October 2008 – Page 2

Big checks for card check

One thing that we can bet the farm on is that Big Labor is going to try again in the 111th Congress to get the Employee Free Choice Act passed. In essence, the act eliminates the secrecy from union elections by eliminating the election and simply having a signed card be “proof” that an employee wants to join a union. Would you want someone looking over your shoulder in the voting booth? EFCA would allow union organizers to do just that.

It’s worth pointing out that Frank Kratovil has taken over $140,000 from Big Labor in this campaign, and they’re not going to spend this kind of money in a district that doesn’t have a lot of union workers without some sort of quid pro quo. I know people have been up in arms about all the money the Club For Growth has given to Andy Harris, but those contributions are bundled from individual donors giving of their free will. While it’s possible to ask your union not to use your dues for political purposes, in practice that’s difficult to achieve – so thousands of workers are contributing to a candidate they may not agree with, but apparently the ends justify the means insofar as Big Labor and concentrating political power is concerned.

This also gives me an opportunity to reintroduce readers to a group I link to called the Center for Union Facts. Actually, they in turn introduced me to this video of one very pushy labor union leader:

It’s the same kind of thinking that turns the unions onto seek-and-destroy missions like the plumbers’ union letting loose the attack dogs on “Joe the Plumber.” Because of that we know that the national plumbers union were early supporters of Barack Obama.

I’m sure Bill wouldn’t like me either. It’s because something tells me he’s also an Obama backer and he’d love to have people like Barack’s ally Frank Kratovil in Congress.

A lapse in action

Hopefully you didn’t think I was kidding when I noted the other day that the folks at the Maryland Republican Party read monoblogue – I know Jim Pelura is a fan of the site. It took them about six days longer than I thought it would but they integrated the info I brought up into a new press release:

Following a report by the Tax Foundation last week ranking Maryland 45th in business-friendliness, the CATO Institute ranked Martin O’Malley as one of the worst governors in the country on fiscal issues, giving him an “F” grade for pushing through the largest tax increase in state history and dramatically increasing spending.

“Governor O’Malley has consistently supported higher taxes and runaway government spending during his two years in office,” said MDGOP Chairman Jim Pelura. “His “F” grade is well-deserved and the low business friendliness ranking is a direct result of O’Malley’s tax-first policies.”

“Working families were already struggling in late 2007 and a recession was on the horizon. Martin O’Malley and his allies in the General Assembly decided that the solution to the projected deficit was to raise taxes astronomically AND allocate new spending for new programs. If we had just chosen to restrict government growth to the rate of inflation, we could have closed the budget gap without raising taxes,” concluded Pelura.

To give additional credit where credit is due, the article by Chris Edwards also appeared on National Review Online. So certainly Mr. Edwards is no slouch, and the reasoning behind Governor O’Malley’s poor rating is simple: he’s a tax-and-spend governor. As the CATO study notes:

The lowest-scoring governor, Martin O’Malley of Maryland, spearheaded the passage of a $1.4 billion tax increase in 2007, which was unique in its large size and scope. It increased the corporate tax rate, the top personal income tax rate, the sales tax rate, and the cigarette tax rate. It also expanded the sales tax base and raised taxes on vehicles. This enormous increase will hit Marylanders directly in the pocketbook, and indirectly through slower economic growth over time. (Emphasis mine.)

As a result many areas of Maryland are being hit hard by tough times, the Eastern Shore being one. Martin O’Malley and his cronies are about the only ones with a sure salary these days. And even the so-called fiscal panacea of video slot machines is now not going to be enough to plug the state’s budget hole (see page 32) because revenues are declining even with the higher tax rates (duh! Welcome to real-world economics, Martin.) The newly revised estimates for FY2009 now have a nearly $600 million revenue shortfall, up from $432 million just a month ago (see page 8). And FY2010 has a nearly $300 million hole which needs to be filled.

So it’s going to be up to the General Assembly when they meet in just a few short weeks to find ways of making the expenses match the revenues. Even if we pass the slots referendum (and I still think it’s a bad idea), there will have to either be cuts made or O’Malley will choose to once again do what he does best and tax Marylanders into other states. After all, it’s his budget – all the GOP can do is make helpful suggestions and proposals which won’t see the light of day.

Our next best chance to address this problem comes November 2, 2010. It’s time to place the adults in charge in Maryland.

Three against ‘that one’

I said I’d occasionally update the progress of my recent interviewee Deborah Johns and her bid to keep Barack Obama out of the White House, and so I shall. They’ve gone through half their tour as of today and roughly half the country as they approach a large number of dates in Michigan, a state both John McCain and Barack Obama have abandoned, choosing to pull their resources elsewhere.

Their ad campaign today drew the attention of the National Journal website, which paints Michigan as safely in the Obama column, but the last poll done was back on October 14th before the last debate – that poll had Obama +11. It’ll be interesting to see what this drive does for polling there.

Deborah and fellow “Stop Obama Tour” speaker, singer-songwriter Lloyd Marcus, also made an appearance on “Fox and Friends” this morning from a stop in Wisconsin. It appears the video was shot of a TV set, but sometimes you have to take what you get:

The third person on the pro-McCain tour is internet radio talk show host Mark Williams, who has been blogging about the tour on his own website.

I’m sure a lot of people figure this to be somewhat of a lost cause, at least in Michigan. (Ohio, with five stops planned, and Pennsylvania, with three, may be a different story.) And others may denigrate the negativity of the campaign. But, damn it, talking about the record of someone who’s not fit for command isn’t negative campaigning, it’s bringing up the facts.

Obama’s weak on foreign policy, otherwise he wouldn’t have picked Joe Biden for his vice-presidential choice. (Joe’s weaknesses seem to be focused in counting letters and in overall common sense and powers of observation – “Stand up Chuck!”)

Obama’s voting record is farther left than anyone else in the United States Senate. I thought what America was crying out for was a “moderate”; certainly they have one in John McCain.

And if one is judged by the company he keeps (that seems to be all the rage locally), then you have to wonder about those folks Barack Obama hangs out with and hires as advisors.

The two (unprompted) words I heard most over last weekend at the Autumn Wine Festival when discussing the election were “scared” and “worried.” Maybe the Democrats down the way were hearing the same about what they think could be a third term of George W. Bush if John McCain’s elected, but those discussing politics at my table were astonished at the thought of having a President who combines the ineptitude of Jimmy Carter with the corruption of Bill Clinton, rolled up into a Huey Long-like figure who wants to “spread the wealth” his way, by taxing the producers and rewarding the less apt. Does the phrase “from each according to his ability, to each according to his needs” ring a bell?

So as the “Stop Obama Tour” continues, hopefully they’ll start seeing the results they’re looking for in both the polls and in actual votes. Our country truly does deserve better.

It’s back to peas in a pod

Talk about news that’s unsurprising:

Yesterday Wayne Gilchrest declared he voted for Democratic Governor Martin O’Malley in 2006, giving just one more example of his tilt to the left.

Gilchrest and Kratovil’s shared support for Martin O’Malley should come as no surprise. Martin O’Malley, Wayne Gilchrest, and Frank Kratovil share many of the same liberal policies. “O’Malley, Kratovil and Gilchrest support higher taxes, more wasteful government spending, and amnesty for illegal immigrants – that’s liberal,” said Chris Meekins, Harris Campaign Manager.

All three candidates have also stated they will be voting for Barack Obama on November 4th. In his primary campaign, Frank Kratovil campaigned throughout the district with Governor O’Malley by his side. “O’Malley is the glue that holds the liberal family together in Maryland,” Meekins added.

Frank Kratovil has made clear whom he will represent in Congress stating, “I want to be an ally of the Governor (Martin O’Malley) in Washington.” (Star Democrat, 6/7/2007)

“The last thing voters in the first district want is O’Malley Jr. – Frank Kratovil – in Congress” said Meekins. “Andy Harris will be the independent voice who will vote for lower taxes and less wasteful government spending in Congress.”

Chris piled on slightly because Wayne used to be somewhat conservative in fiscal matters; however, Gilchrest recently voted for both bailout packages (as Frank Kratovil likely would have for the second porked-up version) so perhaps that worm has turned too. I do find the idea of Harris adopting an “independent voice” mantra interesting; then again, both men are on record as running against the current Congress so it’s not wholly out of character for both to describe themselves as independent. Personally, I still like the term “conservative” though. We already have a Congressman who describes himself as “independent and courageous” and we all know how that turned out. In these times when folks from everywhere else on the political spectrum seem to enjoy dumping on conservatism in order to curry favor with the media (beware, we see how well that worked with John McCain), true courage is sticking to your principles.

Now another item I found to be worth mentioning is that the venue for Gilchrest’s remarks was a dinner honoring him and others for their environmentalism, one where Gilchrest earned the honor of “Admiral of the Chesapeake” from Governor O’Malley himself. Wayne also drew praise from fellow Congressman Steny Hoyer, as noted in the Capital article by Pamela Wood.

“Wayne Gilchrest, I respect you, I am proud to be your colleague … I am hopeful you will be serving for many years to come,” noted Hoyer. This makes me wonder whether Wayne has thought about his future plans and whether they include a party switch in order to set up a possible Andy Harris – Wayne Gilchrest rematch in 2010’s general election. I’m not sure that the Democrats wouldn’t welcome that possibility with open arms.

I suppose we shouldn’t be surprised that Wayne wouldn’t vote for Bob Ehrlich, given the bad blood between those two at times. But as one who was the recipient of Congressional courtesy in the form of a primary endorsement from Newt Gingrich, it’s disappointing that Wayne hasn’t been giving out that same sort of respect recently.

Who’s the ‘tolerant’ party again?

I have Justin Ready at the Maryland Republican Party to thank for sending these pictures and accompanying text from Prince George’s Republican Central Committee chair Mykel Harris. Here’s what Harris had to say about a recent case of political vandalism:

For those of you who missed it, a firestorm recently erupted when the owners of the Colony South hotel in Southern Maryland erected a lone 2’x8′ McCain-Palin sign on their property. Never mind that in the past, the same property had been adorned with campaign signs of numerous candidates, both Democrat and Republican. None of that mattered now. Within hours of the sign’s appearance, the hotel began receiving frantic telephone calls and email messages demanding that it be taken down. Local newspapers were quick to pick up the story. It didn’t take long before a number of Democrat activists began talking about a boycott of the hotel for “disrepecting” the community. As time progressed some of the phone calls took a darker, more serious and threatening nature, prompting the owner to report them to law enforcement. Now it appears that some unknown person or persons have determined that it is ok to deface the personal property of others who display similar signs.

(Earlier this week), a private citizen’s home, campaign sign and other property were defaced. Although a registered Democrat in Prince George’s County, his apparent crime was that he too was displaying another 2’x8′ McCain-Palin sign in his front yard. In past elections, this citizen often displayed large signs of the candidate for whom he was supporting. The difference this time was that his candidate for President happened to be a Republican. One can only assume that he too was “disrespecting” the community by excercising his free-speech rights.

Now I understand that in every election there are incidents where campaign signs on both sides are removed, torn down and defaced. But rarely do the perpetrators proceed to deface your home and personal property in your yard. Waking up to find that someone has been prowling outside your window strikes me as sending a…personal message. It appears that the current climate is moving us towards a new level of political intolerance.

Fortunately we have the means to restore peace and good order to our community. We must stand up for our rights and the rights of others to advocate on behalf of their party, candidate or issue. We must insist that our elected officials, law enforcement, and appointed election officials take these matters seriously. We absolutely must demand that persons found violating the civil rights of others via sign vandalism, voter registration fraud, or political intimidation pay a terrible price.

Within the next few days I will keep you up to date on this developing story and the role you can play in bringing it to a proper conclusion. Until then continue to work for our party and our candidates. The darkness will never prevail so long as someone leaves the light on.

The pictures were also enclosed:

Harris is correct and I’m sure 90% of my readers, who run the gamut from just left of militia (me) to those who think 9/11 was an inside job, would agree that these sorts of tactics are reprehensible. But once upon a time that ten percent who thinks any and all tactics are fair in political war was one percent, and that ten percent is getting more dangerous. I’m not sure it’s completely out of the question that someone’s going to get killed over this year’s election – it’s the sort of thing we think only happens in some faroff African or South American nation but this might be the year America sees that sort of violence.

A natural devolution is taking place which matches the political discourse of the last fifteen years or so, in particular the last eight. Certainly there were many on the GOP side who badmouthed Bill Clinton, but they had nowhere near the number or fury of those who suffer from extreme cases of Bush Derangement Syndrome. Yesterday I gave other examples of the hatred spewed at Sarah Palin from those on the left, and today I follow with more examples of anti-Republican feelings being shown via a can of spray paint and without regard to one’s private property. (But had the owner came out shooting and killed one or more of the perpetrators, he would have been the one villified despite having the trespassers.)

It’s probably been said so often that it’s cliche’, but this may well be the most important election in American history. Unfortunately, given the propensity of those on the left to whine in various ways if the outcome isn’t as they wish (even after the cheating) we’re faced with a stark choice – give in to those who would impart socialism on America or face the remote but real prospect of violence should Obama not win. This is especially true if we face a repeat of the events which transpired after the 2000 election or have a similar outcome where John McCain loses in the popular vote but carries enough states to win the Electoral College.

A word I heard a lot over the weekend to describe this election was “scary.” Thug tactics like these in Prince George’s County reinforce the idea.

Fact-checking Frank

Well, now I know where Bud the Blogger got some of his (mis)information. I stopped by the Democrats’ table at the Autumn Wine Festival and secured a flyer which claimed Andy Harris wasn’t on our side and cited a number of votes. A few of them I’ve already covered and Andy Harris chimed in with his own defense as well.

There are six votes on the card where it’s claimed Andy Harris is the only State Senator to vote against particular bills. Here’s the dirty half-dozen Kratovil wants us to believe were poor votes:

CLAIM: “Harris was the only State Senator…to vote against extending the child care tax credit to help more middle class Maryland families pay for child care expenses (SB355, 2000).

FACT: I’d love to blow that one out of the water, but in looking up that particular number I find the bill is actually listed as a bill that expanded jury pools to include those who have drivers’ licenses along with registered voters. In fact, Harris did vote against the bill but was joined by Senator Alex Mooney. I happen to think that was a proper vote since that allows non-citizens to become jurors. Perhaps Kratovil’s writers may want to do a bit more fact-checking.

CLAIM: Harris was the only State Senator…to vote against creating the State’s cancer prevention and treatment program (SB896, 2000).

FACT: The programs in question were to be created from money extorted from tobacco companies as part of their settlement in the late 1990’s. Included therein were a number of restrictions on how to use the money, mandated budgeting amounts, and the potential for the state to supplant local health departments in their usage of the money if they so deemed. Revised fiscal note is here and the bill itself here.

Personally, I’ve never thought it made sense to, on the one hand, try to prevent a product’s usage but on the other hand derive millions of tax dollars from it in an effort to make the budget balanced.

CLAIM: Harris was the only State Senator…to vote against reducing class sizes for Maryland first and second graders (SB127, 1999).

FACT: Again, Kratovil’s fact-checkers strike out. That particular bill was not voted on, it was an effort to lower the state’s BAL from .10 to .08 and comply with federal mandates. However, I’ll give them the break on a typo, because the bill in question was actually SB137. And what Harris actually voted against were grants to each school system which were contingent on having a proper number of provisionally certified teachers and could only be received AFTER any federal grants were spent.

One thing these brilliant minds in the General Assembly may not have figured out is the cost to the district of hiring all of these new teachers, building any needed facilities, and their future retirement benefits – especially when the fiscal note states that 2,000 new teachers overall would need to be hired but the state could only provide for 800. I see no problem with voting against the bill and being the fiscal conservative he is, I think Andy was looking out for the long-term interests of each school district.

CLAIM: Andy Harris was the only State Senator…to vote against a program to help clean up toxic land right here in Maryland (SB513, 2000).

FACT: Andy voted FOR the third reading bill that passed the Senate, but when House amendments were added that restricted the usage of the funding and made it possible to change the interest rate of money loaned, that may have changed his opinion of the bill. This is the third reading Andy voted for and the enrolled bill he voted against. Had the House amendments been rejected in the conference committee, Frank wouldn’t have had this to complain about.

CLAIM: Andy Harris was the only State Senator…to vote against allowing women access to qualified OB/GYN providers of their own choosing (SB567, 2000).

FACT: Andy states his case here, although I notice he seems to have reversed the bills in question. No worse than miscitation on literature.

CLAIM: Andy Harris was the only State Senator…to vote against extending the time during which children with special needs are eligible for public education (HB552, 2000).

FACT: The bill was an unfunded mandate to local districts and serving students through age 21 was already a practice in the areas Harris serves, according to the fiscal note. By the way, the extension was for one extra year.

I’m still waiting on the actual citation where senior citizens are referred to as a new “welfare state”. And while the Eagle Forum is against women in combat, they also have a number of core beliefs most agree with as well.

As a whole, I guess Bud’s BS meter failed him in this case, because a lot of what Frank’s talking about here is a pure load of crap.

Can Obama survive a PUMA attack?

Fair warning: the blog excerpt I chose has adult language.

A couple weeks ago I had stopped by to work at our Wicomico County GOP headquarters when this nice lady with a Brownie Scout daughter and a car sporting several pro-Hillary bumper stickers strolled in. (I actually happened to follow her car into the shopping center where our headquarters is located, that’s how I knew the latter.)

I believe it’s a phrase borrowed from the Arabic which states, “the enemy of your enemy is your friend.” So it was that this woman had dropped by to pick up a McCain bumper sticker and yard sign. She also dropped off some information that I found fascinating. I knew there was an anti-Obama backlash among some Democrats but not that it was this large.

Those who claim to stand for wresting the Democratic Party away from the elites who have taken it over have coalesced into a group they call PUMA (which stands for People United Means Action.) In their mission statement they note in part:

Puma PAC is the VOICE OF THE VOTERS in the Democratic Party — not of special interest groups, not of corporations, not of politicians. We are motivated by the growing distance between the party leadership and every-day, average voters. It is the divisive disdain for VOTERS, practiced by the leadership and amplified by the media and some politicians, that has brought the Democratic Party to the brink of ANOTHER GENERAL ELECTION LOSS and the irrelevancy of the Democratic Party altogether. (Capitalization in original.)

Needless to say, they’re a little bit outraged at the party elites who support Barack Obama. This is from their blog, and where the advisory up top comes in:

Dare to disagree with or oppose The One? Be prepared for an onslaught unmitigated by decency, inclusive principles, or restraint of any kind. We’ve catalogued the insults and degradation many times here on this blog: the comments that cursed our loved ones to die in botched back-alley abortions, the threats of righteous violence if obama loses, the by-now toothless accusations of racism (yet they still sting). We’ve been called witches, bitches, and cunts — frequently and publicly. We watched how they portrayed Hillary, and we documented their pornographic degradation of Sarah Palin. (”my black brothers will gang rape Sarah Palin,” “fucking whore,” “dominatrix,” “pom-pom girl,” “sex slave,” and of course “cunt” over and over again).

And now they savage S. Joseph Wurzelbacher, aka Joe the Plumber. Even Joe Biden is doing it. We’re told he’s stupid, ugly, racist, poor, dumb, a fraud, and a liar. He’s a guy so he probably won’t be gang-raped or figuratively f**cked by teh Boiz. He probably won’t be photo-shopped with a ball gag in his mouth being whipped by Markos in drag. That probably will never happen. Maybe Maureen Dowd will devote a column to how she’d never have sex with someone so poor. But probably the most humiliating thing he’ll have to live down is Diane Sawyer reminding him and millions of us that Joe the Plumber will probably NEVER make enough money to qualify for obama’s tax increases.

What a strange, strange beast the Democratic Party has become.

No one believed us when we claimed that Obama stole the caucuses with fraud and intimidation. And like Cassandra, we now watch as Obama’s Trojan horse unleashes ACORN to burn Ohio, Michigan, and Pennsylvania down.

DEMOCRATS. Democrats did this.

And they continue to do it every day.

It seems to me that a group like PUMA would have a strong following here on the Eastern Shore, where many of the Democrats fall into one (or both) of two groups: a Democrat simply because their parents or grandparents were, or the old-line Democrats I like to call the Humphrey Democrats – all for big government to equalize economic outcomes, but pro-America, pro-Second Amendment, and pro-life. Many of them eventually split from the party and switched to the GOP after starting as Reagan Democrats but others still hold out hope that their party will return to those values.

Unfortunately, much as the powers-that-be in the GOP have retreated from the conservatism espoused by Ronald Reagan and rooted in Barry Goldwater, so the most powerful among Democrats stepped into line with the socialism of Barack Obama, along with the moral equivalency, gun grabbing, and love of Code Pink exhibited by those farthest on the left.

But I don’t know if it’s simply the anger that Obama shrewdly piled up a huge number of delegates from relatively few activist Democrats by winning most of the caucus states or the relative moderatism of John McCain that has turned many of these former Hillary Clinton supporters into a new political body. Would the woman who wandered into GOP headquarters to publically show her support for McCain with a bumper sticker be as willing to support our side had Mitt Romney or Fred Thompson been the nominee, or would PUMA members have simply fumed about the situation and stayed home on November 4th? I’m pleased to see the support, but there is a big difference between switching sides for convenience and getting to know the philosophy of a candidate and his party (although the two aren’t always or necessarily congruent.)

One task of mine on this website is to teach and illustrate the benefits of a smaller, less intrusive government. Thus, the reason I found this woman and her organization interesting is the hook we’ve been provided by her party nominating a man who is quite possibly the most left-wing nominee a major party has ever put forth. It may be a slow, painful process but I welcome those who would like to come onboard our side – now our job is to patiently explain the advantages we offer and bring them into the fold on our terms.

Autumn Wine Festival in pictures and text

For this exercise I’m going to subdivide the post into four parts: the politics, the crowds, the music, and the still lifes.

Since there really wasn’t all that much political that I didn’t cover in last night’s post I’ll begin there.

The politics:

I was sort of surprised that so few of our county elected officials turned out, although I can account for at least one being away. Our booth had one welcome visitor a little later:

And what were the Democrats up to?

Okay, I’m having a little fun at their expense. This was them on Sunday – I took this picture from in front of our space so it’s not a closeup. The tent is actually behind them.

It turned out we were tentless today as well – apparently the gusty winds caught our tent sometime last night and toppled it over, stakes and all. Undaunted, we set up shop today nonetheless.

The crowds:

I heard during a radio remote that Saturday’s crowd was a record. Didn’t look like it to me. The first picture was taken Saturday afternoon along the row of crafters, the second today in between the wineries.

The music:

I’m not a jazz guy at all – you can tell my tastes from the local band links I have on my site. But there were a lot of talented musicians on stage who should get their due, so I have shots of the seven groups who played the festival this time around.

Still life:

I just like to shoot some artsier shots when the AWF rolls around. Perhaps it’s the classical idea of bottles as still life, or just a question I had to ask. There’s only three, so pardon my indulgence.

Other than the tent mishap and being cold most of the time, the Autumn Wine Festival was a lot of fun, and I met friends old and new there. The interest in McCain items was a definite bonus on the political front, but watching the crowd was fun too. So I’m sure we’ll give this another go next year.

Photos from McCain rally in Woodbridge, VA

No, I can’t be two places at once. But while I was working in our booth at the Autumn Wine Festival, Maria Ialacci, a good friend of mine, was showing her support for John McCain at a rally this afternoon in Woodbridge, Virginia. I spoke with her earlier this evening and she was excited about having gone to the event. Of course, when I found out she had pictures I asked about using them here and she was happy to share.

Maria sent along fourteen photos and a silent video clip, I’m using nine photos and decided the clip wasn’t much good without the sound (too bad because it looked pretty exciting.) Most of the photos are of the various signs which were there, but I do have two good ones I’ll place at the end.

As I like to do, the caption will tell the stories.

Ok, you saw a lot of signs there. But there were speakers too.

Maria got to meet Mr. Gilmore, unfortunately she can’t vote for him because she lives here in Maryland. But she was impressed and excited nonetheless.

For someone who’s not a blogger or professional photographer, I thought Maria did a very nice job covering this event (even though I didn’t ask her to.) So I want to thank her for sharing and showing her support for John McCain in a battleground state.

Wine Festival day 1

I apologize for the somewhat short post, and I will have pictures of the event for a post tomorrow. In truth, I’m putting this up in anticipation of something else you may enjoy.

But I did want to comment about how our reception was today at the event. First of all, while the crowds were down somewhat from the 2007 version (understandable given the cloudy and very chilly weather for mid-October) the excitement of people visiting our booth was hard to miss.

When I stocked the items, I opted to bring about a half-dozen McCain/Palin yard signs and roughly 60 McCain/Palin bumper stickers. As it turned out, I made two trips back to our headquarters to replenish the yard sign supply and also picked up another 50 or so stickers – by 5 p.m. we had gone through everything McCain including placards. Most of my Andy Harris stuff was gone too except for maybe a dozen bumper stickers and two yard signs.

The good news is that we’ll be able to sell McCain/Palin buttons and T-shirts tomorrow and something tells me those will go like hotcakes.

Obviously with all those trips back and forth I didn’t exactly keep track of our opposite number on the local political scene; the Democrats made their every-other-year pilgrimage to the AWF (we’ve had a booth for at least the last three years straight.) What I do know is that they were gone well before the actual end of festivities but it wasn’t because they were out of items. I did see a few Obama items carried about so it wasn’t a total shutout for them; however, I believe they didn’t have nearly the interest we did.

Well, I got the items I was waiting for so I’ll start on that post. But I had a good time and met some nice folks at the Wine Fest – tomorrow the gates open at 12:30 and we’ll have more stuff.

Joe the Plumber – my kind of guy

Even better, he’s put my birthplace on the map for something good.

Yes, Joe Wurzelbacher (now much more famous as “Joe the Plumber” – can an endorsement deal be far behind?) lives in Holland, Ohio, a suburb directly west of Toledo and the next town easterly on the Conrail tracks from the one I spent my teenage years in, the rural area of Swanton, Ohio. (My early years were spent in south Toledo, most of that time I went to the former Heatherdowns School.) I probably went close by his house a few times working on the schools in and around Holland for my first architectural employer.

So Joe has made a name for himself and the city he calls home. But in truth, all he really did was make a statement and ask a question, just like thousands of bloggers have. His just happened to make it to national television, and Barack Obama finally told the truth about his agenda when he famously expressed the desire to “spread the wealth.”

While he may only be a plumber by avocation and not official title, Joe has that same common sense as millions of other Americans do, millions who are skeptical of politicians making pie-in-the-sky promises that only seem to have one effect: make government larger and make it take more from your pocket (as the cartoon suggests.)

With Barack Obama caught on tape revealing his true agenda, it was time for the media and other Obama allies to employ the only tactic they seem to know when confronted with this sort of crisis – kill the messenger. Suddenly we found out that Joe wasn’t a licensed plumber, is behind on his property taxes, and isn’t even a Joe – his given name is Samuel Joseph Wurzelbacher. Also dug up was the fact that Joe is related (by marriage) to Charles Keating, he of the Keating Five scandal nearly 20 years ago (h/t on that to Bob McCarty.)

But when given an opportunity to say his piece, Joe showed that he’s a lot like many other Americans who toil in obscurity – even Joe called himself a “flash in the pan” and seems uncomfortable still with his fifteen minutes of fame. I wanted to make mention of a few statements attributed to him that I heard Thursday on Rush – being a 24/7 member I could track down the transcript and thus I have. Here’s some of what Joe said, thoughts that are on the minds of more Americans than the mainstream media would like to admit:

I want (my son) to live in an America that he’s proud of. I’m tired of people downing America, saying that we’re this bad country. I mean, that upsets me and my friends greatly. You know, we are the greatest country in the world. Stop apologizing for it! I mean, really. It just… (sigh) I get real mad about that. I’m not sorry for being an American, I’m not sorry for having the things I have. I’m not sorry for any of those things. I’m not sorry that we’re in Iraq. Has it kept us safe? Absolutely! I believe in that 100%. WMDs or not, I don’t care. You know, we took the fight to them. We’ve done a pretty good job there. Could we have done better? Yeah, sure. But, you know, it’s easy to be an armchair quarterback. You know, and hindsight they say is 20/20. I call it X-ray vision.

Exactly. Apparenly Joe believes in capitalism and in his country right or wrong, I guess the elites would classify that as drinking the Bush Kool-Aid. Nor does he suffer from class envy:

Well, to be honest with you, I mean (the idea of redistributing wealth) infuriates me. I like, you know, Bill Gates, I don’t care who you are. If you worked for it, if it was your idea and you implemented it, it’s not right for someone to decide you made too much, you’ve done too good and now we’re going to tie some of it back. That’s just completely wrong.

Joe also commits the cardinal sin of supporting our troops as well as their mission:

You know, my friends in the military that come back and tell me the thanks that they receive for us being there, it doesn’t get enough play. I mean we’ve liberated another country. I mean, you know, freedom, things that every one of you guys take for granted, everything that Americans take for granted, I mean these guys haven’t had it; now they got it? I mean that’s an incredible thing. You know, our guys here that are poverty stricken have cell phones. Those old people over there, you know, they have one pair of pants and a shirt. You know, so what we’ve done over there is an incredible, incredible thing.

When the elites and liberals think of what our military has done overseas, they think of Abu Gharib and the prison at Guantanamo, not of the humanitarian accomplishments. Joe is just echoing the sentiments of those of us who truly are the majority of Americans; a man who got the opportunity to break the silence of the silent majority.

Being from Toledo and spending most of my first forty years there, there is a part of Joe which is representative of the people there and part which is not.

Toledo is a gritty, rust bucket city that’s caught in a transition not entirely of its own making. For the most part it’s a blue-collar city which means Joe fits in perfectly as a guy who’s not afraid to get his hands dirty and can do the physical work that’s sometimes demanded of his profession. There’s thousands who do similar sorts of tasks, whether it’s on the assembly line at the Jeep plant or what I still call the Hydramatic plant (I think it’s under a different name now but they assemble the transmissions for GM products), work for the major contractors in town, or toil at one of the dozens of factories large and small that supply the auto industry.

On the other hand, many of those workers differ from Joe because they believe in much of what the union and local media tell them, particularly when it comes to the salaries of CEO’s against the salary they make on the line at Jeep or driving the stone out of the local quarries. Loyal to Democrats beyond a fault, they elect the same old people to political office and wonder why nothing changes for the better – Marcy Kaptur has been Toledo’s Congresswoman since 1982 and, except for a one-term Republican she replaced, her and “Lud” Ashley, another Democrat, have been the only representatives of the Ninth District since the mid-1950’s. The City Council in Toledo has generally been a 10-2 or 11-1 Democrat majority from the time the city adopted a split district/at-large system in the early nineties. If Big Labor says they should support the Obama agenda, Toledo and Lucas County will likely vote at a better than 2-1 ratio for Obama.

But the city is not all bad, and there’s a lot of good people I left behind when I decided to move here. Included among them was a guy I don’t think I ever met but has been the beneficiary of fifteen minutes of fame simply for asking a question and getting a truthful answer. So here’s to you, Joe, and thanks for reminding me that I’m not the only person hailing from the “Glass City” who only asks for Americans the opportunity to pursue a dream.

Late addition: Adam Bitely at NetRight Nation shares a similar sentiment.

I have egg on my face, and it ain’t cooked as I like it…

Okay, you got Andy Harris and I me on this commercial (thanks for the grammar lesson). Trust me, I’m not pleased about it because, despite the fact the sentiments are true, reusing the footage from earlier this year is a little misleading and doesn’t quite pass the smell test. In the Daily Times story by Greg Latshaw, Harris campaign manager Chris Meekins explains:

Chris Meekins, Harris’ campaign manager, confirmed that the people in the ad were the same, but declined to say if the footage was new or shot before the February primary.

“The core issue is that Frank Kratovil is a liberal,” he said. “That’s the message, that he and Gilchrest are two tax-and-spend liberals.”

Well, Meekins is correct in his message but much as I like Chris and he seems like a nice enough guy in the few times I’ve spoken to him, in this case I have to call this faux pas sheer laziness on the part of him and whoever else created the commercial. If you needed a few more seconds of fresh footage, you could have called me up. I’d have looked square into the camera and uttered the truthful words:

Frank Kratovil will go to Washington and be a lap dog for Nancy Pelosi.

It just pisses me off because there was no shortage of people who would have said essentially the same thing about Frank Kratovil that they would have said about Wayne Gilchrest. This leaves me in sort of a moral dilemma because I definitely don’t condone the tactic, but voting for the Libertarian would be throwing my vote away and I’m not going to vote for a Pelosi lapdog, nor will I stay home or skip the race. But this story (of course, the Daily Times is all over anything to make Kratovil look good, even on their supposed misquotes as the Latshaw piece later notes) might well be the difference in a close election and the last thing the First District needs is someone who would be in lockstep with Barack Obama if he’s elected.

Certainly the commercial needs to be pulled although the damage is done. While it’s arguable that a further statement regretting the error should also be put out, perhaps the better statement would be to contact the two whose original footage was reused and see if they agree with the sentiments about Kratovil, too. I’m actually surprised the Daily Times didn’t try to track these two down, then again the pair may have stood by their earlier statements in the belief that they relate correctly to Kratovil as well.

As I noted earlier, the Daily Times “misquoted” Frank Kratovil then turned around and blamed Andy Harris for using the misquote in a commercial. This is the spot in question:

Truthfully, the commercial would have worked better if it tied Kratovil to the people (among them are several contributors to Kratovil’s campaign) who helped create this mess: Nancy Peosi, Barney Frank, Harry Reid, Christopher Dodd, and Barack Obama. Say what you want about “Wall Street greed”, these were the people who “encouraged” (at times under threat of legal action) banks to make these unwise mortgages. And don’t forget ACORN’s part, such as this example. (I like the “non-traditional income” euphemism myself.)

Unfortunately, campaigns don’t always go as one would prefer they do. Given the current economic climate, the party that has the most to do with it may yet be rewarded on Election Day with enhanced majorities in both houses of Congress and their Presidential candidate being handed the keys to the White House. For the sake of my adopted district and despite my misgivings about this particular campaign tactic, I’m still pushing the screen next to Andy Harris’s name in order to fight the potential damage to our nation.