I can’t imagine a bigger electoral dilemma than trying to decide which Republican primary contender is more deserving of my schadenfreude. To wit, the results -- as yet incomplete -- in the TN-04 GOP primary.
If that district rings a bell, that’s the seat occupied for the last two terms by the execrable Scott Desjarlais (R-Hypocrite), who inexplicably got re-elected in 2012 and could slither by again this year. Remember him? He’s the reliably anti-choice doctor who slept with some of his patients, and pressured one of them to get an abortion, on top of the two occasions on which he pressured his ex-wife to do the same. Voted CREW’s Most Corrupt Congressman. Reprimanded and fined by the Tennessee Board of Medical Examiners in May 2013 for engaging in sexual relationships with two patients. Yeah, that guy.
Desjarlais was voted by National Journal as one of the Top Ten Congressmen most deserving of a primary challenge in this cycle, and he got one, from state Senator Jim Tracy. And challenge Tracy did. He began running against Desjarlais two years ago, practically as soon as the 2012 vote counts were in.
This should have been a gimme for Tracy. And yet, for reasons Jason Linkins amply explained at HuffPo, it has not been. The race has come down to the wire. With nearly all the votes in, Desjarlais leads with a 35-vote margin.
But it’s those final 90 votes, not yet counted, that give us the schadenfreude two-fer. Tracy may be hoisted upon his own Voter ID petard.
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