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Maryland: Since no self-respecting news organization would devote significant time to a Senate race in which a popular incumbent is pitted against one of two unknown Republicans in a very blue state with a competitive gubernatorial race going on at the same time, there isn’t a lot to say about Maryland (say what you will about the media, but it’s hard to argue that they don’t respect themselves.) With few public events to base my criticism on, I am forced to aim a little lower, specifically at web design. You would think that a candidate for national office, even a little known one, would be able to hire a skilled, professional web designer to put out at least the most basic level of competence in their public image. You would think that, but you would be wrong. Instead of an “Issues” page like most political websites have, Jim Rutledge’s site has a sidebar with the title “Freedoms We Need to Protect.” Underneath that subtle heading are listed the following categories of “Freedoms”: National Security, Taxes, Self Defense Right to Bear Arms, Speech & Censorship, and Unalienable Rights. So Jim Rutledge (or his underpaid web designer) believes that Taxes is a freedom we need to protect and that the only issues worth talking about are these freedoms. Trying to find any shred of an energy plan? It’s not there. But if you want to talk about freedom then Jim Rutledge is your guy. He loves him some freedom. The other Republican candidate’s website is even worse. Go to Eric Wartgotz’ website and look at the about Eric Wargotz tab. I am fairly certain that I stopped writing like this somewhere between 4th and 6th grades. To be fair, I am not exactly a grammatical genius either, but then I’m not designing a Senatorial candidate’s website. Take notes: bullet points are a useful tool, correct-punctuation is (important); use parallelism. Missouri: The Midwest Democracy Project issued a survey to a number of candidates for national office in the Midwest region including Missouri Senate candidates. The Republican candidate, Roy Blunt, answered a question about TARP, saying that he would not have voted for the bailout bill if he were in the Senate at the time. That’s all to be expected- you can’t court the Tea Party base unless you profess to oppose all bills that involve any sort of spending or do anything to help rescue the economy- so I would be willing to give Blunt a pass if it weren’t for one teeny tiny detail. Blunt, while not in the Senate at the time, was in the House of Representatives and as such he did cast a vote on the bailout. It is a fairly simple matter of public record to check on what his vote was, so I’m sure I could just glance at the House Clerk’s website to confirm that Blunt is both consistent and honest, whatever his policy positions are. Upon making my routine pro forma investigation, however, I discovered that the clerk believes Blunt voted for the bill. Clearly something is wrong and the FBI needs to investigate it immediately, because someone must have voted in Roy Blunt’s place in the House. I fear this may be a national conspiracy reaching into the very top levels of our government and spanning such organizations as ACORN and FEMA. How else could the views of a candidate differ so greatly from his previous votes? North Carolina: Back in 1929, America was witness to a great example of the problem that arises when the interests of an individual don’t match the interests of the group. When a number of community banks started to fail for a variety of reasons, people who had money stored in otherwise healthy banks quickly got worried and withdrew every penny they could, a smart individual decision, but one that imperiled the wider economy. The result was that banks that otherwise would have stayed in operation collapsed, only intensifying the cycle. These runs on the banks were seen as a primary cause of the Great Depression and much of the regulation that emerged during the New Deal, especially the FDIC, was intended to prevent a repeat of these events. Thanks to the FDIC, people’s bank accounts are now insured in the event of a bank failure, so there should be no reason to withdraw in the event of an economic crisis. Apparently no one told Richard Burr that, because following the events of 2008 on Wall Street, Burr told his wife to withdraw everything she could from a local bank. Fortunately for the country, most Americans were not as stupid as Richard Burr and they realized that making a run on the bank was both dangerous and unnecessary thanks to the FDIC. Take note, I just said that the populace that elected George Bush twice (well, at least once anyway), made the KFC Doubledown popular and made Snooki a respected public figure, is smarter than Richard Burr, significantly smarter, like Einstein to a second grader. I skipped Nevada for the same reason I skipped Kentucky. Sharron Angle deserves more space than I can give her in one third of a post. I’ll get to her soon. Back CommentsAdd Comment |
This is the sixth part in a series that can go on until the November midterm elections on the ridiculous, flawed, unethical, foolish or flat-out insane things that Republican Senate candidates have said, done or proposed doing.