Fincher jumps into derby to replace Corker
NASHVILLE — Former Republican U.S. Rep. Stephen Fincher is entering next year’s U.S. Senate race in Tennessee, a move that pits him against a former GOP congressional colleague in the contest to replace retiring Sen. Bob Corker.
Fincher, a seventh-generation cotton farmer from tiny Frog Jump in West Tennessee — who bypassed college to continue the family business — announced his bid in an interview with the USA Today Network — Tennessee.
Fincher, who represented Tennessee’s 8th Congressional District from 2011 to 2017, cast himself as a “citizen legislator” — not a “career politician” — who sings in a family gospel group each weekend and understands everyday Tennesseans.
He said he’s running to help push President
Donald Trump’s agenda and shake up a “donothing Congress.”
“We’re going to get in this race, and we’re going to get in it to win it, and go up there and try to get something done,” said Fincher, 44.
“Let’s stand up with the president on his policies. From what people are telling us, they’re just tired of the status quo career politician, and it’s time we — to take an old saying from the farm — plow and turn over Congress and put some new growth up there. I think that’s what people want, so that’s what we’re going to try to do.”
CROWDED FIELD
Also seeking the GOP nomination in the 2018 U.S. Senate election are U.S. Rep. Marsha Blackburn, R-Brentwood, whom Fincher served alongside in Congress, and conservative activist Andy Ogles, former head of the Koch Brothersfunded Americans for Prosperity-Tennessee. Perennial candidate Larry Crim is also running.
On the Democratic side, former Gov. Phil Bredesen is weighing a run, saying Tuesday he would decide in a few weeks. Nashville attorney James Mackler is the lone Democrat currently in the race. Chattanooga Mayor Andy Berke is considering entering.
Fincher’s entry comes after he wrapped up a 10-day “listening tour” across the state and back to Frog Jump, a community in Crockett County 50 miles northeast of Memphis.
The tour — a sign Fincher was planning to enter the race — allowed him to push back at any notion that Blackburn, a longtime conservative congressman from Williamson County in Middle Tennessee, had cleared the Republican field.
Fincher mostly refrained from speaking about Blackburn during his trip. But he pounced last week after “60 Minutes” and The Washington Post reported on a former Drug Enforcement Administration whistle blower.
The whistle blower accused Blackburn and other members of Congress of passing a law that led to lax scrutiny over opioid distribution, handcuffing the federal government’s ability to fight the national opioid crisis.
Fincher said it illustrates that politicians in Washington, D.C., are “out of touch.”
“This is an issue that shows Tennesseans want someone to stand up against special interests,” Fincher said. “We’re losing lives. Our jails, little towns and communities are broken. People, they go to Washington, and have stayed up there too long and are out of touch with what’s really happening all over this great state.”
Fincher was in Congress when the bill was passed and was among the House members who unanimously approved the legislation.
TURNING RIGHT
On Sunday, a Blackburn campaign spokeswoman criticized Fincher and said the race now has a “clear contrast.”
“Now we have a clear contrast between a supporter of President Trump who will drain the swamp in Washington, versus Nancy Pelosi’s favorite Republican who champions corporate welfare,” Blackburn spokeswoman Andrea Bozek said by email.
Blackburn announced her candidacy Oct. 5 and came out of the gate seeking to stake out the most conservative lane of the Republican primary and appeal to Trump’s biggest loyalists.
She called herself a “hardcore, card-carrying Tennessee conservative [who is] politically incorrect — and proud of it.”
But Fincher isn’t giving up that political ground without a fight. He touted his conservative stances on social issues — he said he’s “pro-life, pro-traditional marriage, proSecond Amendment” — and that he would fight for “balanced budgets, less regulation, lower taxes and peace through strength.”
Fincher said he would seek to repeal the Affordable Care Act, support Trump’s tax overhaul, push changes to immigration law and work to improve the state’s workforce development at twoyear schools.
“More than anything, they just want results,” Fincher said of Tennesseans. “They just want members of Congress, the House and the Senate, to do more than double-talk the folks in Tennessee. I think it will be pretty clear to the people, when they look at what we did when we were there, and what my opposition has done, who gets results.”
RUNNING AGAINST WASHINGTON
Fincher could be in position to appeal to the establishment wing of the party led by Corker, U.S. Sen. Lamar Alexander and Gov. Bill Haslam and their allies. But expect all Republican candidates, including in the state’s gubernatorial race, to steer clear of the establishment tag.
For Ogles, Fincher’s entry presents an opportunity to run as the only candidate from outside the Beltway, allowing him to perhaps claim the only purely anti-establishment path.
Fincher’s candidacy will be challenged by a lack of familiarity and name recognition outside his district, which includes all or parts of 15 mostly rural West Tennessee counties. Blackburn, in contrast, has seen her national profile rise in recent years, culminating last year with a prime-time speaking slot at the National Republican Convention.
But Fincher can use $2.3 million in his federal campaign committee in his Senate run. Blackburn’s federal political action committee has $3.1 million on hand.
“He’s going to immediately be a serious candidate,” said Vanderbilt University political science professor John Geer. “I don’t think he’d be called a front-runner, but I think it’s now a little harder to label Congresswoman Blackburn a front-runner. It’s going to probably be a pretty competitive battle. They both have access to money.”
Geer said Fincher can talk about “being outside of Washington” in the campaign because of his departure in 2016 and try to tie Blackburn to failures of Congress, including on the health care issue if it persists.
But he also pointed to Blackburn’s superior name recognition and said Fincher won’t be able to link himself to Trump as easily as Blackburn.
“Certainly, he’s not antiTrump by any standard, but I think he’s got that problem,” Geer said. “Marsha Blackburn is going to try to paint him as a member of the establishment, which I think is an interesting effort because he’s not an elected official right now.”
Fincher said he’s confident his message will reach across the state, saying he learned during his listening tour that people in all parts of the state “share the same concerns, the same values and the same angst.”
A spokesman for Fincher said a campaign team is still being assembled and that an announcement will happen soon.