Democratic Gubernatorial Nominee Mike McMwherter, left, is instructed by Brian Tedford, center, and Todd Riley

“I’m not afraid to sweat,” McWherter quipped with the workers.

The son of former Tennessee Gov. Ned McWherter, the West Tennessee Democrat wore a buttoned shirt with the name patch “Mike” on the front, brown shoes with dried mud, work gloves, a straw cap with the silhouette image of a buck with antlers and goggles as he operated a framing nail gun.

Mike McWherter, who made the campaign stop as part of his Mike Works Tour, is focusing his campaign on jobs and hopes to reach out to voters hoping to find or keep work. He wants to build on the success of recruiting industry by current Democratic Gov. Phil Bredesen and help the state do a better job of marketing opportunities available to small businesses.

“I am a small businessman,” said McWherter, a Jackson resident who owns an Anheuser-Busch beer wholesaling distributorship. “If you offer more tax incentives and tax credits to small businesses, you will create jobs in the state of Tennessee.”

Precision Wood Products owner Danny Farrer welcomed McWherter into his shop.

“I think any time you have a candidate who is interested in how the blue-collar people make their living and put food on the table, you are anxious to share the experience with him,” Farrer said. “Give me a guy who knows how to work, and I’ll teach him what to do.”

Farrer considers himself a loyal Democrat who’s campaigned for fellow party members from Murfreesboro: the late state Rep. John Bragg and former state Sen. Andy Womack. A large, mucky Womack campaign sign leans on a high out of the way wall in the wood shop.

Farrer met Mike McWherter’s father and now backs the son to take a turn as Tennessee’s next governor.

“His ideas about Tennessee’s business future impress me,” said Farrer, who’s confident that McWherter will move on industry initiatives launched by Gov. Bredesen. “It’s not enough just to have an education. You have to have someone to hire you once you graduate.”