Elaine Drake chatted with write-in Congressional candidate Steve Edmondson during Edmondson's visit to Shelbyville on Thursday, saying she intends to support him in next week's election. (T-G Photo by John I. Carney) [Click to enlarge] [Order this photo]

Steve Edmondson, who ran for Congress as an independent in 1992 and as a Republican in 1996, got on the state's election web site this year to see which Republican candidates had qualified to challenge incumbent Democrat Rep. Bart Gordon.

He found that no one was running in the Republican primary. (There is one independent candidate, Chris Baker, who will be on the ballot for the November general election.)

"It actually kind of made me mad," he said. So he decided to conduct a write-in campaign, to "at least give people an option," as he put it.

Edmondson, the brother of Cascade eighth grade teacher Mike Edmondson, acknowledged during a campaign stop Thursday in Shelbyville that he is fighting an uphill battle. With few financial resources -- donors, he said, are reluctant to commit money to write-in candidates -- he must convince 5 percent of the registered voters in the Sixth Congressional District to cast write-in votes for him in the Aug. 7 Republican primary. That target is estimated to be about 23,000, but Edmondson doesn't have the exact figure yet.

"Being a write-in candidate's really tough," he said. "I want to get every vote I can get." He greeted customers at the KFC restaurant in Shelbyville on Thursday as part of a swing through the district, saying he will have visited all 15 counties by next week's election.

At his campaign stops, he's handing out flyers with instructions for casting a write-in vote on the MicroVote machines used by most of the counties in the district, including Bedford. Voters do not have to request a paper ballot; they can choose the button labeled "write-in" on the electronic screen and then type out the candidate's name using the voting buttons.

Edmondson described himself as "a solid conservative" and said that while Gordon's personal views may be moderate, he is beholden to the leadership of the Democratic party.

"He's not going to buck the system," said Edmondson, citing two occasions when Gordon had endorsed or co-sponsored a bill but later refused to vote for a "discharge petition" to force a vote on that bill.

Edmondson's campaign literature lists some of his positions, including:

* Support for a constitutional amendment to define marriage as being between one man and one woman.

* A call for federal policies to "discourage abortion and promote a culture that embraces every innocent life as worthy of protection."

* Opening up the continental shelf and the Alaska National Wildlife Refuge, and "any other reasonable area," for oil drilling. Edmondson had a petition on this issue available for signing at his campaign stops.

* Recognizing English as the official language of the U.S. government.

* Simplifying and reducing rates of the federal income tax, or abolishing it in favor of a consumption-based tax.

* Giving military commanders in Iraq and Afghanistan "the opportunity [to] complete their missions with successful outcomes."

Edmondson was a coach and teacher in Wilson, Rutherford and Perry counties for 18 years and currently home schools his five children. He and his wife, Melissa, live in Smyrna.

Edmondson's web site is edmondson4congress.com.