Can the question “When exactly does life begin?” substantially influence the outcome of a Republican congressional primary?
It’s an unusual strategy – especially when both front-runners are pro-life – but it appears that D.C.-aspirant Grant Starrett is hoping to unseat Tennessee’s current 4th congressional district representative, Scott DesJarlais, by drawing attention to that distinction.
Columnist David MartinSince he’s been in Washington, DesJarlais has been a reliable vote for the pro-life cause, and for that record he most recently received a perfect score by the National Right to Life for the 2015-16 legislative session. It would be impossible to out-conservative that, right? Evidently not. To outflank the incumbent, Starrett is honing in on DesJarlais’ unwillingness to unequivocally state that life begins at conception.
“I know my district favors pro-life, and I voted 100 percent pro-life with my district. As far as when life begins, I don’t know that I have the answer,” DesJarlais told the Murfreesboro Post not too long ago. That perceived ambivalence has presented an opening for Starrett to attack the South Pittsburg physician as not being pro-life enough.
Or is there something more?
As Times Free Press reporter Andy Sher explained, multiple Republican operatives close to the race claim Starrett’s fixation with the conception issue is a way for him to subtly hint at DesJarlais’ very public former sins while also being able to say he’s staying away from negative campaigning.
That might seem like a sound approach, but it ignores two apparent 4th District voter characteristics. The first is that they aren’t completely turned off by mud-slinging. Anyone who’s watched the last three elections is aware of this. The races have been brutal affairs, each going DesJarlais’ way. The second is that 4th District voters are willing to forgive past indiscretions: Not only have they sent DesJarlais to Washington three times, but every county in the district favored Donald Trump in this year’s presidential primary.
Knowing his constituency well, DesJarlais has blown off Starrett’s overture to make the campaign a “vigorous battle of ideas.” Instead, he’s laid into the native Californian as a trust-fund “outsider [who] really has no business being in the district.” Unsurprisingly, the label “carpetbagger” has been thrown around – and in a highly rural Southern congressional district, that bygone term still carries immense weight.
Hence the scrambling by Starrett to find something (anything) unsavory to pin on DesJarlais. He’s even tried to use the fact that the congressman passed up his chance to grill Planned Parenthood’s chief executive last year when she testified before the House Government Reform Oversight Committee.
It’s true that DesJarlais, who sits on that committee, forwent the opportunity to question the head of America’s leading abortion provider. What Starrett has failed to mention, though, is that DesJarlais – according to his campaign – deferred his allotted time to a female peer on the committee so women would have a more prominent role in the interrogation.
As far as optics are concerned, that strategy does make sense. What’s more visibly impactful, a middle-aged man cross-examining a Planned Parenthood executive or a female doing that work?
But I digress. Back to conception. There is no doubt that many 4th District conservative voters put great value on the answer to the question, “When exactly does life begin?” That said, it’s hard to imagine enough of them are willing to vote against a three-term, pro-life congressman because he refuses to act as an authority on the matter when he clearly isn’t comfortable pretending he’s one.
DesJarlais has successfully fended off some vicious attacks in the past. And this one by Starrett has, by far, been the most tame.
Contact David Allen Martin at davidallenmartin423@gmail.com and follow him on Twitter @DMart423.