Day: November 10, 2010

Positive Campaigning Can Be Done: Patrick Leahy And John Hickenlooper As Examples!

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The average American is disgusted by nasty, negative campaigning, where character assassination is employed! 🙁

The effect is to discourage citizens from voting, and to make the American people cynical about politics!

But is it possible to run a political campaign and avoid negativism against your opponent? The answer is YES!

Democratic Senator Patrick Leahy of Vermont just won his seventh term in the Senate, and completely avoided nasty, negative campaigning!

Democratic Mayor John Hickenlooper of Denver just won the Governorship of Colorado and completely steered away from negative campaigning, a major feat considering that his major opponent was former Republican and Constitution Party nominee Tom Tancredo, one of the most despicable, divisive, nasty campaigners of all time, making his career on the issue of being an anti immigrant nativist of the most venal kind! Hickenlooper’s other opponent was Republican Tea Party nominee Dan Maes, whose campaign collapsed in the face of Tancredo, therefore weakening the GOP image in the Rocky Mountain state, as both of them ran horrible campaigns of character assassination! 🙁

But the tactic did not work, and Colorado is fortunate in having Governor-elect Hickenlooper, a man of principle and decency!

Another example of a politician who avoided negative campaigning in his Senatorial campaigns was the outstanding former New York Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan, who served as a Democrat for four terms from 1976-2000, and proved to be a man of both principle and intellect, a combination hard to find in the US Senate today!

This country desperately needs a return to civility in both political campaigns, and in the business of running the government on a daily basis, instead of the politics of personal destruction! 🙁

The Growing Inequity Of Wealth In America: New Report! :(

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In the midst of the worst economic downturn since the Great Depression of the 1930s, and with Republicans wanting to extend the Bush tax cuts to the wealthy while calling for cuts in government spending, a new economic report by an economics professor shows just how much the Bush tax cuts to the wealthy in the past ten years have made for an extremely stratified society! 🙁

The report shows that the top 20 percent of the population now control and own 85 percent of the wealth of this country!

The next 40 percent own or control about 14 percent of the wealth!

The bottom 40 percent have less than one percent of the wealth, with many in that category having negative wealth with no hope of bettering their lives at any time in the future! 🙁

Considering the seriousness of the inequity of wealth and income in this country, how can anyone justify more tax cuts to the wealthy, which would add $700 billion to the national debt over the next ten years, requiring even greater cuts in social programs? 🙁

How can anyone justify such proposals as to end unemployment compensation, eliminate the minimum wage, privatize Social Security and Medicare, gut the new health care law, and cut education funding, among other terrible suggestions by the Republican party? 🙁

If this kind of social injustice is allowed to continue, it is really going to make many people desperate, and that endangers the public safety, as desperate people will turn to crime and bloodshed to feed and house their families! 🙁

You cannot kick people around endlessly, and show lack of concern for fellow human beings, and expect a peaceful, nonviolent response in return! 🙁

South Florida Conservative Talk Show Host Joyce Kaufman And Congressman Elect Allen West: Two “Wingnuts” That Will Make News! :(

Ronald 1 Comment

One of the most notable Tea Party Movement favorites who won election to the House of Representatives last week was Allen West, a Lieutenant Colonel in the Army, who was forced to leave the military after inappropriate treatment of a prisoner In Iraq in 2003, and who has been associated with right wing, pro gun groups!

With large amounts of money, including support from Karl Rove associated groups, West defeated Congressman Ron Klein of Boca Raton, in one of the most confrontational campaigns in the country! 🙁

West is a “wing nut” who will make lots of news with his comments and actions, seen by many as an African American male counterpart of Michele Bachmann, Congresswoman from Minnesota, who is constantly making outrageous statements and calling for extremist actions against the opposition party, and confrontation in foreign policy!

It is bad enough that West will be a “nightmare” in Congress, but he has now appointed right wing “nut job” talk show host Joyce Kaufman, who is a South Florida “wannabe” replica of Glenn Beck, Rush Limbaugh, and Sean Hannity on the local level! 🙁

Kaufman has been an outrageous talk show host on WFTL in Fort Lauderdale, spewing poison, hate, and nastiness, calling for violent actions against illegal immigrants, war against Islam, and ridiculing Democrats in despicable language, such as calling Congresswoman Debbie Wasserman Schultz, Debbie Wasserman Schmutz (dirt in Yiddish)! She has used similar assaulting language against other Democrats, including former Congressman Robert Wexler, and other Democrats on the national scene, and has been totally negative in every way toward President Barack Obama!

She will now gain national attention, which she craves, as the Chief of Staff to Congressman West, and she is sure to be a “lightning rod”, drawing controversy by her statements and actions, instead of being a quiet, behind the scenes figure as Chief of Staff!

It is odd for a political figure to pick a media personality to be the leader of his staff! It is also weird that Kaufman, who constantly promotes states rights and hatred of the federal government, will now be a federal government employee and be paid by taxpayers for her work!

Interesting example of total hypocrisy on her part, and it also brings to mind that she somehow expects to be a “correspondent” for her radio station while working for West, which is seen by people on Capitol Hill as a conflict of interest, and totally inappropriate, and possibly illegal to boot!

But then conservatives like to rail against government, and then feed at the public trough as they pursue their agenda to make this country a land of the elite doing everything they can to make the rich richer, the poor poorer, and the middle class slipping constantly down in the direction of poverty!

The voters of the 22nd Congressional District of Florida will eventually realize the blunder they have made, brought about by large amounts of corporate cash without limit, thanks to the Supreme Court decision in the Citizens United case in January of this year! 🙁