NASHVILLE - Tennessee Republican officials on Wednesday sought to put Democratic U.S. Senate nominee Phil Bredesen on the spot Wednesday after he referred to his GOP rival Marsha Blackburn in an interview as a "big girl" capable of making "decisions for herself."
Bredesen's comments came in a Wednesday story in the The Tennessean after he was asked about U.S. Rep. Blackburn's recently missed congressional votes as the Senate contest heats up.
Marsha Blackburn and Phil Bredesen"She's a big girl," Bredesen was quoted saying of Blackburn, who prefers to call herself congressman instead of congresswoman. "She can make those decisions for herself as to what she considers her responsibilities to be."
State GOP Vice Chairwoman Jennifer Little charged in a statement that Bredesen "clearly feels threatened by strong women leaders and should be ashamed.
"Marsha is a mother, a grandmother, a businesswoman, the first woman elected to Congress from Tennessee, and now she's running to be the first woman from our state ever elected to the U.S. Senate," Little said. "She's not just some 'girl.'"
Bredesen chuckled when a reporter asked him about the criticisms.
"I guess the congresswoman is threatened by just using an ordinary phrase," the former governor said. "I don't object if she calls me a big boy who can make his own decisions at all. I think complaining about that ... is a little silly."
Actually, Blackburn is not the first woman elected to Congress from Tennessee. She's the fourth.
Two were widows of incumbent congressmen who died in office. The third was former U.S. Rep. Marilyn Lloyd, a Chattanooga Democrat who served from 1975 to 1995.
She received Democrats' nomination in a special 1974 party convention after the death of her husband, former WDEF television anchor Mort Lloyd, the Democrat party's 3rd Congressional District primary, died in a plane crash.
Marilyn Lloyd went on to beat then-incumbent U.S. Rep. LaMar Baker, a Chattanooga Republican, in the general election. She won reelection nine times before stepping down in 1994 as Republican Zach Wamp, whom she narrowly defeated two years earlier, prepared to run again.
Many Blackburn supporters say she is the first Tennessee woman to be elected "in her own right" and not enter Congress as a replacement for a deceased husband.