Archive for the ‘Election 2006’ Category
Today’s Tennessean op/ed
I decided to turn one of my blog posts from Saturday into a “Tennessee Voices” piece which the Tennessean was gracious enough to run today under the title “Race amounted to a poor excuse for Ford’s defeat.” To make it easy, I’m re-printing the text below:
Robert Parham had a column in the Tennessee Voices section of Saturday’s Tennessean making the accusation that Tennessee voters (white Tennessee voters, that is) are racist for not electing Harold Ford Jr. to the U.S. Senate. Parham cynically asserts that “Republicans did what Republicans always do in the South. They played their Southern strategy of slinging racial mud.”
This is in line with a news story the Tennessean ran the Sunday before the election, which opened with the line: “Come Tuesday, Tennessee voters may learn more than who their next U.S. senator will be: They may find out whether their state is ready to send a black man to the U.S. Senate.” I argued then and I argue now that it’s not about race with us. We conservatives saw the campaign on ideological terms. Liberals saw it on racial terms.
Yet Republicans are the ones who are considered racist.
Likewise, columnist Dwight Lewis concluded a recent op-ed column declaring: “I’ll go to my grave believing that Tuesday’s election between Harold Ford and Bob Corker shows we still have a long way to go to achieve social justice and equality.” Of course, Mr. Lewis gives the appearance of being racially biased himself and can’t see through to the ideological differences between Corker and Ford that actually determined the outcome of this election.
Corker beat Ford 51 percent to 48 percent here in Tennessee.
In the race for governor of Pennsylvania, a blue state, Ed Rendell, a white Democrat, beat Lynn Swann, a black Republican, 60 percent to 40 percent. In the race for U.S. Senate in Maryland, another blue state, Ben Cardin, a white Democrat, beat Michael Steele, a black Republican, 54 percent to 44 percent.
In other words, Harold Ford, Jr. came closer to winning a statewide race here in Tennessee than black Republicans did in two blue states, but we in Tennessee are the racists. Indeed, I have yet to hear one liberal accuse Pennsylvania or Maryland voters of racism (although Howard Dean has chastised the Maryland Democratic Party for being too white — a problem they need to rectify in order to avoid “another Michael Steele problem.”)
Ironically, Lewis flashes back to “the failed attempt of former Atlanta Mayor Andrew Young to win Georgia’s gubernatorial race in 1990 and black Charlotte, N.C., architect Harvey Gantt’s bid to win North Carolina’s senate race in 1994.” (Actually, Gantt’s defeats occurred in 1990 and 1996.)
But he doesn’t mention the two aforementioned elections involving black candidates that happened just last week.
Why the discrepancy? Andrew Young and Harvey Gantt, of course, are Democrats, and liberals only see racism if they can portray one of their own as the victim. Pennsylvania and Maryland voters aren’t similarly considered racist because defeated candidates Lynn Swann and Michael Steele aren’t Democrats.
Perhaps Lewis is right. Perhaps we do still have a long way to go to achieve “social justice” and “equality.”
One of the perks of getting published in the Tennessean is all the hate mail that usually comes in. I’ll be sure to post it all here in the next day or two.
Vote breakdown in Tennessee Senate District 17
From the Tennessee Election Commission, here are the county-by-county results of Mae Beavers’ re-election last Tuesday:
| County | Mae Beavers | Bob Rochelle | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Votes | Percentage | Votes | Percentage | |
| Cannon | 1,897 | 50.7% | 1,848 | 49.3% |
| Clay | 921 | 44.4% | 1,155 | 55.6% |
| DeKalb | 2,630 | 55.2% | 2,132 | 44.8% |
| Macon | 2,847 | 58.7% | 1,999 | 41.3% |
| Smith | 2,650 | 45.7% | 3,148 | 54.3% |
| Sumner | 1,112 | 68.6% | 510 | 31.4% |
| Trousdale | 967 | 41.3% | 1,373 | 58.7% |
| Wilson | 21,675 | 61.9% | 13,356 | 38.1% |
| Total | 34,699 | 57.6% | 25,521 | 42.4% |
I was waiting for this
Robert Parham had a column in the “Tennessee Voices” section of Saturday’s Tennessean making the accusation that Tennessee voters (white Tennessee voters, that is) are racist for not electing Harold Ford, Jr. to the U.S. Senate. Parham cynically asserts that “Republicans did what Republicans always do in the South. They played their Southern strategy of slinging racial mud.”
This is in line with a news story the Tennessean ran last Sunday which opened with the line “Come Tuesday, Tennessee voters may learn more than who their next U.S. senator will be: They may find out whether their state is ready to send a black man to the U.S. Senate.” I argued then and I argue now that it’s not about race with us. We conservatives saw the campaign on ideological terms. Liberals saw it on racial terms. Yet Republicans are the ones who are considered racist.
Likewise, columnist Dwight Lewis concluded his op/ed last Thursday declaring “I’ll go to my grave believing that Tuesday’s election between Harold Ford and Bob Corker shows we still have a long way to go to achieve social justice and equality.” Of course, Mr. Lewis gives the appearance of being racially biased himself, and can’t see through to the ideological differences between Corker and Ford that actually determined the outcome of this election.
Corker beat Ford 51-48% here in Tennessee. In the race for governor of Pennsylvania, a blue state, Ed Rendell, a white Democrat, beat Lynn Swann, a black Republican, 60-40%. In the race for U.S. Senate in Maryland, another blue state, Ben Cardin, a white Democrat, beat Michael Steele, a black Republican, 54-44%.
In other words, Harold Ford, Jr. came closer to winning a statewide race here in Tennessee than black Republicans did in two blue states, but we in Tennessee are the racists. Indeed, I have yet to hear one liberal accuse Pennsylvania or Maryland voters of racism (although Howard Dean has chastised the Maryland Democratic Party for being too white — a problem they need to rectify in order to avoid “another Michael Steele problem.”)
Ironically, Dwight Lewis flashes back to “the failed attempt of former Atlanta Mayor Andrew Young to win Georgia’s gubernatorial race in 1990 and black Charlotte, N.C., architect Harvey Gantt’s bid to win North Carolina’s senate race in 1994.” (Actually, Gantt’s defeats occurred in 1990 and 1996.) But he doesn’t mention the two aforementioned elections involving black candidates that happened just last week. Why the discrepancy? Andrew Young and Harvey Gantt, of course, are Democrats, and liberals only see racism if they can portray one of their own as the victim. Pennsylvania and Maryland voters aren’t similarly considered racist because defeated candidates Lynn Swann and Michael Steele aren’t Democrats.
Perhaps Lewis is right. Perhaps we do still have a long way to go to achieve “social justice” and “equality.”
Today’s Lebanon Democrat column: “GOP strayed from roots to lose election”
In the spirit of good sportsmanship, congratulations to the Democrats for winning their first national election since 1996, and their first congressional election since 1992. As of this writing, the Democrats have gained 26 House Seats, and are leaning toward three more in undecided races, along with the six Senate seats they needed to gain a majority in the upper chamber.
The Democrat gains appear to be right on target as far as history is concerned. Since 1914, the average gain for the opposition party in a President’s sixth year is 34 House seats and six Senate seats.
There have been several reasons being attributed to the Democrats’ victory, such as anti-war sentiment, anti-Bush sentiment, and anti-GOP sentiment. I have yet to hear “pro-Democrat sentiment” listed as a reason for the Democrats’ win.
One caveat is that since Democrats have won the House and Senate, as per some of their TV advertisements (especially in Missouri, where Democrat Claire McCaskill beat Senator Jim Talent), we can expect sufferers of Parkinson’s, Alzheimer’s, and spinal cord injuries to finally be cured. I’ll be holding the Democrats to this one.
According to another liberal theory, since Bush/Cheney manipulated gas prices to help sway the election, we can look for a return $3 per gallon gasoline. However, two days after the election, regular unleaded was still $2.07.
And we can also look for optimistic reporting on the economy with Democrats now in power. Even if there is no change in economic indicators, the mainstream press will suddenly discover that the U.S. economy really is in good shape.
In the grand scheme, however, the GOP cannot blame the news media for their defeat, since the mainstream press no longer monopolizes the flow of information. We cannot blame the voting machines, voter fraud, voter intimidation, complicated ballots, and all the other factors Democrats blame when they lose. At least this conservative is willing to recognize a legitimate Democrat victory.
Although the political climate did not favor the GOP this time around, you can still look to the fact that Republicans abandoned the conservative ideology that swept them to power in 1994 as the primary reason for their defeat in 2006. While conservatism continues to prosper, big-government Republicanism has been defeated.
Even though the Democrats gave the American people nothing to vote for, instead choosing to campaign against President Bush and the GOP rather than on behalf of liberalism, the Democrats did rely on a handful of conservative candidates (Jim Webb in Virginia, and Heath Shuler in North Carolina, for example) as a front to help elect to power a Democrat leadership (Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid) that really is far left.
In short, conservatism won in 2006 when it ran as a Democrat.
As I wrote in this newspaper exactly three years ago “Because the Democratic Party has shifted so far to the left, Republicans have felt obligated to shift leftward, too, in order to co-opt the center of the political spectrum. This is misguided for two reasons. First, Republicans win by being conservatives. In becoming invertebrate centrists, they risk alienating conservatives into either not voting, or voting for third-party candidates. Second, by blurring the lines between themselves and Democrats, left-leaning Republicans present an indistinguishable alternative between themselves and their opponents, giving Democratic voters no reason not to vote for the candidate with the ‘D’ beside his name.”
I’m not going to say that it’s a good thing that the GOP lost, because it means we’re now going to be subjected to a Democrat Congress for the next two years, and that’s NEVER a good thing. However, good things can come out of the GOP’s defeat IF the result is a period of honest introspection by Republicans that produces a leader who can refocus the party on conservatism in the mold of, say, Newt Gingrich. When displayed unabashedly, conservatism wins elections. We know this, because we saw it happen in 1980, 1984, and 1994, and it will happen again.
Until then, conservatives can distinguish themselves from our fellow countrymen across the aisle by not falling into the derangement that envelops liberals when they’re out of power, and that is to not allow politics to affect our God-given joy and optimism. To do otherwise would be to allow the government to determine our outlook, and that would be the antithesis of conservatism.
The failure of big government Republicanism
Bill Hobbs has a post-election wrap where he quotes Senator Tom Coburn (R-OK): “This election does not show that voters have abandoned their belief in limited government; it shows that the Republican Party has abandoned them. In fact, these results represent the total failure of big government Republicanism.”
As I noted in my Lebanon Democrat column back on November 18, 2003, “Republicans should move back to right”:
Because the Democratic Party has shifted so far to the left, Republicans have felt obligated to shift leftward, too, in order to co-opt the center of the political spectrum. This is misguided for two reasons. First, Republicans win by being conservatives. In becoming invertebrate centrists, they risk alienating conservatives into either not voting, or voting for third-party candidates. Second, by blurring the lines between themselves and Democrats, left-leaning Republicans present an indistinguishable alternative between themselves and their opponents, giving Democratic voters no reason not to vote for the candidate with the “D” beside his name.
Glen Dean has put together a nice write-up on the failure of big government Republicanism, as well, and cites Rush Limbaugh for this nail-on-the-head quote:
You could argue Bush was more of an ideologue in the presidential campaign of ‘04, but in looking at what happened yesterday, it wasn’t conservatism that lost. Conservatism won when it ran as a Democrat. It won in a number of places. Republicanism lost. RINO Republicans, country club blue-blood Republicans, this nonpartisan Republican identity, that’s what went down in flames. I’ve always believed that those of us who are conservative believe in the ideology. We believe it wins. We believe it’s best for the country. We believe it’s best for the people. We believe it’s ultimately compassionate, and it has not been present.
I’m not going to say that it’s a good thing that the GOP lost, because it means we’re now going to be subjected to a Democrat Congress for the next two years, and that’s NEVER a good thing. However, good things can come out of the GOP’s defeat at the polls yesterday IF the result is some serious introspection by congressional Republicans, prospective congressional Republicans, and President Bush.
Random election thoughts
> First of all, in the spirit of good sportsmanship, congratulations to the Democrats for winning their first national election since 1996, and their first congressional election since 1992. (Hey, even the Titans slip up and win every once-in-a-while.) When I turned on Fox News around 6:30 this morning, the Democrats were up to 26 seats gained, with pundits predicting an eventual 30-32 seat gain. A 30-seat gain would produce a mirror change from the previous arrangement — a 15-seat GOP majority turning into a 15-seat Democrat majority. The Democrats had picked up 4 Senate seats as of this morning, with Virginia poised to go to the Democrats, and Montana teetering on the edge. If Montana goes to the Democrats, so goes the Senate. (YIKES!)
> By the way, Democrat gains appear to be right on target as far as history is concerned. As Ann Coulter noted in her column last week, “The average sixth-year midterm election, like this year, is much worse for the president’s party, which typically loses 34 seats in the House and six seats in the Senate.”
> One thing I have not yet heard from conservatives are accusations that the Democrats stole the election, demands for recounts, and threats of lawsuits. This is, of course, what we heard from Democrats after their losses in 2000 and 2004. This conservative is at least willing to recognize legitimate Democrat victories. Unlike some liberals following President Bush’s re-election in 2004, I won’t be needing counseling.
> I have heard several reasons being attributed to the Democrats’ victory, such as anti-war sentiment, anti-Bush sentiment, and anti-GOP sentiment. I have yet to hear pro-Democrat sentiment as a reason for the Democrats’ win.
> Even if the Democrats’ victory is the result of anti-war sentiment, it doesn’t change the fact that George W. Bush will still be the commander-in-chief for two more years, that we are still in Iraq, and that the job still needs to be done before we can depart. And the terrorists still need to be eradicated. Will the Democrats have a workable plan other than waving the white flag of surrender?
> Now that Democrats have won at least the House, and Claire McCaskill has beaten Senator Jim Talent in Missouri, we can expect sufferers of Parkinson’s, Alzheimer’s, and spinal cord injuries to finally be cured, as per this advertisement.
> It will also be interesting to see how the Democrats govern in Congress. Given that they gave the American people no platform other than their opposition to the Iraq war and all things Republican, perhaps we will finally discover what the Democrats actually stand for.
> I guess since Bush/Cheney manipulated gas prices to help sway the election, we can look for a return $3 per gallon gasoline. If not, it’s another hysterical moonbat theory gone awry.
> We can also look toward more optimistic reporting on the economy with Democrats now in power. Even if there is no change in economic indicators, the mainstream media will suddenly discover that the U.S. economy really is in good shape.
> In Tennessee, Mae Beavers has beaten Bob Rochelle 58-42%. Even though Bob Rochelle heavily out-raised and out-spent Mae Beavers, I made the point early on that money wasn’t a factor. No amount of money was going to cut Bob Rochelle loose from his income tax baggage. Bob Rochelle’s political career is now over, and the income tax really is dead. Don McLeary’s race in West Tennessee is still up in the air. Republicans will have either an 18-15 majority in the Senate, or a 17-16 majority.
> In a bit of odd reporting by the Tennessean, we learn that “Rochelle was a principal backer of wildly unpopular state income tax legislation that ultimately cost him the District 17 seat in 2002.” Whoa! Back then, we were told that the income tax was supported by a proverbial “silent majority,” and were shown polls that proved a majority of Tennesseans wanted “tax reform.” The Tennessean is trying to pass off some revisionist history.
> Governor Bredesen, although he has now won two statewide elections, has no coattails. Going back to 2002, he was unable to carry other Democrats to victory. Lamar Alexander won the open Senate seat that year, and the GOP realized gains in the General Assembly. In 2004, the GOP won a majority in the Tennessee Senate after defeating two incumbent Democrats the governor had campaigned on behalf of. Also, George W. Bush won a landslide in Tennessee that year. This time, the people Governor Bredesen campaigned for, such as Harold Ford, Jr. and Bob Rochelle, went down to defeat. That said, I must admit that the governor’s first term has been a paradise compared to the turmoil of Don Sundquist’s final four disgraceful years in office.
Election 2006: the good, the bad, the carnage
Democrats had already picked up 20 seats in the U.S. House of Representatives when I turned the TV off a few minutes ago, thereby winning a majority there. Democrats have picked up three seats in the U.S. Senate, and still need to win Missouri, Montana, and Virginia to earn a majority there. As of this writing Republican Jim Talent leads by 48,000 votes in Missouri with 71% of precincts reporting, George Allen and Jim Webb are separated by fewer than 3,000 votes in Virginia with 99% of precincts reporting, and Republican Conrad Burns trails in Montana, although it is still early out there. With visions of Florida 2000 dancing in my head, there’s no way I’m staying up the rest of the night to watch this play out.
The good
> Senator Mae Beavers is smoking Bob Rochelle 57-43% with 92% of precincts reporting. She will retain her seat here in District 17.
> Bob Corker is ahead of Harold Ford, Jr. by some 52,000 votes with 96% of precincts reporting. That seat will stay Republican.
> The Tennessee marriage amendment is currently passing with 81% of the vote. In fact, marriage amendments have also passed in South Carolina, Virginia, and Wisconsin. There are four additional states with marriage amendments on the ballot, but no results yet.
> It appears that the GOP will retain the Tennessee Senate. Don McLeary, who switched from Democrat to Republican earlier this year, is trailing in a close race. (Easy come, easy go.) Perhaps the GOP caucus can actually vote for a Republican speaker this time.
The bad
> Two fine gentlemen, Bob Krumm and John Worley, who heavily out-campaigned their opponents, were defeated in their attempts to unseat entrenched Democrat incumbents in the Tennessee General Assembly. Their defeats give testament to the power of incumbency, because that’s all Senator Doug Henry and Representative Stratton Bone had going for them.
> The GOP has lost a good pro-family conservative in the person of Senator Rick Santorum from Pennsylvania.
> There appears to be little movement in the Tennessee House, where Democrats held a 53-46 advantage coming in.
> Although I entertained no delusions of Jim Bryson beating Phil Bredesen, I had no idea he would turn in anemic John Jay Hooker numbers. Ouch.
Rotgut
Check out the latest political advertisement Democrats’ are using against Jim Talent in Missouri.
This is classic liberalism. In a nutshell, their message is: “Bad things are going to happen to you, because bad things always happen. Your only hope in life is to therefore vote us into power.” How inspirational.
And they accuse the GOP of using fear as a motivator.
Today’s Lebanon Democrat column: “GOP won’t go down so easily”
Dear Fellow Conservatives:
I’m not buying into the conventional “wisdom” that the GOP is about to lose the U.S. House, and perhaps even the Senate. That has been the common thread running through the mainstream media’s campaign reporting, and the Democrats have been celebrating in the end zone for weeks without having yet scored a point.
Yes, I’ve seen all those generic polls which show generic Democrats beating generic Republicans. I also remember the exit polls from 2004 that showed John Kerry winning the presidency.
The Democrats may win. The Republicans may win. We won’t know for sure until tomorrow. That’s because there’s only one poll that counts, and it is being taken today in voting booths across America. It is therefore your responsibility to include yourself in that poll.
I don’t believe you are as depressed as the media pundits — some refer to them as “journalists” — are saying. Judging from press reports on the GOP voter base, we are a bunch of dour-faced stay-at-home voters this time around, sort of like the dumbfounded who’s of Whoville right after the Grinch stole Christmas.
The thing is, I know a lot of conservative voters. I’m sure you do, too. And I have yet to meet one who isn’t excited about voting.
All the media reports of “cut-and-run” conservative voters have one design: to get you and I stay in our pajamas today by believing the 2006 elections are a lost cause and that there’s no use in us even bothering to vote.
The problem with the mainstream media is that they don’t know conservative voters. They’re all liberals, for Pete’s sake.
The conservative ideology is inherently optimistic and hopeful. This means conservatives have no reason not to be optimistic and hopeful. Our message, after all, is a winning message: permanent tax cuts, no amnesty for illegals, no same-sex marriage, no abortion-on-demand, and finish the war in Iraq.
Our political opponents believe the opposite, which is why they cannot go directly to the voters with their message and expect to win. Instead, the Democrats and mainstream media, which has shed any pretense of objectivity this election season by stumping unabashedly for the Democrats, have created a string of diversions.
Just since the primaries, there has been the classified National Intelligence Estimate that was leaked by the New York Times in order to discredit President Bush. The Democrats and press then spent the better part of a month using former congressman Mark Foley’s sex scandal (in which there was no sex) to discredit the entire Republican Party.
Then there’s Michael J. Fox, who is campaigning for various Democrats by telling voters that the Republicans oppose stem cell research. Nothing could be further from the truth. We oppose embryonic stem cell research, not only for ethical reasons, but because there has never been a medical breakthrough using embryonic stem cells.
But we strongly favor adult stem cell research, which has shown a myriad of medical uses, most recently in Great Britain where researchers have grown a human liver using stem cells from an umbilical cord. The insinuation is that if we elect Democrats, then sufferers of such diseases as Parkinson’s will be cured. It’s a cruel hoax the Democrats are playing on sick people in order to get votes.
Despite this, the media fixation hasn’t been on Fox’s disingenuous campaigning, it’s been on Rush Limbaugh for criticizing Fox’s disingenuous campaigning.
For another example, when John Kerry made the remark last week that “education, if you make the most of it, if you study hard and you do your homework, and you make an effort to be smart, uh, you, you can do well. If you don’t, you get stuck in Iraq,” the mainstream media couldn’t wait to bury it. Had a Republican made that statement, you and I both know the press would have given it wall-to-wall, twenty-four-hour-a-day coverage.
Several Democrats joined with Republicans to either denounce Senator Kerry or demand an apology. The mainstream press, on the other hand, went to bat for Kerry by telling the American people what the senator really meant, that it was really nothing more than a “botched joke.” In other words, the media actually out-Democrat the Democrats. And these are the people who are trying to convince us to stay home today.
Again, I don’t believe for a second that there’s a large pool of conservative voters sitting this one out due to apathy or some diabolical wish to teach the GOP a lesson. However, for the one or two of you reading this who might fit that category, if you want Nancy Pelosi to become the next Speaker of the House, then by all means stay away from the voting booth.
Really, if you want a majority party that would roll back all or part of the Bush tax cuts, believes same-sex marriage should be legal, supports unrestricted abortion rights (even up to the moment of birth), believes we should grant amnesty to the 12,000,000 illegal immigrants who are in this country, and believes we should cut and run from Iraq before the job is done, then go ahead and be a cut-and-run conservative.
If not, then quit being silly, get off your duff, and go vote.
Unpublished column on Tennessee voter issues
Next Tuesday, Tennesseans have a clear choice between Democrats and Republicans and liberalism and conservatism on a broad range of issues.
First, tax-and-spend issues are once again on the table. The state of Tennessee finished the 2005-2006 fiscal year with a revenue surplus of $411.2 million. Combining the last three years, Tennessee taxpayers have overpaid their taxes by $1.052 billion. The government has kept it all, with Democrats refusing to refund that money back to the taxpayers, and refusing to cut the 6% sales tax on food items.
On the one hand, Democrats complain that the food tax is regressive and hurts the poor disproportionately, but when given the opportunity to lower the food tax while not affecting one, single government program, Democrats refuse to consider it.
Senator Mae Beavers has led a Republican effort not merely to trim the food tax, but to eliminate it altogether. She sponsored a bill earlier this year (SB2785) that would phase out the food tax over a period of 12 years. By the end of the 2006 legislative session, SB2785 had drawn 13 co-sponsors — all Republicans. It only takes 17 votes to pass a bill in the Senate.
Also at issue is illegal immigration. Democrats in the House have coddled illegal immigrants by refusing to pass legislation that would help demagnetize the state. Republicans, currently on the short end of a 53-46 balance of power, have fought the Democrats for years by trying to legislate common sense regarding illegal immigration, but have been consistently rebuffed.
Just within the past two years, Democrats have killed Republican-led efforts to require proof of citizenship to vote and receive certain taxpayer-funded services. Democrats killed a bill that would have abolished the practice of giving driving certificates to individuals with no proof of citizenship or legal residency. Democrats also killed a legislative amendment that would have prevented illegal immigrants receiving a driving certificate from also being offered a voter’s registration application.
The Tennessee GOP has made illegal immigration a centerpiece of their election campaign, while Democrats either try to provide cover for their coddling, or run from the issue altogether. Illegal immigrants in the state will continue to be coddled as long as Democrats are in power.
The issue of ethics is also in play this election season. On August 22, Senator Jerry Cooper became the fifth senator in the last 15 months to be indicted on criminal charges. All five indicted senators are Democrats. Thus, of the sixteen senators who made up the Democrat Caucus following the 2004 elections, nearly a third are currently under conviction or indictment.
Indeed, the long-standing Democrat control of the Tennessee Senate has fostered a culture of corruption that is rarely seen elsewhere in society. That the Governor (a Democrat), the Speaker of the Senate (a Democrat), and the Speaker of the House (a Democrat) have not called on even one of their indicted senators to resign reveals the nonchalance Democrats have toward corruption among their own party members, and these are the people who make the laws the rest of us must live by.
What hasn’t received a lot of ink this campaign season is the opportunity Tennessee voters have to amend the state Constitution to forever limit marriage to the union of one man and one woman. Don’t be fooled into believing that voter approval of this amendment would be discriminatory. After it passes, all adults, gay or straight, will still have the right to be married to one person of the opposite sex. The amendment will also prevent unelected Tennessee Supreme Court judges from redefining marriage.
Democrats are running their campaign primarily on jobs, healthcare, and education. Democrats always run campaigns on jobs, healthcare, and education. Their solution to all three is more government, more spending, and, if need be, more taxes.
On the other hand, the GOP is running their campaign on less spending, lower taxes, no state income tax, and the promise to demagnetize the state as a haven for illegal immigrants. Republicans in the Senate have also proven themselves to be more ethically sound than their Democrat counterparts.
Democrats have controlled the Tennessee General Assembly with scant interruption since Reconstruction. If Democrats tell us how much things need fixing, such as healthcare and education, then those things fell into disrepair with them in charge. Therefore, solutions to whatever problems face the state of Tennessee won’t occur until the Democrats are relieved of their duties.
Unpublished column on Bob Rochelle’s anti-income tax pledge
My, how the times have changed. Bob Rochelle has signed an anti-income tax pledge as part of his effort to assure the voters across Mae Beavers’ senate district that the six years he spent advocating a state income tax are gone with the wind.
Let’s begin with the text of Bob Rochelle’s pledge:
“The income tax is a dead issue. If it comes up again, I will use my expertise in the legislature to make sure it doesn’t pass without a vote of the people. I am signing this pledge because I will kill an income tax if it comes up in the legislature and is not submitted to a vote of the people.”
Don’t be fooled by that first sentence. Income tax advocates typically declare the income tax dead before an election in order to disarm voters. Only after they are safely elected does the income tax come alive again. Remember, the last time Bob Rochelle ran for the Senate (1998) he told the voters he opposed a state income tax. Eight years later, Bob Rochelle is again running for the Senate in opposition to a state income tax. Between those two campaign years, Bob Rochelle was the state’s most passionate, prolific, persistent, and consistent advocate for a state income tax while serving as a member of the Senate and, later, the Tennessee Tax Structure Study Commission.
Also, consider that there is a bill filed in the Tennessee General Assembly (HB2120) cleverly disguised as the “Tennessee Investment and Economic Development Act” that would implement a graduated income tax on Tennesseans. The bill is sponsored by Mike Kernell, a Memphis Democrat.
With respect to HB2120, Representative Stacey Campfield, a Knoxville Republican, recently noted on his website that “All it needed was a willing senator to carry it and it could have been crammed through during the last session. The gov[ernor] has said he will not push an income tax, but he will not fight against one either. … Now he has endorsed Bob Rochelle. The father of the income tax. The language in H[B]2120 will be introduced again in the next session, because it is introduced in every session ‘just in case.’ This year we could have a gov[ernor] who will not stand in the way of it and, if Rochelle returns, a senator who loves the idea and will carry [it] in the senate. … Rochelle has a reputation of saying and doing anything he can to get what he wants. He was known as a bully in the senate who abused and punished those who dare[d] dissent his view.”
Therefore, the best way to ensure the income tax remains dead is to deny Bob Rochelle a seat in the Senate.
Second, Bob Rochelle wants the voters to know that he will not let a state income tax pass without a vote of the people. This is vintage Bob Rochelle.
During his last term in the Senate (1999-2003), Bob Rochelle tried to pass an income tax that was indeed attached to a vote by the people, only the vote would come AFTER the income tax was implemented. In his pledge, Bob Rochelle says nothing about the vote of the people coming BEFORE the income tax. Remember, Bob Rochelle is an attorney, so you have to parse every single word. His “pledge” leaves him a loophole through which he could propose the same legislation he proposed before — an income tax that is linked to a vote of the people — although he cleverly avoids disclosing which would come first.
Third is the hypocrisy of the pledge itself. During the income tax war that marked Bob Rochelle’s last term in office, authentic income tax opponents signed the “Taxpayer Protection Pledge,” promising to “vigorously oppose and vote against a state income tax” and “actively oppose and vote against any and all efforts to impose any tax on the wages or earnings of the people of Tennessee.”
That was an anti-income tax pledge with actual teeth. The hypocrisy is that then-Senator Bob Rochelle, who was also a member of the Senate Ethics Committee, raised ethical concerns about members of the Tennessee General Assembly signing such a pledge.
According to the Chattanooga Times Free Press on August 14, 2001, Rochelle remarked “People expect your positions to evolve. If the Senate is to be the deliberative body that decides issues on the merits, that goal is not promoted by making up your mind and signing pledges before you even get there.”
Just as Bob Rochelle was for an income tax before he decided to challenge Mae Beavers for her senate seat, he was opposed to senators signing pledges. Now, the former senator has done what he criticized others for doing just a few years ago. Not only has his position on pledges “evolved,” Bob Rochelle’s position on the income tax is in such a constant state of flux (against it, for it, against it) that it is impossible to know how long his current income tax opposition will last. You know how the saying goes. Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me.
Liberals turning to conservatism for votes, and other things we’ve learned about Democrats this campaign season
For starters, the New York Times ran a story yesterday that describes Democratic efforts to lean on their moderate-to-conservative candidates to help deliver them a victory on November 7.
One such candidate, Heath Shuler, was courted by Republicans to run for office in 2001. Mr. Shuler, 34, is a retired National Football League quarterback who is running in the 11th Congressional District in North Carolina. He is an evangelical Christian and holds fast to many conservative social views, like opposition to abortion rights.
“My guess is that if Democrats are in the majority, it’s going to be because of these New Democrat, Blue Dog candidates out there winning in these competitive swing districts,” Representative Ron Kind of Wisconsin, co-chairman of a caucus of centrist House Democrats, said in an interview.
But if candidates like Mr. Shuler do help the Democrats gain majority control of Congress, it could come at a political price, which may include tensions in the party between its new centrists and its more liberal political base.
Isn’t it interesting that Democrats feel they must turn to conservatism in order to churn out enough votes to win elections? Why not run on liberalism? Why can Democrats not be forthright with the American people and simply tell us exactly what they believe? I’ll answer that.
* Democrats believe that same-sex marriage should be legal. They may call it that, or they may refer to civil unions, or whatever. At any rate, that view is not held by a majority of the American people.
* Democrats believe that all, or at least a portion of the Bush tax cuts must be rolled back. That view is not held by a majority of the American people.
* Democrats believe in unrestricted abortion rights, even up to the moment of birth. They also oppose parental notification laws for minors. These views are not held by a majority of the American people.
* Democrats have patented the cut-and-run strategery in Iraq, whereby we set a deadline for withdrawal, regardless of whether the job is done or not. That view is not held by a majority of the American people.
Indeed, Democrats know they cannot run on their core ideas and win elections. As much as liberals malign conservatives for our ideology, they are smart enough to know that when the chips are down, it is our ideas that win, so Democrats adopt some of our ideas around election time in order to win more votes. Never mind that they don’t legislate our ideas when in power, they just use conservative ideas when it is convenient because they cannot run on their own and expect to win.
Furthermore, who is it that is running around talking about God? Harold Ford, Jr. It’s not that I question Ford’s faith. I really hope he does love the Lord. I could never ridicule someone for that. The problem I do have is that Ford is a member of the same party whose national chairman, that screaming man from Vermont, once ridiculed those of us in the south for running elections on guns, God, and gays. Democrats start talking about God around election time, often campaigning in churches, all the while criticizing conservatives for mixing politics and religion.
When not trying to convince the American people they really are conservative, Democrats rely on headline grabbers that have nothing to do with relevant issues to help them avoid campaigning on their own beliefs. In fact, we have learned a couple of important things about Democrats just this election cycle.
The first thing we learned is that liberals do not care about illicit sex unless it is committed by a Republican. This played out in the Mark Foley sex scandal — in which there was no sex — that the water-carrying mainstream press milked for the better part of a month. Yet when salacious excerpts of novels glorifying underage sex penned by Democrat Jim Webb surfaced, the Democrats and national media, who just a few weeks before had cared so deeply about underage sex, summarily ignored it.
To further illustrate the difference between Republicans and Democrats, Mark Foley resigned his House seat the moment the content of his IM’s went public, and the Democrats/media then went after Dennis Hastert. Jim Webb was asked to quit his campaign for Virginia’s senate seat, but is instead staying in.
The second thing we learned is that Democrats will lie to sick people in order to win votes. This is playing out via advertisements by Michael J. Fox on behalf of Democrat candidates. The insinuation is that Republicans are standing in the way of breakthrough cures, and that if we elect Democrats, those who have diseases such as Parkinson’s will be cured. Democrats are building on a tactic used by John Edwards during the 2004 campaign, in which he claimed “We will stop juvenile diabetes, Parkinson’s, Alzheimer’s and other debilitating diseases…. When John Kerry is president, people like Christopher Reeve are going get up out of that wheelchair and walk again.”
It was a cruel hoax perpetrated on those who have degenerative diseases and are clinging to whatever hope they may have of one day being cured. Hey, if I had Parkinson’s, I’d be hoping for a cure, too. But I certainly wouldn’t be pinning my hopes on the Democratic Party.
And they say the Democratic Party is the party of compassion. Ha!
Time to step up and show your consistency, Democrats
Finally, a Republican has gone on the offensive. Senator George Allen is making a campaign issue out of underage sex scenes that his opponent, Democrat Jim Webb, wrote in his fiction novels. The Drudge link contains the contents. I’m not going to quote them here because the examples are quite vulgar.
The reaction (or non-reaction) by Democrats and the mainstream press may prove telling. We’ll get to see whether or not they’re really turned off by the idea of underage sex. My guess is that this won’t get one-tenth the media coverage the Mark Foley sex scandal got, which really wasn’t a sex scandal, since there was no sex involved, the famous IM’s that were sent were part of a prank, and the page involved was actually 18 years old when the salacious IM’s were sent.
Compare this to a Democrat candidate for the U.S. Senate who glorifies underage sex in his fiction novels.
If we are to be consistent — and I have little confidence that the Democrats and the mainstream media will be — then Jim Webb must quit the Senate race at once and check into rehab, the GOP must start demanding that Nancy Pelosi resign, and the Webb novel scandal must dominate the news right up until Election Day.
Oh yeah, and Democrats must demonstrate genuine moral outrage.
A response to the Michael J. Fox political commercial
Actor Jim Caviezel (The Passion of Christ) and St. Louis Cardinals pitcher Jeff Suppan have countered Michael J. Fox’s pitch with one of their own.
Meanwhile, the Maha Rushie notes that “Michael J. Fox is not infallible; he’s just the latest victim used by the Democrats.”
Spreading false hope
I see the Democrats are using Michael J. Fox to help them in both the Missouri and Maryland senate races, implying that Republicans are standing in the way of curing Parkinson’s and other diseases.
Right Wing News has more, including this timeless quote from Ann Coulter:
…(T)he Democrats hit on an ingenious strategy: They would choose only messengers whom we’re not allowed to reply to. That’s why Democratic spokesmen these days are sobbing, hysterical women. You can’t respond to them because that would be questioning the authenticity of their suffering.
Although Michael J. Fox isn’t a “sobbing, hysterical woman,” he certainly fits into the Democrats’ strategy of sending up front men you cannot reply to.
Bob Rochelle’s anti-income tax “pledge” hypocrisy
I’ve just run across a news story from the days of the REAL anti-income tax pledge — the one that actually had teeth — which illustrates Bob Rochelle’s hypocrisy on his newly-discovered income tax opposition. Of course, Bob Rochelle has issued his own anti-income tax “pledge,” which I covered yesterday. Not only is Bob Rochelle suddenly against the income tax, he’s also suddenly in favor of anti-income tax pledges. But he hasn’t always believed that pledges are a good thing.
From the Chattanooga Times Free Press on August 14, 2001, “Senator questions ethics of signing anti-tax pledge,” by John Commins (Nashville Bureau):
NASHVILLE — State Sen. Gene Elsea wants to know if colleagues who signed an anti-income tax pledge during last year’s election season violated Senate ethics rules.
Sen. Elsea, R-Spring City, has filed an inquiry with the five-member Senate Ethics Committee, asking for an opinion on whether the so-called Tennessee Taxpayer Protection Pledge runs afoul of Senate conflict of interest rules.
“I am deeply concerned by the dangerous precedent this type of pledge sets, and what poor leadership it expresses to the people of Tennessee,” Sen. Elsea, an income tax proponent, said in a statement Monday.
The code of ethics for the Senate that Sen. Elsea referred to states that it is unethical for any senator take a pledge or make a formal agreement that would restrict a senator’s vote.
Five Republican senators, including Sen. Jeff Miller, R-Cleveland, and five Democrats, including Lt. Gov. John Wilder, D-Somerville, signed the pledge. None of the five members of the Senate Ethics Committee signed the pledge.
In the House, 16 Republicans, including Reps. Jim Vincent, R-Soddy-Daisy, and Chris Newton, R-Cleveland, and seven Democrats, including House Finance Committee Chairman Matt Kisber, D-Jackson, signed the pledge.
Sen. Miller said signing the pledge was not an ethical lapse.
“It’s fine and appropriate to let your constituents know where you plan to be on certain issues before you are elected when asking for their vote,” Sen. Miller said. “If signing that pledge is illegal and against Senate rules, then so would every stump speech saying, ‘I am for this or against that.’”
The Tennessee Taxpayer Protection Task Force asked all incumbents and challengers for seats in the General Assembly last year to pledge to “vigorously oppose” and vote against a state income tax.
Steve Gill, a conservative radio talk show host in Nashville who organized the anti-tax pledge, said Sen. Elsea’s complaint has no merit.
“How is this different than a campaign advertisement where you make a promise on this or countless other issues?” Mr. Gill asked. “I would be shocked if the Ethics Committee of the Senate would find it unethical to keep your word to your constituents.”
Senate Ethics Committee Chairman Doug Henry, D-Nashville, said he has asked a legislative staff attorney to investigate Sen. Elsea’s inquiry to determine if it has merits. Under Senate rules, if the Ethics Committee agrees with the complaint, they could censure or even refuse to seat senators who signed the pledge.
Senate Speaker Pro Tem Bob Rochelle, D-Lebanon, a member of the Ethics Committee and a leading proponent of a state income tax, said the sticking point for him in the rules is the phrase “formal agreement.”
“People expect your positions to evolve,” he said. “If the Senate is to be the deliberative body that decides issues on the merits, that goal is not promoted by making up your mind and signing pledges before you even get there.”
Sen. Rochelle said if the Ethics Committee takes up Sen. Elsea’s complaint, the emphasis likely will be “not so much on what’s already been done” but on discouraging new pledges in future elections. “This clearly was not a rule that many people noted before. It had not come up in the 19 years that I’ve been there,” Sen. Rochelle said. “What’s more important is what impact this will have on the future.”
…
Code of Ethics for the Senate
“It shall be unethical for any member of the Senate, by loyalty pledge…or other formal agreement, to restrict himself or herself, or any other member of the Senate, from voting on any matters before the Senate or any of its committees except in accordance with the member’s personal convictions and with the member’s oath of office.”
My, how the times have changed.
Bob Rochelle’s anti-income tax “pledge”
Bob Rochelle, a.k.a. Mr. Income Tax, whose advocacy of a state income tax has been heavily documented here and elsewhere, has a new campaign advertisement out in which he touts his anti-income tax pledge.
Rochelle states:
The income tax is a dead issue. If it comes up again, I will use my expertise in the legislature to make sure it doesn’t pass without a vote of the people. I am signing this pledge because I will kill an income tax if it comes up in the legislature and is not submitted to a vote of the people.
Right. During his last term of office in the Senate, Bob Rochelle tried to pass an income tax that was attached to a vote by the people, only the vote would come AFTER the income tax was implemented. In his pledge, Bob Rochelle says nothing about the vote of the people coming BEFORE the income tax. Remember, Bob Rochelle is an attorney, so you have to parse every single word that comes out of his mouth. His “pledge” leaves him a loophole through which he could propose the same legislation he proposed before — an income tax that is linked to a vote of the people — although he cleverly avoids disclosing which would come first.
Voting isn’t supposed to be easy
The Associated Press had an interesting news story yesterday on measures some states are taking to make the process of voting a little more difficult, although the AP’s reporting is somewhat slanted.
Some states have enacted laws that make it harder to vote instead of correcting ballot problems that have plagued various parts of the country since the 2000 election, according to a study released Thursday.
Describing their findings as “troubling,” voting reform advocates sampled 10 states with past election difficulties. Especially worrisome, the report said, were laws passed by a handful of states, including Arizona and Georgia, that require a government-issued photo identification card and proof of citizenship before being allowed to vote.
Though both state laws were later blocked by judges, “the damage has already been done,” confusing would-be voters and severely hampering voter registration drives, said Tova Wang of The Century Foundation think tank, which conducted the survey with Common Cause and the Leadership Conference on Civil Rights.
Also troublesome was a lack of electronic voting policies that could make voting lines in the upcoming midterm contest even longer than those in 2004, according to the survey.
Cry me a river. We Americans have secured the right to vote. We have not secured the right to vote without inconvenience. If people can stand in long lines at department stores during the Christmas shopping season and stand in line for hours to buy sports tickets, then voters can stand in line to vote.
If you can show ID to cash a check and show ID to buy liquor, then voters can show an ID to vote. And if you can’t show proof of citizenship, then you ought not be allowed to vote in this country. If these things cause undue hardship, then casting a ballot just isn’t for you.
Anti-income tax governor campaigning for pro-income tax former senator
Bill Hobbs informs us that Governor Phil Bredesen, who tells us he opposes a state income tax, is going to campaign for Bob Rochelle, the former state senator from Lebanon whose name is synonymous with “state income tax.” Writes Hobbs:
Rochelle still favors the state income tax. He again endorsed the income tax as recently as two years ago while serving as a member of the Tennessee Tax Structure Study Committee. Bredesen’s desire to have Rochelle back in the state senate casts serious doubt on Bredesen’s claim to not support a state income tax. Every second-term governor since Ned Ray McWherter has pushed for an income tax in their second term and now Bredesen is campaigning to bring the architect of the income tax back to the Senate.
The only sure way to guarantee Bredesen won’t push for a state income tax in a second term is to deny him a second term.
Prank
I’m just now getting around to citing a Drudge Report story that ran Thursday evening under the headline “CLAIM: FILTHY FOLEY ONLINE CHATS WERE PAGE ‘PRANK GONE AWRY’.”
According to two people close to former congressional page Jordan Edmund, the now famous lurid AOL Instant Message exchanges that led to the resignation of Mark Foley were part of an online prank that by mistake got into the hands of enemy political operatives, the DRUDGE REPORT can reveal.
According to one Oklahoma source who knows the former page very well, Edmund, a conservative Republican, said he goaded an unwitting Foley to type embarrassing comments that were then shared with a small group of young Hill politicos. The prank went awry when the saved IM sessions got into the hands of political operatives favorable to Democrats.
Even CNN reported this morning that:
There was “no personal relationship” between Foley and Edmund, who served as a page in 2001 and 2002 when he was a high school junior, the attorney said.
“I’m certain there was no physical involvement between Jordan and Mr. Foley,” Jones said, adding that the messages “read like some of the novels that are on the market, but I don’t know if they’re true or they have been edited.”
The Drudge Report on Thursday reported that two people close to Edmund said he goaded Foley into the exchange as a prank.
Jones said a prank could not be ruled out, “But it sounds like a piece of fiction.”
Although none of this changes my observation that Mark Foley is a scumbag, these revelations do bolster my assertion that the Foley mess is 1% scandal and 99% politics.
