Zach Wamp, a big-time Republican player in the House and currently Congressman for Tennessee's third district, has gotten himself a new challenger, Vietnam veteran Terry Stulce. I don't know much about Stulce beyond what's on his website, but I can tell you this:
• Wamp is gunning for the third-highest leadership position in the House, majority whip. E.J. Dionne thinks Wamp could actually reform the GOP's culture of corruption. I think this inside baseball will be lost on the average voter, and if we successfully (and rightly) highlight the entire Republican Pary's corruption, Wamp will only be inviting a more glaring spotlight if he moves up the ranks. Oh, and he's just as corrupt as the rest of them - see below.
• Wamp, one of the 1994 Republican Revolutionaries, promised to serve only six terms - meaning his time would be up next fall. Of course, he's reneging on that promise. What, twelve years isn't enough?
• Wamp's a carpetbagger. Originally from Georgia, went to college in North Carolina - and then flunked out in 1980. (Yeah we need more flunkies
)• While we're talking about college, check this: Zach Wamp lied under oath about whether he had graduated. The way I was raised, you just don't do that.
• Wamp was once convicted for check kiting. I kid you not. So we've moved from liar to criminal. (And he lied about this, too, on an official real estate application.)
• Wamp has admitted to what the media likes to call "a problem with cocaine" in his past. As I hardly need to remind anyone, poor black men go to jail for stuff like this. Well-off white guys like Wamp go to rehab.
I dug up the last set of items from Lexis - almost all mentions of Wamp's various lies and run-ins with the law dropped from conversation in the past decade. The last time these things got any serious airing was in 1994 - in other words, pretty much pre-web. Lexis is the ultimate bulwark against things disappearing down the memory hole, though. Wamp can't hide from his unsavory past.
One last thing, Kossack and Congressional expert Superribbie makes the following point:
Tennesee's 3d is the one GOP-held district in the state we have a shot at winning. It is a 41.3% Dem district (Gore got 42% and Kerry 38%), but with a history of supporting Dems. Wamp won 66-34 the last two times against a placeholder.
If Terry Stulce can capitalize on all of this, we could make life pretty miserable for Zach Wamp.
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Make it a Hell for Wamp!!
