TN-GOV 2018: Can Karl Dean win the Tennessee governorship?

[100% pro-life no matter what]

Would require a disastrous GOP nominee.

I expect Randy Boyd will clean the floor though.

Just out of curiosity, what do you think would be Dean's best path to victory?  In days of yore Dems won in TN by doing relatively well in rural areas, especially in West Tennessee.  Dean's likeliest path to victory would probably be posting huge margins in Shelby and Davidson, flipping Knox, Hamilton and Montgomery, and keeping it close enough in Williamson.  A very urban coalition. 

I don't think there is a path to a Democratic statewide win in Tennessee.  A close GOP win map would probably look like 2014 Amendment 1 (which passed 53-47).
http://nashvillepublicmedia.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/11/amendment-1-vote-map1.png

[100% pro-life no matter what]

Doubtful, but its not impossible. I say that because there are at least two possible paths to victory for Dean, and both seem unlikely.

The first is basically how Democrats would win statewide up until the mid 2000s: do well in rural ancestrally Democratic parts of Western Tennessee as well as Davidson and Shelby counties. The second is to run up the margins in the population centers (Shelby, Davidson, Hamilton, and Knox counties) and a few suburban counties (Rutherford, Montgomery, and Madison counties) while keeping margins in rural counties down.

Both of these scenarios are unlikely, because the rural counties have swung hard towards the GOP. The second path to victory also hasn't been tried yet.

Right now I'd say that the path would involve using local officials and activists to gin up anti-Trump and anti Republican sentiment in the suburbs and urban areas, whilst officially doing a Joe Manchin campaign tailored to rural areas.

And the Republican nominee would have to be bad, such as Diane Black.

I don't think Black is a bad candidate.  Remember that Tennessee is, according to the ACU, the most conservative state in the nation.