What Bongino doesn’t do – and what he does

I thought this was worth some comment on, but decided it didn’t belong on my Examiner page at this time – I may refer back to it in the future.

Earlier today U.S. Senate candidate Dan Bongino had this as his Facebook status:

I do not wear suits because I want to look like a Senator, I wear them out of respect for the audience I am speaking to.

I do not wear jeans because I want to look like the “everyday man”, I wear them because I am one.

I do not speak about common sense economic policies because I dislike the opposing political party, I do it because I love our Country and want my daughters to enjoy a prosperous future.

I do not stand in front of Camden Yards, Metro stops and at intersections sign waving for media attention. I do it for voter’s attention. You deserve to know your options.

Finally, I am not running for Senate for the title, the power, or the privilege. I am running to shake up a power structure which has become insulated and insensitive to the needs of genuine, working class Americans just looking for a small corner of the world to call their own.

At the risk of pandering to an audience, a few things came to mind when I read that. One was that both Ronald Reagan and George W. Bush rarely ventured into the Oval Office sans suit and tie, such was their respect for the office. Certainly Dan feels it’s appropriate to live by that rule when representing himself in certain situations, and that’s fine. Bongino certainly doesn’t present himself as the aloof type, even in suit and tie.

It’s certainly interesting when you compare this to Ben Cardin’s efforts to portray himself as a “friend,” grandfatherly with the kids and hard-working with the oystermen. He has to do that because it keeps people from realizing that, for the majority of Marylanders, Ben Cardin has been in public office longer than they have been alive because the state’s median age is 38 and he’s been in office 45 years. Yes, millions of Marylanders have never seen Ben Cardin with a “real” job, whether it’s working with oysters or not.

Meanwhile, Bongino has worked in law enforcement and never sought public office until his Senate run. While I don’t know this for a fact, I suspect that if I asked him he would probably turn up his nose at serving more than two terms in the U.S. Senate. Seems to me the idea of a citizen legislature was one where people would return to being citizens after a few years, not leave their offices feet-first in a box.

Nor do I dislike Democrats personally. Admittedly I don’t have a lot of Democratic friends, but they know where I stand politically and they deal with it. They’re still good people.

But they need to look in the mirror and ask themselves: if we have had policies in effect for most of the last half-century and they’re not succeeding, isn’t it possible we were wrong all along? No one’s really tried limiting government, although you would think when Republicans talk about cuts that we were going to no government at all. I have news for you: limited does not equal none.

Finally, it’s worth noting that Bongino is running that retail campaign, getting out and meeting voters in person, in part due to necessity. Ben Cardin has millions of special interest dollars in the bank and I suspect his campaign will consist of carpetbombing us 30 seconds at a time with the message that he would be doing all these wonderful things for Maryland if it weren’t for conservatives like his neophyte opponent who want to take your Social Security check and clean air and water away (or some such variation of that theme.) What else does Ben have to run on?

Sad thing is that Cardin may win without so much as a debate or tough questioning from the mainstream media in this state! Do you recall a Wargotz vs. Mikulski debate? Neither do I, and I doubt Ben Cardin has the guts to debate Bongino either. Come on, if Ben’s so smart one would think he’d mop up the stage with Dan, but we know it’s not going to happen because professional incumbent politicians never take that sort of risk unless they absolutely have to. And no one is going to make him do it.

If the power structure is going to be shaken, it’s going to be a determined and small minority taking on the Democratic and media machine in this state. Personally I don’t give a rat’s ass if Maryland Democrat Party Chair Yvette Lewis doesn’t like the idea of petitions because I’m sure she’s all in favor of the petition which put Scott Walker on the recall ballot in Wisconsin. Hypocrite. But that’s the way the Maryland Democrat Party works.

So let’s get out there and shock the world.

2 thoughts on “What Bongino doesn’t do – and what he does”

  1. I appreciate that you can acknowledge that Democrats are not evil 🙂

    Nevertheless, I think we tried “limited government” many times before. Here are a few examples…..

    1) America’s industrial era, which was rife with corporate lawlessness (ie: monopolies, child labor exploitation, dangerous working conditions, wild pay & wealth disparities). The Lochner era of the Supreme Court helped facilitate all this: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lochner_era

    2) Limited gov’t w/ respect to civil rights (ie: women & people of color being prohibited from voting, segregation, housing discrimination, etc)

    etc etc….

    I’m all for limited government when it comes to abuse of power/stopping the abuse of power by others, but that makes me a civil libertarian — not a small government advocate about everything. The history of this nation has not shown it to be the case that we can trust others NOT to abuse the privileges of liberty — hence safeguards are needed…..

    If you’re talking about spending, however….. I would point to the Pentagon and GOP love for voluntary military conflicts as the biggest source of big government spending and waste as a % of GDP.

  2. I can understand the point, and perhaps I expressed what I said less than perfectly. How about limited by the Constitution and the intent of those who wrote it? If we simply reduced the size of government to match revenues that would be a good starting point!

    Besides, I would argue that we are in an era rife with corporate lawlessness now, with the key difference being that the government is in cahoots with it. I believe that the issue isn’t money in politics, it’s money in government – if you reduce the size of the honey pot the bears aren’t as likely to be attracted to it.

    You also err in pointing out the Pentagon as a “biggest source of big government spending” – their outlays are dwarfed by entitlement programs. Obviously you and I are going to disagree whether these are a legitimate function of government or not, whereas national defense IS a legitimate function of government.

    And GOP love for voluntary military conflicts? It wasn’t a Republican who sent us over to Libya or Uganda and maybe Syria or Iran (or put us in Vietnam or Korea for that matter) so the blade cuts both ways.

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