It is being reported on Tennessee’s leading statewide political news aggregate/blog, Post Politics (Tennessee Post), that a leading Republican candidate for the 8th Congressional District, Stephen Fincher, voted in the May 5, 2010 Democratic Primary. The May primary in Tennessee is for local county office holders, and in the case of Fincher’s rural Crockett County, the Democratic Primary is still the only primary held. This move still has to raise concerns with the die-hard Republican faithful as to why he did not simply abstain from voting in the primary altogether.
Link:http://politics.nashvillepost.com/2010/06/24/fincher-votes-in-democratic-primarythis-year/#comments
The 8th District has seen an unprecedented ad blitz by the top 3 Republican Primary candidates: Dr. George Flinn (Memphis), Dr. Ron Kirkland (Jackson), and Stephen Fincher (Frog Jump/Halls/W. Maury City/Crockett County/?), in which Fincher has been the first to go hard negative; and exclusively against Kirkland. Fincher’s attack ads depict Kirkland as a RINO whose medical PAC supports liberal Democrats in Washington, who personally supported Tanner and other local conservative Dems in the past, and is willing to do the apparently un-Republican action of working across party lines to pass legislation. Now with the revelation of Fincher has yet again voted in a Democratic Primary, during the campaign no less, it has to open his campaign up to accusations of hypocrisy. It is to be expected that Fincher will explain this away as him wanting to have a voice in local politics; but that will only dig his hole deeper, as that is clearly the reasoning behind Kirkland’s support for local Dems and for his medical PACs support of key Washington Democrats.
State Senator Roy Herron, the Democratic nominee in waiting, has to be enjoying the increasingly divisive and fractious Republican Primary, as his campaign will be eager to attempt to attract