Thursday, August 10, 2006
Who wants to be a conservative?
As the 2006 U.S. Senate race heats up, Harold Ford the Second, aka Junior, is going to perform a political cross-dressing routine the likes of which voters in this state have never seen.
Junior fancies himself a conservative - or, at the very least, a solid moderate - Democrat, and his amen corner is busy spreading palm leaves touting him as such. Last Sunday, the Tennessean's Larry Daughtrey mentioned Junior's "right of center" voting record. Daughtrey's comment comes fast on the heals of a statement released by Junior Spokeswoman Carol Andrews in which she not only calls her boss a "conservative Democrat," she says Republicans by God "know" he's a conservative, too.
The views of Junior's sycophants notwithstanding, Junior is not a conservative. Oh, sure, he's been talking like a conservative for the past year or so; however, a quick glance at his voting record and financial statements shows that the individuals who're cheerleading for Junior the Conservative are simply propagating a rather pernicious myth. To wit:
The members of the Club for Growth are a decidedly conservative lot who lend financial support to pro-growth candidates for state and federal offices. The Club for Growth's "policy goals" include the following:
Making the Bush tax cuts permanent
Death tax repeal
Cutting and limiting government spending
Social Security reform with personal retirement accounts
Expanding free trade
Legal reform to end abusive lawsuits
Replacing the current tax code
School choice
Regulatory reform and deregulation
The Club for Growth's most recent congressional rating gives Junior a lifetime score of 5 out of a possible 100. (Even left-wing nut-jobs like Jim "Baghdad" McDermott, Henry Waxman, and Cynthia McKinney fared better on their Club for Growth scorecards.)
Since 1971, the American Conservative Union's congressional rankings have been listed in all major political almanacs and reference guides. The ACU does a pretty good job of identifying who is and who ain't - and who's almost - a conservative. Junior's lifetime ACU score rests at 19. By comparison, Tennessee Congressman Lincoln Davis, another self-proclaimed conservative Democrat, has a lifetime 62 ACU score.
Finally, the National Journal, tagged recently by Newsday columnist James Pinkerton as a "prestigious and soberly low-key weekly," ranks Junior the eighth most liberal member of Tennessee's 9-man delegation in the U.S. House of Representatives.
Add to Junior's bad 'port cards the fact that he's taken money from Hollywood lefties Larry David, Rob Reiner and Norman Lear, and it's hard to make a convincing argument that Junior is indeed a conservative.
Junior fancies himself a conservative - or, at the very least, a solid moderate - Democrat, and his amen corner is busy spreading palm leaves touting him as such. Last Sunday, the Tennessean's Larry Daughtrey mentioned Junior's "right of center" voting record. Daughtrey's comment comes fast on the heals of a statement released by Junior Spokeswoman Carol Andrews in which she not only calls her boss a "conservative Democrat," she says Republicans by God "know" he's a conservative, too.
The views of Junior's sycophants notwithstanding, Junior is not a conservative. Oh, sure, he's been talking like a conservative for the past year or so; however, a quick glance at his voting record and financial statements shows that the individuals who're cheerleading for Junior the Conservative are simply propagating a rather pernicious myth. To wit:
The members of the Club for Growth are a decidedly conservative lot who lend financial support to pro-growth candidates for state and federal offices. The Club for Growth's "policy goals" include the following:
Making the Bush tax cuts permanent
Death tax repeal
Cutting and limiting government spending
Social Security reform with personal retirement accounts
Expanding free trade
Legal reform to end abusive lawsuits
Replacing the current tax code
School choice
Regulatory reform and deregulation
The Club for Growth's most recent congressional rating gives Junior a lifetime score of 5 out of a possible 100. (Even left-wing nut-jobs like Jim "Baghdad" McDermott, Henry Waxman, and Cynthia McKinney fared better on their Club for Growth scorecards.)
Since 1971, the American Conservative Union's congressional rankings have been listed in all major political almanacs and reference guides. The ACU does a pretty good job of identifying who is and who ain't - and who's almost - a conservative. Junior's lifetime ACU score rests at 19. By comparison, Tennessee Congressman Lincoln Davis, another self-proclaimed conservative Democrat, has a lifetime 62 ACU score.
Finally, the National Journal, tagged recently by Newsday columnist James Pinkerton as a "prestigious and soberly low-key weekly," ranks Junior the eighth most liberal member of Tennessee's 9-man delegation in the U.S. House of Representatives.
Add to Junior's bad 'port cards the fact that he's taken money from Hollywood lefties Larry David, Rob Reiner and Norman Lear, and it's hard to make a convincing argument that Junior is indeed a conservative.
# posted by Joltin' Django @ Thursday, August 10, 2006 
