From a Cookeville Starbucks

COOKEVILLE, Tenn. - Fun on the campaign trail for governor today: first half of the day with Congressman Zach Wamp in Gallatin and Lebanon, then over to Cookeville for part of Day 4 of Knoxville Mayor Bill Haslam's early vote bus tour.

The congressman was ebullient, predicting that momentum in the Republican primary has shifted his way since last week's statewide televised debate at Belmont University. (Unfortunately for him, that was the last one before the Aug. 5 primary. He's asked for more but that isn't likely to happen.)

Wamp said that large numbers of undecided voters, plus former backers of his two GOP rivals moving toward him, especially - he said -- those of Lt. Gov. Ron Ramsey. "With all due respect for him (Ramsey) -- and there is tremendous respect for him - there comes a time when even your most ardent supporters say, I don't want to be a spoiler here and I don't want to cast a vote that won't make a difference.

"That's what a lot of people are now saying - that he is a distant third and is not going to be competitive and therefore we're seeing, hearing and feeling that people are saying we're going to close ranks before it's over," Wamp told reporters outside the Sumner County Administrative Building where he greeted early voters.

Inside the colonial-style county building, in a nice atrium at the center, are wonderful black and white photographs of Gallatin and Sumner County scenes from the late 1800s and early 1900s. The county is a big tobacco producer.

Ramsey spent the day doing several events today in Hawkins County, adjacent to his home Tri-Cities region. He announced his endorsement by the Tennessee Firearms Association, which pushes to remove restrictions on where guns may be legally carried.

An endorsement letter by Nashville lawyer John Harris, the association's founder and volunteer executive director, said that Ramsey's voting record has "demonstrated a strong and consistent support of the rights of (Tennesseans) as protected by the Second Amendment...even when others have questioned the justness of standing up for constitutionally recognized rights that might seem to them to be unnecessary."

Ramsey has targeted gun owners, handgun-carry licensees and Tea Party activists for support.

Mayor Haslam toured areas north of Knoxville today but had left his big rented campaign bus before a pack of Nashville-based reporters caught up with his entourage in Cookeville. Campaign aides said the mayor was summoned by Gov. Phil Bredesen to meet with undisclosed business executives considering moving 750 jobs to Tennessee.

But his father, "Big Jim" Haslam, Bill Haslam's wife Crissy and daughters Leigh and Annie campaigned in Cookeville, on the picture perfect courthouse square and at the Upper Cumberland Human Resource Agency.

Jim Haslam, 79,  founded Pilot Corp. 52 years ago with a single service station and said Wamp's TV attacks on the family-owned national chain of travel centers - its 2009 settlement with the state attorney general of price-gouging charges in the wake of Hurricane Ike in 2008 - hurt him.

"Of course," he said. "We've been in business 52 years and we have based our business on three things: doing the right thing, working hard and being accountable. I will stack up Pilot's record as a corporate citizen up against anyone's."

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Earlier today, Wamp downplayed the results -- to be released Sunday -- of statewide polling in the governor's race underway this week by Tennessee media. He said that such polling does not take into account where voting is heavy and where it's light.

"There's going to be a wide spread in intensity, like the eastern part of Shelby County where a huge early voting turnout is underway. They've got the county mayor's race and sheriff's race that is turning out voters. I'm encouraged because I'm strong in Germantown, Collierville, Millington and other areas in Shelby County. That's one thing that a survey is not going to tell you," Wamp said.

"If you're in the hunt, election day could very well swing one way or the other depending on the intensity, the activation and the momentum. There's no doubt in my mind that in the last eight days since the debate,  the momentum is with our campaign. Prior to that, 36 percent were undecided and I believe we're wining the vast majority of them, plus a major shift away from Ramsey and a lot of Haslam supporters are coming our way once they saw the debate.

"I think Bill Haslam is a very nice man but I do not think that he is either the man or the leader that his money says he is and I think that's the issue that a lot of people are now talking about. A lot of people come up to me and say he's trying to buy it isn't he."