Former Nashville Mayor Karl Dean Will Decide on Gubernatorial Run in Early 2017

NASHVILLE, TN — Former Metro Nashville Mayor Karl Dean will decide in early 2017 if he will run in the 2018 gubernatorial race. Gov. Bill Haslam is term-limited.

Since leaving office in 2015, Dean has written a book touting the successes and growth of Nashville during his two terms as mayor between 2007 and 2015 and is now travelling the state in a fact-finding and temperature-taking tour of the state's electorate.

Dean tells the Associated Press it's critical that a Democrat who hopes to compete for governor in a deeply-red state like Tennessee get on the campaign trail early to overcome the fundraising advantage of the Republicans, who have run roughshod over Democrats in recent statewide elections.

In 2010, with incumbent Democrat Phil Bredesen term limited, the Democrats nominated Mike McWherter, son of former governor and Tennessee Democratic Party icon Ned Ray McWherter. The younger McWherter lost to Haslam by nearly 30 percentage points and nearly a half-million votes. In 2014, the Democratic Party found it difficult to find a credible, well-known candidate to challenge the popular Haslam and the party's nomination ended up with Charlie Brown, a 72-year-old retiree from the small East Tennessee town of Oakdale. Brown's three campaign planks were putting the Bible back in public schools, raising the state's speed limit to 80 mph and earmarking his salary as governor to seeding the state's forests with larger deer. He also expressed a wish to strap Haslam into the state's then-newly-reinstated electric chair "and give him half a jolt." Haslam defeated Brown by 40 percentage points and more than 600,000 votes