NASHVILLE – Republican Bill Haslam promised Monday that if elected governor, he will give Tennesseans the ability to measure his administration’s progress through a “dashboard” of key indicators in areas ranging from job creation to public safety.
“Every morning if I’m governor, I’m going to wake up and look at that dashboard,” the Knoxville mayor and former president Pilot Corp. said, noting he is borrowing the idea of using “metrics” to measure progress from the private sector where he once worked.
Haslam’s remarks came in an address to the Nashville Rotary Club. He said he would measure five areas related to his overarching goal of making Tennessee No. 1 in the Southeast in terms of “quality job” creation. Those areas are jobs and economic development, education and work force development, the state’s fiscal condition, health and public safety.
But in comments to reporters later, Haslam indicated he won’t be providing many specifics on measurements of progress nor where he plans to set the goal posts that define progress until after the election.
“What I can’t do right now is say exactly what those goals will be, but the point is we’re willing to measure ourselves on these five key areas and here’s some of the things we’ll measure,” Haslam said.
Haslam’s proposal drew derision from his Democratic opponent, Mike McWherter.
“Bill Haslam seems infatuated with creating more bureaucracy in state government, but yet again he fails to give any concrete evidence that he has a plan to create jobs,” McWherter spokesman Shelby White said.
Last week, former President Bill Clinton said at a McWherter rally in Nashville that of the two candidates, “only one of them, Mike McWherter, actually has a program for getting Tennessee’s economy moving faster and going in the right direction, and building on the good things that [current Gov.] Phil Bredesen has done.”
But Haslam told reporters Monday that “I think I’ve given more specifics in this race than anyone else has. You tell me what specifics they’ve proposed that I haven’t.”
Haslam and McWherter are scheduled to square off tonight in Cookeville for their first televised general election debate.
Contact Andy Sher at asher@timesfreepress.com or 615-255-0550.