Read more
Cooper: Fleischmann Says He Is Growing Into The Job
As Republicans in the rebellious House of Representatives struggle to find a House speaker and keep their squabbles from harming the party in 2016 - or even splitting the party - a funny thing happened to Rep. Chuck Fleischmann on the way back this year to Washington after a razor-thin victory in the GOP primary last fall.
The conservative congressman, who'd taken the Grover Norquist "no new taxes" pledge shortly after he was first elected in 2010, has finally in his third term begun to "grow" in his office.
That's his word. "Grow." Perhaps "evolve" might be a more politically correct observation.
It all began in the primary warm-up of 2014 when Fleischmann faced the young and energetic Weston Wamp - son of Zach Wamp, Fleischmann's predecessor who had stepped down to run (unsuccessfully) for governor. The younger Wamp was not courting the tea party, as Fleischmann had. Wamp, like his father, believed politics was about making decisions to lead through compromise. Fleischmann, on the other hand, seemed to almost choke if he was forced to use the word "compromise." In primary debates, when compromise or "dialogue" came up, Fleischmann accused Wamp of being a closet Democrat.
It was a nasty, hard-fought race, with Fleischmann resorting to low, low campaign mailer ads timed to hit about midway through early voting. One mailer was a faked photograph intended to depict Wamp smiling as he burned a passport beside a partial quote about immigration amnesty. The quote was grossly taken out of context. By the time the faked-photo ad landed in mailboxes across the county, nearly 8,000 people here had voted early. It was too late for voter disgust with the underhandedness to bite the incumbent with any of those voters.
But it surely left a number of Republicans with a bitter taste in their mouths. On the day before the election, a full-page newspaper ad signed by about 150 local and prominent Republicans and independents decried Fleischmann's "dishonest" and "negative" campaign, and urged support for Wamp.
Fleischmann was very nearly turned out. He won the Hamilton County GOP primary by a mere 84 votes, and the entire 11-county 3rd District by just 1,469 votes, according to post-election stories. Immediately after the primary, Fleischmann implied that he was a victim of his then-political consultant Chip Saltsman, and he issued a statement saying that he and Saltsman had parted company.
On Thursday, talking with reporters and editors of the Times Free Press about the House speaker conundrum and the fallout from Speaker John Boehner's resignation, Fleischmann was not the same angry, die-hard, anti-government man who ran that hard-right campaign of 2014. And he acknowledged as much.
"I have still maintained my fiscal and social conservative principals, but I realized very early there is great debate and unrest and disagreement in this country," he said. It is clear to him that many citizens are unhappy with Washington, unhappy with Congress. Unhappy with Republicans and Democrats alike.
"I finally said, at some point we have to figure out out to govern this great country. I have a vote and role. I'm one of 435. I sat back and said, 'I can either continue just to fight, or I can say I want to try to accomplish something.'"
Fleischmann said he represents more than 700,000 constituents in Tennessee, and he recognizes that they are not all hard-right Republicans. "Sometimes the gains are small. Sometimes they are larger," he said.
Welcome, home, Rep. Fleischmann. Perhaps you can help some of your colleagues who still think compromise is a four-letter word.
It is not, of course, a dirty word. Listening, talking and compromising make up the discourse necessary to enable the decisions - even innovative change and improvements. And those small and not-so-small steps are the meat and potatoes of the political process that makes us a democracy.