LAWYER FALL SHORT OF 8TH DISTRICT SIGNATURES

Dan Alcorn's bid for Congress never got off the ground.

His short-lived effort ended because he couldn't secure the nearly 3,700 petition signatures needed to get on the ballot by Monday's deadline.

A native of Ellsinore in Carter County, Alcorn sought to run for the 8th District seat as an independent candidate after incumbent Bill Emerson died of lung cancer.

But Alcorn, who lists himself as a Democrat, only managed to secure 2,800 signatures of registered voters over the past few weeks.

"We didn't have any organization to start with," he said.

Alcorn, 40, is a Washington, D.C., lawyer. He has a home in Ellsinore.

He found it tough to find registered voters in the sparsely populated, rural counties of the 8th District. Only registered voters can sign the candidate petitions.

"I ran into many unregistered people," he said Monday. "The poorer they are, the more unregistered they are."

"Other people told me they used to vote, but they quit voting because they figured out it didn't make any difference anyway," he said.

Many of the residents he talked to in the far-flung rural areas of the district felt disenfranchised.

"There are a lot of people who feel they are completely left out of the political system," said Alcorn.

"There is certainly a type of hopelessness I have found in a lot of these rural counties."

Alcorn said he wouldn't rule out running for Congress again in two years.

But for now, he plans to return to Washington and resume his law practice.

"I feel the country is headed in a bad direction," he maintained. "There has been a downhill slide in terms of respect for our government, our leaders, respect for family life and social life."

Alcorn described himself as a middle-of-the-road Democrat.

He said he found the district's residents to be against abortion and gun control.