September 26, 2012
Is This What It Comes To?
If we can chop this whole RI Congressional District 1 race (Doherty vs. Cicilline) down to a single sentence, does it get any more concise than this?
"He's dishonest" vs. "He's a Republican"And with that, some polls (paid for by the Democrats) claim that Cicilline is leading. That tells me that voters in this district think less of you for being a Republican than for not telling them the truth, or more specifically for not intending to mislead anyone intentionally. Really? That's what this comes down to?
When I see the commercials and hear the ads now, everything from the Cicilline camp is "He's a Republican! He'll side with the Republicans! He'll vote with the Republicans!" and the Doherty camp is doing their best to remind everyone of how many times David Cicilline hasn't been the most forthcoming with us. Doherty even showed it yet again just this week when he disproved the Cicilline claim that Doherty will eliminate Medicare and turn it into a voucher program and that he'll vote to cut Social Security. Yet again, Cicilline was not telling us the truth as Brendan Doherty offered his "iron clad" pledge to protect and support both Medicare and Social Security.
We still have about six weeks left, but that's what I boil this down to. Which is worse, being a Republican or being dishonest? Really Rhode Island? Are those polls correct that the Democrats are touting? The preference really is for a proven-untrustworthy Democrat over an honorable Republican?
And yet people wonder why our system of representation is broken.
A sad statement on humanity, but people are generally willing to tolerate crooks as long as it's "their crook." It's also very much in line with the progressive canon that the ends justify the means.
Posted by: Dan at September 26, 2012 10:13 PMWatched a recent FactCheck.org panel discussion in which a reporter asked the panel 'why they do what they do when by all appearances lying doesn't appear to be a disqualifier in a candidate.' The answer was, they do it for the voters that care to know and there's not many of them. Ironically today's FactCheck.org:
Obama’s ‘Outsourcer’ Overreach
The president's campaign fails to back up its claims that Romney 'shipped jobs' overseas.
Patrick -
Well written and to the point. You should take this blog post, and submit it to every newspaper and online blog in the 1st district.
Posted by: Mike at September 27, 2012 9:06 AMI don't wonder, I know. As a good lawyer once told me, "I may be a whore, but I'm YOUR whore!"
That says it all.
Posted by: John at September 27, 2012 10:04 AMPosted by Dan:
"A sad statement on humanity, but people are generally willing to tolerate crooks as long as it's "their crook."
I am reminded of Boston's Mayor Curley, who was re-elected while in jail. About 20 years ago it was decided to resurrect him as a "man of the people". A statue of him was erected and a search made, high and low, to find his desk. His desk was then installed in the current mayor's office.
Posted by: Warrington Faust at September 27, 2012 10:22 AMReminds me of when Edwin Edwards ran against a Republican who, like Robert Byrd and Harry Truman, had been in the Klan decades earlier.
Louisiana's "tolerance" crowd had bumper stickers reading "Vote For The Crook" made up. Well they got the crook-and the state sunk ever further into the toilet.
Like Mexifornia, RI deserves EVERYTHING it gets.