Pro-Abortion, Pro-Tax Increase, and Pro-Illegal Immigration Bob Corker just can't buy a break these days.After recent reports have shown that lavish spending and fraud occured under Corker's watch as Mayor of Chattanooga and that he did not pay his income taxes back in 1980's, he is back in the line of fire.
This time the heat is coming from his fellow conservatives for voting twice in the Democratic primary.
The Tennessean has more:
Other Republicans running for the U.S. Senate against Bob Corker contend he is less of a Republican because he voted as a Democrat in two primary elections.
Corker, a former Chattanooga mayor, said there were no competitive races on the GOP ballot during those 1998 primaries in Nashville.
"In order to have an effect, he voted the way he did," said Ben Mitchell, Corker's campaign manager, noting that Corker had done much for the Republican Party such as by being host at his home to two events for President Bush.
Candidates Ed Bryant and Van Hilleary say Corker has exposed himself as a Republican "fraud" and that he should run as a Democrat instead.
Corker voted as a Democrat in the county primary in May 1998 and in the state primary in August that same year, according to the Davidson County Election Commission.
Corker lived in Nashville 1995-99, when he served as former Gov. Don Sundquist's commissioner of finance and administration.
Sundquist handily won the August ballot in the GOP primary that Corker skipped to cast a vote as a Democrat.
Davidson County voting records show Corker voted in the Republican primary in the 1996 state primary and 2000 presidential primary.
Bryant campaign spokes-man Andrew Shulman described this as "another example in a series of well-documented actions that expose Mr. Corker's claim to be a conservative Republican is a fraud."
"One thing is a fluke. Two things are a coincidence. But a file cabinet full of evidence is a conviction," said Jennifer Coxe, Hilleary's campaign manager.
"He's running in the wrong primary."
Bryant and Hilleary have taken Corker to task for giving and taking campaign funds from Democrats, raising taxes while he was mayor and being soft on abortion rights when
he ran in 1994 for the U.S. Senate.
Bob Davis, chairman of the Tennessee Republican Party, said he didn't know whether this would be a problem for Corker. "You have to let the people of Tennessee and the voters in the Republican primary decide if that's a problem or not."
When I saw Bob in Columbia on Saturday, I should have asked him if he would vote for Congressman Ford in the August primary!
