NC-03: Griffin goes ‘toe-to-toe’ with Laura Ingraham
A bit of advice before going on Laura Ingraham’s radio program: Put on your Big Boy / Big Girl Pants. (Laura is tough. She throws no softballs, and makes you defend every pause, comma and apostrophe.)
Renee Ellmers went on the show, and things didn’t go very well. Taylor Griffin, the GOP primary challenger to 3rd district incumbent Walter Jones, put himself in Laura’s hot seat on Tax Day.
Griffin is painting himself as a “conservative” alternative to Jones. Ingraham defended Jones, painting him as a solid social conservative with a more populist, Pat Buchanan-style Republicanism.
Of course, amnesty popped up in the discussion. Ingraham pressed Griffin to clarify his position — given the fact that he is backed by some big establishment money that favors amnesty. Griffin described himself as being “against blanket amnesty.”
”American citizenship is too precious to be given away as a political token,” Griffin told Ingraham. 
The host pressed Griffin on whether illegal aliens — even those who qualify for the benefits of the DREAM act — should be deported. Griffin said — under current law — he favors deportation of illegal aliens. Even DREAMers. Ingraham pointed out that position puts him in direct conflict with Sheldon Adelson, a Vegas-based billionaire who is all for amnesty for DREAMers and has dumped a load of cash promoting Griffin.
“The first thing we have to do is to get a handle on those living outside the system,” Griffin told Ingraham. “We’ve got to get them out of the country or into the system. We need some sort of normalization for people already in the country.”
Ingraham pressed Griffin on whether his views are closer to those of South Carolina senator Lindsey Graham or Alabama’s Jeff Sessions.
“I don’t want to put myself in boxes,” Griffin told the host in response.
But when the discussion turned to agriculture, Griffin began to sound a lot like amnesty supporter Renee Ellmers. He brought up the talking point about how farmers cannot find enough help among native-born Americans.
“If you can’t afford to pay a decent wage to American citizens, you don’t deserve to be in business,” Ingraham said.
Griffin responded that forcing that issue will mean higher costs for consumers in their grocery shopping.
Griffin said some reform of the “social welfare net” needs to take place in order to put more low-skill workers out into the market for these agricultural jobs. In the short term, Griffin said the government needs to help farmers out with guest workers.
“I am not going to have farmers’ crops rotting in the fields,” he told Ingraham.
Laura smoked this establishment phoney out. He runs ads saying he will never support amnesty but those ads are clearly a lie.
The big money funders like Adelson are a dead giveaway. Griffin’s mealy-mouth response means he supports amnesty, and probably increases in immigration though not specifically stated here. If he did not, he would clearly specify that he is against any form of amnesty, legalization, or path to citizenship. The fact that he’s so cagey in this interview makes him like the other anti-American sovereignty corporatists, like Ellmers, who will do their masters’ bidding.
Walter Jones on the other hand has been as steadfastly anti-amnesty as any Republican could be. He has a stellar record on this.
You also have to look at the massive independent expenditures of Wall Street insider Joe RIcketts, former CEO of Ameritrade, who funds a group he calls ”Ending Spending”. Ricketts largest expenditure outside his home state last election was for Jeff Flake, one of the pro-amnesty Gang of 8 in the Senate. Flake had a hard fought primary with a more conservative Republican who took a hard line against amnesty. In addition, Ricketts other project this year besides Taylor Griffin is to push moderate Republican former Massachusetts Senator Scott Brown for the Senate seat in New Hampshire. He first has to get Brown by conservative former New Hampshire US Senator Bob Smith in the primary. Scott Brown is also pro-amnesty.
Oh, and Ricketts’ son is running in the GOP primary in Nebraska for Governor. So, if you know anyone there, call them and tell them to vote against Ricketts.
Griffin sounded very insincere and fraudulent.
Well, Ann Coulter has come out strongly against NC candidates supporting amnesty, including Tillis and Ellmers, and in favor of Brannon and Roche:
http://www.anncoulter.com/columns/2014-04-16.html#read_more
I would love for Ann to come to North Carolina and campaign for Brannon and Roche. That would create some buzz for sure. I love to hear her talk. She is unique and has her own style.
The day before the 3rd District meeting Griffin called me…not a Robo call…but a short personal message on my answering machine saying he looked forward to seeing me at the meeting. He’s making some hay on the fact that Walter never shows up for these kind of affairs. I don’t know Jones personally, but some tell me that he is very uncomfortable with them, and expects his record to speak for itself.
Unfortunately there are so many people who are more interested in personalities than principles and they readily buy into Taylor “The Snake” Griffin’s rhetoric. To Walter’s favor, Griffin isn’t very personable and certainly doesn’t seem all that genuine.
It’s not at all difficult to defend Jones’ record; he has consistently voted his principles. It’s imperative that those in the know take the time to inform the low information voter and those easily swayed by swarmy types selling their brand of snake oil.
“Griffin works for the Property Casualty Insurers Association of America, a trade association for property insurers. This year, the PCIAA promoted a state property insurance hike as high as 35 percent on homeowners in North Carolina beach communities. In Washington, the PCIAA’s team of ten registered lobbyists worked to oppose the Homeowner Flood Insurance Affordability Act, recently passed legislation designed to “freeze premium increases on most homes governed by flood-insurance rate maps.”
As the Charlotte Observer reported, without this legislation, some coastal families faced flood insurance rate hikes from $850 a year now to as high as $21,000.”
Link to article: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/04/17/walter-jones-taylor-griffin_n_5166969.html
Griffin is running for Congress just to move back up there, not for the people of Eastern North Carolina. I think some would call that being an opportunist. He claims he’s a small business owner, but what he doesn’t claim is that he profited off of ripping off the people of ENC. My vote is for Walter.
I must have met a different guy than the Taylor Griffin that is talked about in this thread. Taylor looked right at me, firm hand shake, told us that he had worked in Washington DC and has many friends and connections in DC. I don’t know about you but I want a man with friends and that has connections in DC. Walter Jones is not respected at all in DC, nice man but totally useless in getting anything done. He got in this position by being Walter Jones Jr. And he is not at all like his father, two very different men. Walter talks and his passion is about wars and money spent on this wars, I agree with him on that issue but Eastern NC has a lot of really important issues that he has never even acknowledged must less fixed or helped solve them. I have been in DC at hearings and he doesn’t even know the facts of what the bills are. I was embarrassed for him. 20 years is long enough for anyone to be in an elected position and with the record congress has, my vote is new blood because the ones that are in congress right now need to find something else to do. I liked Griffin, young, energy, solid conservative. Walter is the most liberal republican in congress, voting with the democrats more than any other republican in congress.
That liberal Republican mess is a bunch of hooey from the discredited National Journal rating. That is done by liberal journalists, not actual conservatives.
The problem in DC is the sellout GOP establishment, which is who is bankrolling Griffin along with the Wall Street insiders, like the Ricketts family, big supporters of amnesty for illegal aliens, and Wall Street insiders whose family PAC ”Ending Spending” is spending well into six figures to back Griffin.
Griffin has been caught in a lie on his claim to ”never support amnesty” in his ads. When he was on the Laura Ingraham show, she asked him enough questions, that Griffin admitted to supporting ”normalization” for illegal aliens now in the country. that is just another word for amnesty. He is lying to the voters in his ads if he is for ”normalization” (amnesty) while claiming to be against it.
Griffin’s connections in DC – the rotten GOP leadership and the K Street lobbyists – are not connections I want our Congressmen to have. We need representatives with the backbone to change our weak and vacillating leadership and replace them with real leaders. Griffin would just be a Boehner bootlicker, while Jones is independent enough to stand up to the Boehner crowd.
It sounds like you want a pork barreller. I don’t. I want a principled conservative who will stand firm against illegal immigration, debt increases, overspending, and spendthrift budgets, which ever party they come from, and that is exactly what Walter Jones has done..