When Independent David Hatley entered the Tennessee Governor’s race with an initial loan of $7 million to his campaign, I, like others, was curious about how he would spend the money. Immediately, my attention turned to his campaign consultants, Smoky Peak Advisors (SPA), which in the early days of August had already received more than $196,000 from Hatley’s campaign.
As a former operative and elected official, I was unfamiliar with Smoky Peak Advisors of Mount Juliet, Tennessee. It turns out that the Mount Juliet address for SPA is the Postal Annex sandwiched between Nails First and Morimori Sushi, and just two doors from Five Below. You get the picture?
According to the latest campaign disclosures, SPA has now received almost $1.4 million from Hatley for Governor. However, Hatley has not disclosed which person or people are advising his campaign under the pseudonym Smoky Peak Advisors. It is hypocritical since Hatley has challenged Republican frontrunner Marsha Blackburn to “stop hiding” from voters and agree to debate.
While SPA is still operating in the shadows, more clues point to the possibility that SPA is a shell for Axiom Political Consulting CEO, Jeff Roe. Roe is a Missouri-based GOP political consultant who advised both U.S. Senator Ted Cruz’s and Florida Governor Ron DeSantis’ campaigns for President. However, Roe and Axiom have very recent ties to Tennessee.
In May of this year, Kingsport Times News outed Roe as the person behind negative mailers in the Sullivan County mayoral race. The mailers attacked Zane Vanover on behalf of his opponent Angie Stanley. Roe is also a political consultant to Congresswoman Diana Harshbarger, her husband, who sought a seat on the Sullivan County Commission, and was the source of negative mailers from the East Tennessee Conservative PAC targeted at Senator Jon Lundberg, who was defeated by Harshbarger’s son in 2022. The primary consultant of a sitting Republican Congresswoman working for an independent against the Republican U.S. Senator and gubernatorial nominee would be an interesting story to say the least.
Another Tennessee connection is through the compliance arm of Axiom. The company of GOP compliance professional Thomas Datwyler was absorbed into the Axiom family. Datwyler is well-known for his work on behalf of GOP candidates and organizations, including former Congressman Andy Ogles, who was investigated, as was Datwyler, for lying on his campaign disclosure. The investigation was recently halted by President Trump. Datwyler has been investigated or implicated in numerous state and federal probes, including disgraced former Congressman George Santos.
But wait, there’s more!
In the GOP primary for Governor, Marsha Blackburn was savaged by an attack ad from a dark money group called the American Exceptionalism Institute. In the AI-generated ad, Blackburn is labeled “Queen Pharma Mama” for her support of Big Pharma-backed legislation that weakened efforts by the DEA and DOJ to crack down on opioid distributors. Blackburn was incensed by the ad, and her attorney sent a cease and desist and filed a complaint with the state Ethics Board. The “work” of AEI did not stop there. A recent mailer bearing the organization’s disclaimer highlights Blackburn’s distinction as one of the most corrupt members of Congress in 2008 according to a report by CREW (Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington). AEI, as you might have guessed, is conveniently connected to Jeff Roe, as reported by The Tennessee Star.
To be abundantly clear, none of this definitively proves that Jeff Roe or any of his entities are behind Hatley’s consultants SPA.
But there’s a lot of “smoke.”
It is particularly notable that despite not fully entering the race until the week of the August primary with zero name ID, Hatley has not used his millions to attack Blackburn on the airwaves, social media, or through direct mail, though her campaign is bludgeoning him. Why should he when AEI is doing it for him? In fact, thinking back to the primary, even John Rose’s criticisms of Blackburn were “soft” and only AEI “lowered the boom,” which weakened Blackburn coming out of the primary – a clever strategy if AEI’s purpose all along was to elevate Hatley.
Hatley has been prideful, almost smug, about disclosing his federal felony conviction and his business struggles. He and his supporters want voters to credit him for “fessing up.” His platform includes auditing the state’s budget and uncovering unnecessary hidden costs. While this kind of transparency seems to be a theme for his campaign, it is devoid of authenticity when he continues to hide who is pulling the campaign’s strings.