The dirt starts flying

Although we are currently in 6th district in the US house of Representatives. We will be moving into the 4th district and will have to vote as such in the August and November elections this year. In this new district already the dirt is flying.

Currently the 4th is represented by U.S. Rep. Scott DesJarlais. He is a republican and is being challenged by State Sen. Eric Stewart. I'll admit that I really don't know much about either so their actions during this election cycle will determine a lot on how I will view them and also my final vote.

Sadly the dirt is flying already and the first blow seems a rather cheap blow.

State Sen. Eric Stewart said Monday he paid a $100 fine in 2010 for inaccurate campaign finance reporting following a Tennessee Bureau of Ethics and Campaign Finances audit.
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“With regards to our campaign disclosures from over three years ago, our campaign made some mistakes. I took responsibility for them, worked with the Registry (of Election Finance) and made the appropriate corrections,” said Stewart.

Now this could be a case of bad bookkeeping or a sign of incompetence, but a simple $100 fine rather implies how big this really was...it wasn't.

Now the timing of this early charge by DesJarlais is being called into question by Stewart because of the following.

“At a time when folks are still struggling to get back on their feet and small businesses are worried about how they are going to make payroll, DesJarlais is trying to distract voters from recent news that he spent over $250,000 of taxpayer money to help his re-election campaign, that he took political contributions in return for letters of support for federal funding...

I hope this is not a sign of a long and dirty campaign. I am hoping to learn positions, causes, job experience, and things about their character.