Gearing Up

Mayoral candidate Richard Fulton has hired one of Mayor Phil Bredesen’s staffers to become the political director for his campaign.

Deputy Press Secretary Genie Dunn will leave the mayor’s office Friday to help formulate strategy for Fulton, who is seeking what would be his fourth term as Nashville mayor. Fulton has already served three four-year terms in the city’s top job, from 1975 to 1987. Dunn worked both in Bredesen’s 1994 gubernatorial campaign and in his 1995 mayoral re-election campaign.

While Bredesen’s staff increasingly is being tapped to support or offer information to the three major candidates for mayor, Bredesen himself has stayed—at least publicly—relatively detached from the campaigns for the Aug. 5 election.

Fulton is considered the front-runner for the $75,000-a-year job, although Bill Purcell, a former state legislator, is proving a formidable money-raiser and organizer, and Vice Mayor Jay West, whose father was mayor from 1951 to 1963, is well-liked and has a well-known Nashville name.