Finance reports will make for interesting reading

First on today's agenda, at least for the politicians and their campaigns, is the deadline to submit their campaign fundraising disclosures. Go here to see them for yourself.

In the Republican gubernatorial primary, we already know that Knoxville Mayor Bill Haslam was most proud of his haul, since his campaign announced far ahead of time that another strong period pushed it past the $8.7 million mark. U.S. Rep. Zach Wamp of Chattanooga took another week to decide to trumpet that his campaign had exceeded $4 million, which he says will allow him to advertise on network TV until the Aug. 5 election day, and he contends that's an impressive total given that he's running against what he describes as a wealthy family collecting IOUs from around the state.

State Senate Speaker Ron Ramsey we know sent out one of those last-chance-to-donate solicitations at the end of June, but the silence from his campaign on his fundraising either means they're not proud of it or, if they are, they wanted to wait to give it more of a news hook. The Associated Press's fine political reporter, Erik Schelzig, reports that an outside group called Tennesseans for a Better Tomorrow has filed with the Internal Revenue Service as a so-called 527 group in order "to make independent expenditures to support Ron Ramsey's candidacy for Governor of Tennessee." That is a classic way to allow a campaign to go aggressively negative,  Vanderbilt political science professor John Geer told Schelzig: "The lion's share of advertising by a 527 is negative. So in all likelihood, they will support any candidate by attacking the opposition."

Locally, it's going to be interesting to see fundraising totals in the races for Shelby County mayor and sheriff, with Republican candidate Mark Luttrell expected to post a big number (we'll be looking to see who the funders are ... and whether many of them represent crossover Democrats).

In the races for Congress, we'll be watching to see how the Republicans in the crucial 8th Congressional District compare to Democrat Roy Herron; to see if former Memphis mayor Willie Herenton has had any success at all in his bid to unseat incumbent U.S. Rep. Steve Cohen in the 9th; and if Clarksville college professor Greg Rabidoux is getting the kind of backing he will need from big Democratic supporters in the 7th to make incumbent U.S. Rep. and uber-Republican Marsha Blackburn at all uncomfortable in the general election.