Sources: Lamar's Chief of Staff to join Corker campaign

Article available without subscription -- Experienced GOP hand brought into Senate campaign for what faithful see as a booster shot in neck-and-neck race

Email | Print By Ken Whitehouse and Walker Duncan

In a move that is apparently designed to give the Bob Corker for U.S. Senate campaign a needed spark, NashvillePost.com has learned that Tom Ingram, a longtime denizen of the Tennessee political scene, will join the Corker campaign as "campaign chairman."

There have been many grumblings by the GOP faithful in the last few weeks that the Corker camp needed to turn it up a notch. NashvillePost.com reported earlier this month that the Republican National Committee came down hard on Tennessee operatives and has been unimpressed with GOP efforts in Tennessee.

This line-up addition is clearly aimed at improving the campaign's chances in a race many see as crucial to the Republicans' maintaining a majority in the U.S. Senate, and it will allay the fears of GOP leaders who wanted a more well-known and experienced hand at the wheel. One source, speaking on background to NashvillePost.com, said, "Ben Mitchell and the others have done well, but I think we all feel better having someone with the experience Ingram brings." Mitchell is Corker's campaign manager.

Ingram, if nothing else, has a record of success in Tennessee elections, having been heavily involved with Lamar Alexander’s political life since the U.S. Senator served as Tennessee’s Governor. He is also one of the founders and namesake of local PR firm the Ingram Group. Until now he has worked as Alexander’s chief of staff in Washington.

NashvillePost.com has also been told that Corker will also being opening a new Nashville office in the Fall School Building on 8th Ave. The Fall School has housed the campaigns of Lamar Alexander and the Tennessee efforts of the John Kerry campaign in previous elections.

He joins another former Alexander advisor on the campaign: his friend and former state representative Stephanie Chivers, who joined Corker camp just a couple of weeks ago.