Knoxville Democrat Terry Adams launches 2014 bid for the U.S. Senate.

A Knoxville Democrat is trying to sew up support for his bid to unseat U.S. Sen. Lamar Alexander, nearly eight months before voters choose the party’s nominee.

Terry Adams, an attorney and the owner of a title company, kicked off his campaign Friday with a news conference at the state Capitol in an effort to place himself at the front of the Democratic field before it has crystallized.

Adams, 43, said he had secured support from the current and four most recent heads of the Tennessee Democratic Party and announced he had begun raising money for his campaign. He attacked Alexander as a career politician who has lost the support of most Tennesseans.

“We’re not going to solve the problems that are going on in Washington, D.C., sending the same people back who caused the mess in the first place,” Adams said. [more at hyperlink]