Trailing both in the polls and in the money chase to wealthy truck-stop magnate and Knoxville Mayor Bill Haslam, Congressman Zach Wamp has decided to really start launching shots from long-range in the final weeks of the campaign.
How? By going the full Rick Perry:
Rep. Zach Wamp (R-03) suggested [Tennessee] and other states may have to consider seceding from the union if the federal government does not change its ways regarding mandates.
"I hope that the American people will go to the ballot box in 2010 and 2012 so that states are not forced to consider separation from this government," said Wamp during an interview with Hotline OnCall.
Even in something as inevitably (and painfully) right-wing as a GOP gubernatorial primary in the Volunteer State, neither of his leading challengers wished to join Zach Wamp out on the ledge. When asked about the concept of secession, the campaign for Bill Haslam issued a one word "yeah" when asked if they disagreed with Wamp on its necessity. The campaign for Lt. Governor Ron Ramsey said that it was typical of "Rep. Wamp's trademark over-the-top temperament and overheated, sometimes crazy rhetoric."
Speaking of overheated (and, to be sure, crazy) rheotoric: later in the interview, he refers to Rick Perry, who was a GOP advocate for secession before it was cool in the GOP to be an advocate for secession, as "a patriot".
Because, let's be honest here: what says patriotism more than threatening to leave the Union because you didn't get your way on a piece of legislation?
Especially when, as is the case with a lot of red states, Tennessee takes more cash out of the federal treasury than they put in.