “billionaire,” the mayor has steadfastly refused to state what his net worth is.
The Haslam campaign supplied past statements from Rep. Wamp in which he once said, “the Scripture says to whomsoever much is given, much is also required. Not many families in the history of our state better personify and exemplify that Scriptural call than the Haslam family.”
Mr. Wamp is also quoted saying Pilot is “like the messenger and not the people in the actual production of petroleum products, but they actually just retail it. But boy do they ever mean a lot to our state.”
As mayor, Mr. Haslam did successfully press the Knoxville City Council for a 35-cent property tax hike during his first year in office. It has been described in media accounts alternately as a 13 percent and a 15 percent hike.
Mr. Haslam previously has said he had no choice given the budget situation he was left. He also has said Knoxville has the lowest property tax rate in 50 years. But Tennessee law requires periodic appraisals of property. As a result, tax rates go down in reaction to rising property values in order to generate the same amount of money.
The mayor did belong to Mayors Against Illegal Guns, a coalition of mayors led by New York’s Michael Bloomberg which seeks curb gun violence in cities.
He quit the group last spring – three months after he began running for governor – amid a hail of criticism from gun-rights advocates. Mr. Haslam said he had never been really active in the group and felt it had changed its direction substantially from what it was when he initially joined it.
Meanwhile, the Haslam campaign is attacking the Wamp ad’s folksy messenger, Mr. Criminger, saying he is “anything but the average Tennessean.”
“According to his own LinkedIn profile and website, William ‘Rusty’ Criminger is a former chief marketing officer of a company with troubled real estate developments in Chattanooga and a current marketing and advertising consultant, who is helping one of his clients create a ‘village’ in Tennessee that will be a resident developed, cooperative neighborhood, modeled after the cohousing communities of Denmark,” the Haslam campaign said.