I contacted Stephen Fincher’s campaign office last week because I wanted to go a little deeper into the accusations that Roy Herron has made against Fincher in the race for Congressional District 8 of Tennessee. Herron is coming out with some good sized mud balls, claiming that Fincher broke the law, etc., etc. Herron has to resort to such because, 1. he’s a Democrat, 2. he’s liberal, 3. can’t run on his own record, 4. he’s a Democrat (I know, said that one twice, but it was worth saying twice because to vote for a Democrat is to vote for Imam Obama and the Pelosi machine.)

Granted, I know this is from Fincher’s office, but here is what Wills Gardner wrote to me about these accusations:

Hey Mr. Hammons, here is some information you requested regarding Herron’s false attacks. Instead of talking about the issues, Herron is falsely attacking Stephen on his finances, specifically his loan, assets, and debt. Here are the facts:

The loan is legal.  Stephen got it legally from a local bank that he has done business with for years.  The FEC rules are long, but the general guideline is this : the loan is legal if the institution in question would give the loan if the person (Stephen) wasn’t running for office.  Stephen has good credit at the bank and has for many years–they were happy to offer the loan. 

As for Stephen’s assets, Herron is doing what career politicians do : distoring the facts and spreading lies. The House form, which all candidates fill out, requires you to list assets, but there are many exclusions to this form. For example your home, among many other assets, is excluded. So they are attacking Stephen for not listing all his assets, when the form instructs you not to list everything. He is doing this because most people don’t know all these rules. He keeps trying to distract voters from the issues. Herron is trying to shift the focus away from his liberal stances on the issues and his 24 year voting record that proves it. We haven’t been talking about this too much because Stephen is focused on the high unemployment rate and repealing the health care bill rather than playing politics.

The accusation about hiding debt is yet another absurd accusation. The information is already publicly available with the Secretary of State.  How can you be hiding debt that Herron learned of because it is already public knowledge? Those debts are for farm equipment, which are exempt from financial disclosures since they are business-related.

Stephen has answered all these questions but the media has not been reporting it.

The last bit we know is completely true. The media isn’t going to give the Republican a fair shake, or any coverage unless the news is bad.

So given the fact that Fincher is a Christian, seeking to run a positive campaign on the issues, and Roy Herron, who also claims to be a Christian, is running on the issue of mud-slinging, I think we trust Fincher and his campaign. If Herron were committed to running ads on what he believed and why we should vote for him, other than Fincher is a bad apple according to the Herron campaign, then I might give him some credit. But since this is a typical Democratic play book campaign, Fincher again gets the nod.

BTW, here is the link to Fincher’s campaign ad. He is not slinging mud.

We Need to Rise Above Politics from Harbinger International on Vimeo.