The candidates in Tennessee’s 4th Congressional District sparred Monday over jobs and law and order, but their focus was on the personal and campaign behavior of the other candidate – not their differing political views.
U.S. Rep. Lincoln Davis, a Pall Mall, Tenn., Democrat seeking his fifth term in Congress, accused Republican challenger Scott DesJarlais of disrespecting police for comparing the actions of a Chattanooga police officer in 2001 to the “Dukes of Hazzard” television program.
For his part, DesJarlais questioned why Davis was having to pay workers to campaign in the final week for the congressman.
In an increasingly contentious contest rated by the nonpartisan Cook Political Report as too close to call, Davis and DesJarlais continued their “air wars” on television after DesJarlais decided against participating in what was to be their only debate on Monday.
The lack of any face-to-face meeting Monday didn’t limit the campaigns’ “in your face” charges against one another, however.
The DesJarlais campaign mocked an appeal by the Davis campaign to hire workers for $10 an hour, plus mileage, to go door-to-door and solicit support for Davis’ re-election in Middle Tennessee neighborhoods in the next week.
“Davis has finally released a plan for jobs that Tennesseans have been requesting for several years now,” DesJarlais’ campaign manager Brent Leatherwood quipped. “Unfortunately for 4th District Tennesseans who face some of the steepest unemployment rates in the state, the plan only runs until Nov. 2nd when it will come to a grinding halt.”
The Davis campaign continued to attack DesJarlais for allegations made in his 2001 divorce and a police incident report about an argument between DesJarlais and his ex-wife at a Chattanooga apartment. In one television commercial, Davis highlights affidavits from the decade-old divorce proceedings that accused DesJarlais of “violent and threatening” behavior, including “dry firing a gun” and “admission of suicidal ideation” and “physical intimidation” at Grandview Hospital.
DesJarlais denied such behavior in an interview last month with the Chattanooga Times Free Press, and in a separate ad his current wife, Amy, called the attacks “flat- out lies.”
DesJarlais insists that the judge wouldn’t have accepted the truth of the allegations made by his first wife and then given him his guns in the property settlement or shared custody of his son.
DesJarlais also dismissed a police incident report in 2001 in which Chattanooga Police Officer Bryan Churchwell said DesJarlais “became extremely agitated” with police after arguing with his ex-wife and refusing to leave after picking up his son.
“Scott DesJarlais would not listen and once again cut me off and accused me of taking her [his ex-wife Susan’s] side,” Churchwell wrote in a two-page account of the incident.
When the Times Free Press showed the police incident report to DesJarlais, the Jasper physician likened the incident to “The Dukes of Hazzard” when the officer breaks out someone’s light and then writes him a ticket. DesJarlais said the police officer lived at the same complex as his ex-wife and was a friend of hers.
The Davis campaign seized upon DesJarlais’ comments as an attack on law enforcement in general.
“He is comparing his attacks on his ex-wife and the police officer who intervened with characters from a situation comedy,” Davis’ campaign spokesman Bill Fletcher said. “Clearly, DesJarlais thinks that domestic violence is a joking matter.”
The Davis campaign circulated a letter asking for an apology from DesJarlais to the law enforcement community. The letter was reportedly endorsed by Manchester Police Chief Ross Simons, Crossville Police Chief David Beaty and former Campbell County Sheriff Ron McClellan. But Simons said he never signed the letter, and McClellan was unavailable Monday.
Simons said he saw the letter and “it would be wrong” if DesJarlais likened the officer to deputies in “The Dukes of Hazzard.”
“But I don’t know all the facts in this case, and while I saw this letter, I didn’t write it or sign it,” Simons said.
Leatherwood said the letter appears from its computer history to have been written by Fletcher, not any police.
But Beaty, the police chief in the city of Crossville, said domestic disputes “are among the most serious calls you will answer as a police officer,” and he objected to DesJarlais accusing an officer of taking sides in the dispute.
“For a professional person to accuse someone of trying to set something up is like a law enforcement person accusing a medical doctor of being a quack and disrespecting their profession,” he said.
Chattanooga police officials didn’t raise any objections to DesJarlais’ comments. But Sgt. Jeri Weary, a spokeswoman, said Churchwell was obligated to fill out an incident report when he was flagged down to respond to the argument while on his way to work.
“If he was to file a false report, he could lose his job,” she said.