Principle or Politics? [extensive mention of Bill Johnson]
CanadaFreePress.com
By Daniel Greenfield Saturday, February 6, 2010 This has been a week of the vague, with both Democrats and Republicans fumbling for an agenda. The Democratic left is growing tired of Obama’s fumbling. Obama is trying to figure out how he can get the ball past the Republicans, but for all his angry rhetoric, he’s low on courage. But the Republicans are demonstrating the same self-destructive behavior that gave rise to a Democratic congress in the first place. Shelby’s hold, which should have been about the nominees themselves, now risks painting the GOP as the greedy party again, and the Supermajority, which was supposed to be a people’s tool, risks turning into a pork tool. And the entire Tanker dispute only plays into Obama and Pelosi’s promotion of defense spending cuts, by making national defense look like a drag on the economy. If this goes on, the Republicans will destroy themselves before 2012, which will let Obama wait out his current setback, and return stronger than ever. And just as the Republicans need to wait Obama out, he may be willing to wait out the Republicans as well. Particularly if Republicans midterm victories in 2010 mean nothing more than a bipartisan spending spree that will disgust the public, turn off independent voters, and make the Democrats look good, because at least their spending comes back with promises about providing jobs and social benefits. Then there was Palin’s attempt to jump on the weakest possible criticism of Rahm Emanuel, not over the relevant corruption issues, but over his use of the word, “Retarded.” It was supposed to be the liberals who played speech police, not conservatives. There are liberal blogs where even using the word “Lame” is off limits, because it’s “ablist”. I don’t think we want to go down that road. I certainly don’t. And since just about everyone does use the word, “Retarded” to mean stupid, Palin found herself having to respond to Limbaugh’s use of it, to avoid being called a hypocrite. And this entire mess could have been avoided, if she had kept her focus on making substantive criticisms of the Obama Administration. And it’s substantive criticisms that we need. There’s no doubt that Obama and the people surrounding him are amoral jackasses at best. Just as there was no doubt that Bill Clinton was a serial adulterer. But to win you have to connect political wrongdoing to direct damage done to the public. Without that, your criticisms will remain impotent. Then there’s Tom Tancredo at the Tea Party Convention. I like his speeches, as always, but I have to question a man who endorsed Romney, saying that he’s happy McCain lost, because he would have been terrible on immigration and budget discipline. I’m sorry, but there really isn’t that much difference there. And is Obama any better on immigration and budget discipline? I suppose I have a certain inborn suspicion of politicians. The art of politics very often seems to require staking out a principled position and then selling it out at the best price. And in the process people who look for principled politicians, all too often find just the politics underneath. In California, Carly Fiorina and Tom Campbell are competing to prove which of them is the worst candidate. By the time they’re done I suspect they’ll convince a lot of people that both of them are. Which sadly is also true. Sure the demon sheep ad is terrible, but consider how many people watch politics ads, vs how many people will see this one. From the “anything for a win” standpoint, the demon sheep is probably a victory, albeit a Pyrrhic one. “I’m sorry Carly, but we had to destroy your candidacy, to save your candidacy.” Meanwhile in Illinois, the Democratic Lt. Governor will be a pawnbroker with a history of violence toward women, and steroid abuse, who spent 2 million dollars getting elected. This of course is more proof that a party can’t escape its past, until it actually cleans house.
And so I’d like to come back for a moment to the Kentucky GOP primary for a moment. The two big candidates in the race, Trey Grayson and Rand Paul have each raised a little under 2 million dollars. Together they’re competing to see whether a former Democrat or the radical Mises libertarian who wanted to close Gitmo and release its terrorists “back into battle” will be the Republican candidate for the Kentucky Senate.
Mitch McConnell is backing Grayson. Sarah Palin is backing Paul, a move almost as cynical as her campaigning for McCain, or Tancredo’s endorsement of Romney. But there’s one authentic conservative candidate in the race—and unsurprisingly, it’s the one that no one is talking about. Bill Johnson. This is Bill Johnson , the Republican Senate candidate that the media and many of the big bloggers won’t talk about. This is what he stands for in his own words. And unlike Rand Paul, he hasn’t transformed his views to fit in and win a Republican primary. Fellow concerned citizens, we are at a turning point in the history of our nation. Jobs are moving offshore, the economy is weak, taxes are increasing, and prosperity is fading. Our elected officials offer expanded government, more spending, and industry takeovers as the solution. Socialism is taking hold. I am not a politician. I am a concerned citizen, military veteran, and businessman who believes it is time for new leadership in Washington. I want to be a voice for concerned citizens across the Bluegrass State who have ‘had enough’ of politicians violating our trust. For that reason, I am running in the 2010 Republican primary for the United States Senate. I stand for limited government, low taxes, strong military, gun ownership, marriage between one man and one woman, and life begins at conception.
Now why don’t you hear much about Bill Johnson? There’s the key line right there. “I am not a politician”. And it’s the politicians who make the deals, who say one thing and do another, scratching each other’s backs and writing checks to each other, trading off the public’s support like it was a game of Monopoly.
And it’s why Bill Johnson hasn’t raised millions of dollars to run misleading ads like Rand Paul and Trey Grayson (in case you hadn’t heard, the guy who talked about building a left-right coalition to roll back the American Empire is now a hawk on terrorism). Instead he’s the real thing. Which is why he doesn’t have the millions of dollars, the top flight political endorsements or the Obama style posters that have already been created for Rand Paul.
He’s actually supported by the local Tea Party organizers, not by organizations who are cashing in on the brand.
Local Kentucky activists and bloggers like Genuine GOP Mom and Conservative KY Gal have done a great job of covering this race, and they’re a much better resource on this election, than the “big bloggers” who are plugged into the national political game. Genuine GOP Mom has proven in detail which is the genuine pro-life candidate in this race. But the problem can be summed up in Bill Johnson’s own press release “The Bill Johnson for U.S. Senate Campaign continues to run a low cost and fiscally responsible campaign. Rand Paul, a doctor, and Trey Grayson, a lawyer, are engaged in a battle about who can raise and spend the most money in a primary campaign. This conflict is typical Capitol Hill politics where tax and spend is the norm. How much money is enough?... 2010 is an important election. Voters have never been more challenged to examine carefully each candidate and their positions on issues independent of the size of their wallets. Any other course is just letting money determine the outcome. This lesson was learned in the 2008 presidential campaigns.”
And if Grayson or Paul win, it will be the money determining the campaign. And instead of a reformist candidate, we’ll be choosing whether a former Democrat or the next inheritor of the Paul political name gets to play the same old games in the Senate.
Bill Johnson is accepting donations for his fight to elect a Reagan conservative to the Senate in Kentucky, not a former Democrat or a candidate whose views on the War on Terror are virtually indistinguishable from Obama’s.
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