Tuesday, May 18, 2010

Why I Am Planning To Vote For Raul Labrador For Congress

Why I Am Planning To Vote For Raul Labrador For Congress

We had a bond election today in the Horseshoe Bend school district.  Next Tuesday is the primary election.  (If there were any sanity, both elections would have been held on the same day--but at least the bond election was pitifully cheaply run.)

I had originally planned to vote for Vaughn Ward in the Republican primary for U.S. House seat 1.  I saw a swarm of news stories in the Idaho Statesman that were generally so petty as to make me more inclined to vote for Ward.  Dan Popkey, the Idaho Statesman's political columnist, made a big deal of Ward being late on his property taxes.  Even Rep. Walt Minnick (DINO-ID) pointed out how easy it is to miss such deadlines.  It was pretty clear that Popkey was just trying to weaken what was considered the stronger Republican candidate.

But since then, Ward has managed to demonstrate that he is not ready for prime time.  He ran an ad with him in uniform.  That's a complete no-no.  If Ward was an enlisted man, I could be charitable and assume that he didn't know, or forgot.  But he's an officer (Major).  He ought to know better.

Then Ward's campaign was caught plagiarizing stuff for his campaign from other Republican campaigns around the country.  Okay, mistakes happen; busy campaign staff may not understand that if you are going to reuse someone else's stuff, you should attribute it.  (Unless, of course, you are Sen. Joe Biden, now V.P. Joe Biden.)  But then they tried again--and the same problem!

Now, if conservative Republicans around the country had been smart, they would have organized a common platform, and pledged themselves to it--rather like 1994's Contract With America (a brilliant idea from Newt Gingrich).  Then everyone could have signed onto it, creating a powerful collection of campaign materials that would have strengthened all of them--and would have been far less expensive than everyone inventing the wheel individually.  This would have been very powerful--but there's a reason that Republicans are called the Stupid Party.  (As distinguished from their enemies, the Sneaky, Cunning, Shark-like Corrupt Party.)

Again, all these failings might not be a sign of Vaughn Ward's personal failings--but it does suggest that he can't manage his Congressional primary campaign.  That means he isn't going to do a particularly stellar job running the general election campaign, or running a Congressional office.

I'm planning to vote for Raul Labrador next Tuesday.  I'm hard pressed to see any major areas where Ward's positions are better than Labrador's.   Labrador has experience as a member of the Idaho legislature--which is a good stepping stone to the U.S. House.  That we have a strong supporter of stopping illegal immigration with an Hispanic name just sweetens the pot a bit, because it gives us a chance to watch messy brain explosions from Democrats on the coasts who simply refuse to believe that our concerns aren't racism.

4 comments:

  1. I think Rep. Labrador will be the stronger candidate for the Republicans, so that's why I'm hoping Ward wins. I've met with Labrador and liked him a lot; he made a lot of sense as I asked him some "gotcha"-type questions. There will be some things for the snarky blogger to attack him on -- the 17th Amendment and his support for "sound money" for starters, but Ward offers a lot more in humorous incompetence. (Just last night, he said in the debate that he thought Puerto Rico was a foreign country.)

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  2. That whole 'contract with America' con job reminds me why I don't like to vote for 'Rino' republicans. Newt and the party met behind closed doors to make sure they had enough no votes to make sure the planks of the contract did not pass congress. I just vote against all incumbents and want term limits in all states.

    It's kind of like the blue dogs, they trade votes because some of the Rino's know their state will hold them accountable, so they go find another republican to vote opposite for them who is not up for re-election.

    Also, incremental-ism is not working for conservatism; the republican party is incrementally going left and towards big government my whole lifetime.

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  3. Actually, much of the Contract With America passed the House, some of it passed into law, and some was vetoed by President Clinton.

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  4. Actually, go read the wiki article on contract with America, it's not a great source but not all wrong either. It was a joke. and like I said even if we vote a majority of republicans in office they won't stand up for the principles they run on. No significant plank of contract of America was passed by the senate when the republicans were in majority. Furthermore, the party did not hold any of the congressmen responsible for their vote. Like running alternative real conservatives.

    I know almost every democrat misrepresents their views. It's just difficult to find the one in five republicans that are actually honest.

    Only way to fix this country is keep voting democrat until it gets bad enough for the people to wake up.

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