Seeing An Opening On The Right, State Sen. Mae Beavers Mulls Gov. Run

NASHVILLE, TN — State Sen. Mae Beavers, long a darling of the right wing of the Tennessee Republican Party, says she might just throw her hat in the ring to be the state's next governor.

Fellow tea-party favorite State Sen. Mark Green may withdraw from the race and become Donald Trump's Secretary of the Army — an eventuality that seems all but certain to pan out, according to the NashvillePost. That would leave the only announced Republican candidate as Randy Boyd, a businessman and former aide to term-limited Gov. Bill Haslam. House Speaker Beth Harwell looks likely to enter the race, as well. Harwell and Boyd aren't carbon copies, but both are certainly cut more from the moderate, business-friendly cloth of Haslam (and former Metro mayor Karl Dean, who has announced his candidacy as a Democrat) than either Green or Beavers. While U.S. Rep. Diane Black has long been bandied about as a potential GOP gubernatorial hopeful, there is some chatter that she may be reluctant to relinquish the gavel as chairman of the powerful House Budget Committee. (For more updates on the Tennessee governor's race, click here to sign up for the Nashville Patch's daily newsletter and free, real-time news alerts, or find your local Middle Tennessee Patch here.)

In any event, Beavers tells WKRN, one of the few news outlet with which she will still speak, that she "got calls for two days looking for a conservative candidate" after news of Green's potential elevation to Army Secretary broke and that she is "exploring the idea."

Fellow RNC Trump delegate and long-time conservative activist Kay White posted on Facebook her support of Beavers, claiming that Beavers is known as "The Iron Lady" in Nashville, a reference to former British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher; the Nashville Scene notes that no one inside the Capitol Hill Press Corps recalls Beavers ever being referred to by that particular sobriquet.

Image via State of Tennessee