Recruits for 2010 put glee in GOP

From The Washington Times: “Conservative and Republican candidates who sat on the sidelines during the Democratic electoral surges of 2006 and 2008 are jumping into the 2010 midterm elections with renewed confidence after President Obama’s first year in office. Rep. Lynn Westmoreland of Georgia, who heads the recruitment effort at the National Republican Congressional Committee, said he doesn’t have to go looking for candidates anymore. He just has to answer the phone. “We’ve got people calling from all over the country, saying, ‘I want to run.’ People are concerned about the direction of the country,” he said. “We’ve got doctors, farmers, business people — people from all walks of life.” The class of new recruits, who run the gamut from legislative veterans hoping for comebacks to promising newcomers, has Republican officials eyeing significant gains in the House, Senate and governors’ mansions after two disastrous election cycles. In Tennessee’s conservative-leaning 8th Congressional District, for example, farmer and gospel singer Stephen Fincher climbed down from his tractor last year to run against 11-term Rep. John S. Tanner, a Democrat who abruptly announced his retirement plans in early December. The race is now considered wide open. “My roots run deep in Tennessee, not politics,” said Mr. Fincher, who raised an impressive $300,000 in the third quarter campaigning against the agenda of President Obama and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, California Democrat. …”

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