Congressman Chuck Fleischmann speaks to the Hamilton County Pachyderms on Monday at the Hamilton County Republican Headquarters.In contemplating the fact that we’re stuck with Chuck Fleischmann at least until Democrat Mary Headrick takes a shot at knocking him out of office in November, think about the potential downside of voting early.
In Hamilton County alone, 21,404 people voted early — roughly a 10th of of the county’s registered voters. Of those early balloters, 15,473 of them asked for and voted on the Republican primary ballot.
Early voting began on July 18 — about the same time Fleischmann launched one of the ugliest, negative campaigns seen here. Over the next two weeks, he unleashed at least four television attack ads and at least two mailers, including one with a faked photograph intended to depict his challenger Weston Wamp burning a passport beside a partial quote about immigration amnesty taken out of context.
By the time the faked photo mailer landed in mailboxes across the county — about July 25 — nearly 8,000 people had voted early in the Republican primary, and it was too late for voter disgust with Fleischmann’s underhandedness to bite him with any of those votes that might have been cast for him.
But it did bite with some, and it very nearly turned the two-term incumbent out. Republican disgust with Fleischmann’s tactics (even while Wamp deliberately stayed positive) was evidenced on the day before the election with a full-page newspaper ad decrying the “dishonest” and “negative” campaign. The ad, urging support for Wamp, was signed by about 150 local and prominent Republicans, among others.