Republicans-Look-to-Farmer-to-Retake-U.S.-House
Oct. 21 -- Stephen Fincher, a gospel-singing
farmer, has never lived outside of Frog Jump, Tennessee. He
hasn’t even visited Washington, D.C. Now he wants to work there.
His profile -- a political neophyte with deep roots in his
town of fewer than 400 people -- is emerging as a prototype for
the kind of Republican candidate that his party is mobilizing in
an effort to regain control of Congress next year.
In background and temperament, Fincher fits his district,
two hours north of Memphis, which is currently represented by
Democrat John Tanner. It’s a formula that worked for Democrats
in 2006, who under the leadership of then Representative Rahm
Emanuel regained control of the House of Representatives for the
first time since 1994.
The Republican challenge will be at least as difficult.
“You have to look at what the Democrats did to us in 2006
and 2008,” said Representative Lynn Westmoreland, a Georgia
congressman helping with the Republican Party’s 2010 recruitment
efforts. “They picked out people that actually matched the
district,” he said. “We think that is going to be key to
winning these elections.”
For both political parties, this is the season of war-
gaming the next congressional election, in November 2010.
Analysts are poring over past voting returns, demographic
patterns and recent polls to assess the overall climate.
‘Farmer Buddies’
About a month ago, Fincher, 36, began approaching his
“farmer buddies,” raising $300,000, a number that surprised
and excited the National Republican Congressional Committee.
“I knew when I started raising money that something is
going on, so I kept going,” Fincher said in an interview. “I
just feel like we’re losing what this country was founded on.”
Next year’s battle will come in states where Republicans
historically have dominated and Democrats have scored recent
victories by small margins, and in districts like Fincher’s that
vote Republican in presidential elections and for Democrats in
Congress.
“They’re what I call ticking time-bomb districts,” said
David Wasserman, House editor of the Cook Political Report, a
nonpartisan newsletter in Washington. “It cuts right through
the heart of John Tanner’s district.” Tanner, 65, has
represented Tennessee’s eighth since 1988.
President Barack Obama’s policies on health care, the
economy and climate change are providing the early framing for
congressional races. The first critical phase of the 2010 cycle
is enlisting candidates such as Fincher.
Spending Binge
Tanner says voters have been disillusioned with government
since President George W. Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney
responded to the Sept. 11 attacks with a spending binge and a
war that became increasingly unpopular.
“You had all of this pent-up frustration, a lot of it on
the right because you couldn’t really criticize Bush and Cheney
too much,” he said. “Health care is the match that lit the
fire.”
Since World War II, the average loss for presidents in
their first term is 16 seats. For Republicans to repeat their
1994 landslide, they would have to reclaim seats lost in 2006
and 2008 and knock off Democrats in conservative districts such
as Tanner’s.
Other targets include John Spratt, 66, of South Carolina,
chairman of the Budget Committee, Rick Boucher, 63, of Virginia,
and Bart Gordon, 60, who has held Tennessee’s neighboring sixth
district since 1984.
Swing Districts
Democrats picked up 54 seats in the past two congressional
elections. Democrats hold 83 districts that voted for
Republicans John McCain or George W. Bush in the last two
presidential elections, and 48 of those districts went for both
of them, according to Charlie Cook of the Cook Political Report.
“You start walking through these numbers and you say,
‘Holy cow, that’s some real exposure,’” said Cook.
Still, Americans back Democrats over Republicans 51 percent
to 39 percent when asked who they plan to vote for next year,
according to an Oct. 15-18 Washington Post poll of 1,004 adults
with an error margin of plus or minus 3 percentage points.
Fincher touts values such as opposition to abortion and a
commitment to low taxes and small government, along with his
farm background as a contrast to many in Washington’s political
class.
‘Good Fit’
Tanner, who won by at least 45 percentage points in the
past three elections, considers himself a “good fit” for the
district. He is a founder of the Blue Dogs, a group of fiscally
conservative and socially moderate Democrats. In 2008, the
National Journal ranked him the 210th most liberal House member.
Fincher’s home, Frog Jump, is dotted with cotton and
soybean fields and part of a district that folk hero Davy
Crockett represented in Congress from 1827 to 1831.
Fincher, a father of three whose family has lived in Frog
Jump for seven generations, farms cotton, soybeans, corn and
wheat with his brother and his dad. He began driving a tractor
at 9 years old.
Fincher’s fundraising success surprised political veterans
like Tommy Hopper, a political strategist grooming Fincher. “I
think this guy can do the undoable,” said Hopper.
It won’t be easy. “It’s a district which a conservative-
to-moderate Democrat should be able to hold,” and includes a 22
percent black population, said Bruce Oppenheimer, a political
science professor at Vanderbilt University in Nashville.
Yet to be determined is whether Republicans will succeed in
tying Tanner to voter frustrations about the federal budget
deficit and health-care overall, given that he voted against a
Democrat-sponsored health bill that included a surtax on the
nation’s wealthiest households.
Jennifer Hart, 45-year-old independent social worker from
Troy, Tennessee, said she’s fed up with what’s going on in
Washington, particularly when it comes to health care.
“I’m not for this socialized plan,” she said. “I’m going
to vote very conservatively this time.” Still, she hasn’t
decided whether that means voting against the man she has been
supporting.
To contact the reporter on this story:
Heidi Przybyla in Washington at
hprzybyla@bloomberg.net
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