The Fightin’ 8th Race Should Have A Debate

I’ve always seen political debates much like a courtroom series on television where both candidates, on equal ground, get to face their “accuser.” The old He Said/She Said sort of thing where the mission is easy. Inform, detract, deny, and lay out the facts sort of scenario.

This year has been interesting to me because no one is really wanting to debate. For those of us here in Hoots, for the big races, all we can do is watch online and I’m sure that’s happening in other borderline counties. Yeah, we know all about Lindsey Lohan going to jail or bailing out ad nauseum, but to see the candidates is like the biggest black-out the world has ever seen because many of us have our local news networks coming out of Missouri and Kentucky, who don’t have any real inclination to put them on. So we watch on-line but the bottom line is, a lesson I’ve learned recently, that the newspapers pick it up and the majority of folks look there in small towns. (Yeah, I should have known that already.) The key though is we read a journalist’s interpretation of what happened instead of seeing it for ourselves when it comes to Tennessee. That’s fine, I guess, but some folks would rather see it for themselves.

The thing that I find very odd is the Fightin’ 8th’s congressional race with Sen. Roy Herron and Stephen Fincher of Frog Jump fame. I’ve lived in Tennessee a majority of my life and the one thing I can say about Fincher is that he opened my eyes to the fact that we have a Frog Jump. I knew about Monkey’s Eyebrow, Ky but not of the community that named themselves after a jumping reptile.

It’s curious to me that Fincher doesn’t want to debate Herron. Don’t get me wrong, Roy Herron is an amazing campaigner because he humanizes himself with enough of Methodist Southern Preacher with a dash of explaining what’s going on “up there in Nashville.” He’s good at it, make no doubts about that.

From what I’ve heard and seen of Mr. Fincher, he seems like an amicable fellow. He’s personable enough, has the rural body language vibe going on and down to a science and most folks that have met him say he is rather engaging, somewhat humble and seems to be okay.

In politics, especially in rural areas, candidates running house or senate races hoping to get a seat and baton in Nashville hit up the local Rotary Clubs, the Civitans, the Kiwanis, nursing homes, AARP meetings etc to meet, greet, maybe kiss a baby and tell the many reasons why they are best for office. People working on a clock who don’t have the money for the monthly fees for those philanthropic clubs  don’t get to get to go to those meetings. They are working for factories or are in jobs that an hour off of work means a loss of pay for that hour.

What I’ve heard regarding Fincher’s appearance on the UT Martin campus last week citing the 8^th district’s boundaries that go into Shelby County, has even folks up here are wondering “Who is this guy?” Not the folks who give donations, not the people who keep up with politics but those same folks that can’t reasonably get off from work to go see him at scheduled “events.” We’ve had Rep. John Tanner around for a long time and we know the 8^th hugs a side of Arkansas, a  piece of Missouri and the southern boundary of Kentucky all the way into Clarksville.

The Republican primary race for the nomination was one of the most contentious I’ve seen in recent history. We know there was high disdain between those candidates but I’ve yet to see any kind of plan other than plowing down Congress.

But, umm, how’s that going to happen?

I believe that Fincher should accept the challenge of debating Roy Herron and Donn Janes. There is a saying in the south, and I’ve heard this about Fincher since his refusal to debate, which is simply “Man Up” and show us who you are. This isn’t about “getting” elected, it’s about giving what all of the district of the Fightin’ 8^th deserve and that’s to know what the candidates stand for and not just what they say they stand for.