Phil Bredesen wants the voters to know he’s one of them, a working-class guy just working to earn a living — but that’s far from the truth.
The former governor who hopes to flip Bob Corker’s seat from Republican to Democrat shares one thing besides friendship with the former Chattanooga mayor: they’re both extremely rich.
Bredesen has reported assets between $88.9 million and $358 million, The Washington Free Beacon said.
CBS News reported that Corker is one of the wealthiest senators, with an average net worth of $50.7 million.
In replacing Corker, Bredesen would also become one of the richest members of Congress. Public records show he is the owner of five homes—two homes in Nashville, two lakefront properties in upstate New York, and a five-bedroom home in Jackson, Wyoming.
Like finding a place to hang his hat at night, traveling is no issue for Bredesen: He is one of the registered owners of an Embraer Phenom 300 private jet, according to Federal Aviation Association records. The Embraer Phenom 300 sells for $10 million, according to CNBC.
And yet Bredesen says the Democratic Party is “too elitist and too distant from the concerns of the very down to Earth people that have always been the base of the party.”
Gillum Ferguson, Press Secretary of the Tennessee Republican Party, said in a press release, “We agree, especially since Phil Bredesen embodies this elitism.”
Meanwhile, in a recent video interview with the Chattanooga Times Free Press, Bredesen said he comes from a “more sophisticated world” than most Tennesseans because he “went to an Ivy League college.” He also called Corker a long-time good friend.
“Phil Bredesen’s continued hypocrisy exposes him for what he is: a phony,” said Tennessee Republican Party Chairman Scott Golden. “Tennesseans need a senator who shares their values and will represent them — not out-of-state elites. Marsha Blackburn is the best choice for Tennesseans this November.”
[…] Tennessee Star […]
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[…] Bredesen feels like sophisticated digs are his due. While he recently said other Democrats are “too elitist,” he owns five homes and is part-owner of a jet, and would […]
[…] Tennessee Star reported recently that while Bredesen claims to be a working stiff, he would become one of the richest […]
Take away for a moment a candidate’s wealth and how he received it, and ask yourselves the burning question: why should anyone as old (yes I said it) as Phil Bredesen be a candidate for any serious public office? By the November 2018 election he will be seventy-five years of age. We have enough doddering old men and women at the high offices of our land and their advanced ages show in their actions and decisions.
His mission is simple and it is NOT to represent Tennessee – his mission is to flip the US Senate to Democrat control.
First of all, possums shouldn’t be allowed to be governors, there’s that. Most important, all the so called “great” accomplishments our naucternal friend did came from a blank check taken from the backs of honest, hard working Tennesseans who worked their butts off to feed their families. Not to mention feeding the families of those of “entitlement” whom you liberal idiots keep adding to the tax burden already in place. So take your acting job in your campaign commercials to hollywood phil, it’s great material for a movie, but not tennessee.
I think that the magnitude of Bredesen’s wealth is a legitimate topic of discussion in this U.S. Senate race–Bredesen himself ‘opened the door’ for discussion of this topic when he claimed that others were ‘too elitist’ thereby falsely implying that he is not. Someone else used the expression that if elected Bredesen would be just a ‘shill’ for Schumer–I think that is an excellent phrase. And in my mind all of this goes to the heart of the issue of this race, Phil Bredesen is not, and will not be as a U.S. Senator, what he now says that he would be if elected. Phil is just a ‘phony.’ Phil is not fooling anyone.
I think trying to stoke class envy is unbecoming of Republicans. We should leave that kind of mindless political appeal to the liberal Democrats where it belongs. There are plenty of reasons to not vote for Bredesen like his empowerment of Chuck Schumer and those implacably hostile to Trump who carried Tennessee by an overwhelming margin. Bredesen’s net worth is not one of them.
Tired of bad roads in Tennessee? You can thank Phil Bredesen for the horrible condition of Tennessee highways. While in office he diverted over 220 million dollars collected by way of fuel tax and registration fees which was supposed to go to repair & new road construction.
Bredesen as Senator will be nothing more than a “shill” for Schumer.
Starting to look like the magic number to run for high political office is a net worth above $50 million. I think it’s time to begin reviewing the citizenship status of the employees working for the candidates. (i.e.,)Most of the labor used in the Nashville housing boom is ostensibly illegal immigrants. Why not ask all these candidates to reveal the I-9s of all their employees?