With the GOP primary race for Tennessee’s 7th District rolling into a frenzied final stretch, campaigns are making their final pitches to voters ahead of early voting ending Thursday.

A rash of last-minute, high-dollar expenditures have been reported as well, with a host of PACs dumping millions into a primary race where no candidate has emerged as the clear frontrunner with just days to go. 

But FEC filings posted by Stewart Parks’ campaign last week caught several campaign experts and casual political observers by surprise. Parks, the Tennessee J6er who was rushed into federal prison by the Biden Administration before being pardoned by President Trump, has quietly spent over $330,000in the race, according to FEC filings, since the election began.

Parks’ spending is competitive with other candidates in the race who have been hammering each other in the mailboxes, radio and on television, but Parks hasn’t been doing any of those things. So, what exactly has Parks been doing? And can it work in a low-turnout crowded Republican field?

Last week, Parks hosted a meet-and-greet at a Clarksville Chick-fil-A with Coach Trey Campbell, the Northwest High School volunteer football coach and school resource officer who was escorted from the field for praying with players. 

Campbell’s story echoes similar themes of the case recently won at the U.S. Supreme Court by coach Joe Kennedy.

“I’m just so heartbroken that this sort of attack on free speech and religious liberty is happening here in our neck of the woods,” Parks said after the meet-and-greet. “Coach Campbell is exactly the sort of man we want mentoring and praying for our kids. Kicking him out of the stadium for praying – it’s unconscionable.”

Later in the week, Parks was knocking on doors and meeting voters in Collinwood, a small community just seven miles from the Alabama border. Hours from the hustle and bustle of Nashville, many voters were intrigued – and some perhaps confused – by the presence of a candidate running for Congress.

“I’ve lived in this house for 53 years,” one woman said of the visit, “and this is the first time I’ve ever had a candidate of any kind come to my door and ask for my vote. It’s nice to know that we are not forgotten.”

While most every campaign in the race for the 7th has employed paid door knocking teams to canvas certain parts of the district, it is, in fact, very uncommon for congressional candidates to knock on doors themselves.

“There’s one thing that sets Stewart Parks apart from every other candidate in this race – who are all, by the way, running on exactly the same platform,” Parks’ campaign consultant Zach Freeman, added. “It’s the fact that he is honestly and genuinely the nicest guy you’re ever going to meet. He refuses to say negative things about his opponents, even when they deserve it. He refuses to mislead people into thinking that President Trump has endorsed him by superimposing himself on images of the President. He cares a lot more about winning the endorsement of a farmer in Benton County than he cares about an endorsement from a musician or a politician in Nashville.”

The Parks campaign finally arrived in the mailbox last week. At least one personalized, hand-addressed, hand-signed letter made its way into the hands of a 77-year old voter in Bon Aqua. In it, Stewart Parks handed out his actual cell phone number and asked the voter to call him if they had any questions.

Of course, Hickman County residents were also quick to notice that Parks filmed all his campaign videos at Johnny Cash’s farm in Bon Aqua.

“I’ve had a lot of phone calls from voters this week who just wanted to know if the number was real,” laughed Parks at a campaign stop in Lyles. “It’s nice for me to hear from them, though. A lot of them are really bothered by the mudslinging and the amount of junk mail they’re getting. They’re tired of random people calling them at dinner time to tell them who to vote for, or people trying to put signs in their yards at night without asking. Seeing someone’s TV ad 45 times gets annoying. It’s really been a treat to meet so many people in person and make sure they know they have someone who’s willing to go to bat for them.”

Stewart Parks is one of 11 Republicans vying for the nomination. Republican voters will have their final say on Tuesday, October 7th. Polls will be open until 7 pm across the district.

Steve Gill is editor and publisher of TriStar Daily.