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Saturday, November 11, 2006

You got what you wanted

--posted by Tony Garcia on 11/11/2006

A blogger I read and respect had a bit of a rant about Tuesday's elections. Part of that rant included wagging her finger at the voters, specifically the conservatives voters and those pointing out the fact that there was no reason to vote FOR the GOP.
This morning, those who called for conservatives to lay down the pen when it came to their representatives are the ones to blame for the losses, and you can tell the guilt by the spin. What they do, they now do with our blessing. Because we thought it best to act like a bunch of whiny three year olds, denied our sugar-coated cereal, and throwing a public temper tantrum, complete with fist pounding.

Congratulations. You threw the bums out. Even when some of them weren't bums.

Congratulations. You cleaned house. Now it can get really dirty.

Congratulations. You got what you wanted.
Emily, I love you blog. I usually agree with what you write and when I disagree I can at least understand and appreciate your position.

This time you are dead wrong.

"Congratulations. You got what you wanted" you say.

Not really. This time last year there were 4 GOP candidates for my Congressional Race (MN-6). I wanted Mark Kennedy instead to stay put. He didn't. I wanted him to run for Senate on his House record. He didn't. I wanted to run on issues...he ran on making semantical games about his opponent the issue.

To replace him were four conservatives (well, one moderate-conservative, but you get the point), but only three people who I felt good about as a person. (Did you ever shake hands with someone and feel like you just touched the devil? When I shook the 4th's hand I would get that feeling EVERY TIME for the past 2 years.) That 4th person won. I wanted someone I could vote for. I didn't get that.

Yes, I skipped 2 races (actually voted "Present" in the Write-in). Have no fear, both of the GOP candidates won anyway. I voted for the IP candidate for MN Governor because the Republican has done NOTHING for fiscal conservatives in the past 2 years, stated the "era of small government is over" and, imho, did not deserve to be returned to office with the help of my fiscal conservative vote. He earned it as much as I expected his Democrat challenger to have earned my vote. I wanted the fiscal conservative I was promised 4 years ago.

I wanted the GOP held House & Senate to FIX the pourous borders, illegal immigration and push for small government. Instead we have an expensive fence going up for 1/3 of the border, amnesty to reward illegals and a federal government telling me how to live (e.g. internet gambling is bad for me...to include online investing).

I wanted an Secretary of State in MN to do her job. The GOP incumbent has been a miserable partisan failure, and a liar to boot.

Given the batch of GOP candidates on my ballot the choices were not even what I wanted. I wanted none of them to win...so I did not get what I wanted. My responsibility when voting is ONLY regarding the races on my ballot. If you want to blame anyone blame the general Republican theme this election (which I pointed out in April both on the air and on my blog and predicted would lead to a massacre). Their themes: "Vote for us, cuz the other guys are worse" and "Vote for us to make the changes we need." How anyone thought either of those could win for a party that at the time controled both sides of Congress and the White House nationally (and the House & Governor's mansion in MN) is beyond me. THAT is the person needing scorn from those on the right licking their wounds. That finger wagging is in the wrong direction pointing at those of us who WANTED better candidates and simply made do with the absolute crap in front of us.

In the end, it is not too hard of a choice when you have an incumbent with a record for not getting the job done and a challenger who has no record.

The general feeling amongst the GOP was that voters had a responsibility to make their choices based on the national picture. Sorry, but that is just stuipid. If I were voting for Speaker of the House then it would be on my ballot. If it is supposed to be a vote based on which party should control Congress then my ballot would not say:
6th Congressional District
John Binkowski (Independent)
Michele Bachmann (Republican)
Patty Wetterling (Democrat)
Write-In
And for the record, I did write in Jay Esmay. If what you think the voters SHOULD have voted on or kept into consideration was a national vote on Congressional Control then the ballot should look like this:
National Control of Congress
Republican
Democrat
Other
My ballot did not have that, so that is not what should have been in consideration. My job as a voter was to weigh the character, the adherence to their own principles, their record, their positions, the person...weight those about the candidates against each other and select the best one. This year in many of the races the GOP candidate just could not pass that test.

But to insist that a voter must instead vote according to which party will become Speaker of the House is as intellectually valid as walking into the booth and flipping a coin. It is as responsible as voting for a party and then drawing a name from the phone book after the election to see which person would represent the winning party.

And for those who during the entire election cycle villified people intending to vote 3rd party or skipping various races I want you to answer these questions. In my State Senate race there was an ethically challenge Republican incumbent that could find a happy home in the Green party outside of his 'pro-business' claim and there was a Democrat challenger who, after a 30 minute conversation, I could tell was more of partisan sell-out than even the KvM authors.

Many, many, many of those who pilloried the 'skip the race' or 3rd-party voters work from the premise that the choices are ONLY the 'R' or the 'D'. To not actively pick one means you support the other. To understand the problem with it answer this think of who they think I should have voted for in the aforementioned race. Who should I have voted for in my State Senate race?

Really, I could not in good conscience pull the lever for either and there were no other candidates. I checked "Write-in" and wrote "Voting Present". So, according to those 'you're supporting the other side since you did not vote for our side' folks, it could be asserted that I 'supported' or 'helped' or 'voted' both sides. What about the other 49 that cast a "Write-in" vote? Who did they help? What about the 1,018 (3.0%) people that skipped the race entirely...who did they help?

And is it the fault us 1,068 people that did not cast either a "R" or a "D" vote that the DFL majority in the Senate grew by 12 DFL seats? If so, which ONE candidate did we 1068 voters help...and why that one, but not the other. How are we 1068 voters in this State Senate district responsible for the expansion of the Democrat majority?

So, all of you blaming the voters...you're wrong and lazy. Find the real blame, but it is not the voters.

All of you blaming the GOP or conservatives for not supporting the candidates...you're wrong and blind. The slate of good, competent politicians was thin and the slate of good, competent people was even thinner.

All of you who blasted non-voters, 3rd-party voters and 'skip the race' voters before the election...shut up now. Funny how the most vicious of those people are the ones now jumping on board with the very things I was saying last year.

Oh, and, Andy...you conspiracy freak. Interesting little thought.
No, I know that overnight there was probably a massive research into my background. They will stop at nothing in this. Just like I got savaged by Jeffers folks for defending Pawlenty, I will now get savaged by the Carey folks.

Remember everyone, Ron Carey was supposed to be the guy to give the party back to the base, and stop making all the decisions at the top. Here we have some proof that ALL the decisions were made at the top, and in fact they are telling the base to F off.

I will be lucky to survive their assault on my character, but I feel that I must move on.
Let me offer to you the same thing you said to me during the summer. There is no way in the world that kind of thing would happen. You are making things up, imagining these things. You are saying anything just to bring down people for your own Quixotic reasons. The GOP does not do background searchs on their critics. And they do not intimidate or threaten critics. You have it wrong...even if you have witnessed it, you are wrong. All of the evil things you may have witnessed behind he scenes did not happen.

I'm just giving you the advice that you gave to me...even though I know those things from first hand experience.

And I am doing it more gently than you and your pals did to us non-conformists this past year.

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