WRAL #NCSEN debate pre-game show: It’s O-Care, Stupid! (Binky, up close & personal)
If you didn’t get enough excitement from last night’s extravaganza in Davidson, flip on over to Raleigh’s WRAL TV tonight for Round 2. Mark Harris really fumbled a great opportunity last night. We fought hard to get him into tonight’s event. The preacher needs to show up ready to rumble.
The candidates need to unite on the idea of not letting the drive-bys set the agenda. THE issues everyone has on their mind are ObamaCare AND the economy. Binky and Miss Laura will TRY to spout off on puppy mills, gay marriage, medical marijuana, and guns for mental patients. Very few people are basing their votes on any of that.
Heather Grant and Greg Brannon — by virtue of their employment in the medical field — are well positioned to talk in detail about how DC is screwing up healthcare and screwing over their patients. They can tie that to the fact that Kay Hagan gleefully heaped all of this mess on us ( and Speaker Thom pushed the idea of health exchanges at the state level).
Some people think Thom Tillis is smart by aiming his fire at Hagan. That’s nice, but there’s no 
need to sell the public on how bad Hagan is. Polls show that my dog could beat Hagan. People want to hear about your principles and your ideas about turning the country around. Tillis has been pushing the idea of “bipartisan cooperation.” That’s fancy, big-city talk for backing off repealing this whole ObamaCare thing, and giving Harry Reid and The Chamber what they want with amnesty.
If you get deep, down to it — people are more interested in the idea of self-government, and not partisan government. Who is really interested in having one group labeled Democrat and one group labeled Republican taking turns busting the budget and increasing the size and scope of government? People want to be left alone by Washington. They want DC to protect them from external threats, but they want to make most all of the other decisions affecting their lives close to home.
Mark Harris stumbled on to something with his ”no-baggage” theme. A lot of viewers of last night’s extravaganza saw Harris as too much of a spectator who, more than once, appeared to buttress Tillis’ spin.
The spin about Tillis as Mr. Inevitable is specious, to say the least. Speaker Thom has 60 percent name ID, but only about 20 percent of the vote. That screams out that people KNOW him, but aren’t sold. The primary electorate is mostly conservative — more likely to be aligned with Greg Brannon or Mark Harris. Creating enough doubt about Tillis could likely force a Brannon-Harris runoff and change the dynamics of this whole thing dramatically.
Tillis tells people there is little difference between himself and his rivals on the issues. Actually, there is a strong case for comparing Thom Tillis to Richard Nixon. Nixon started off as a hard-nosed right-winger while in Congress and as Eisenhower’s VP. He mutated, as president, into the guy who blessed us with the EPA, price controls, and a whole lot of liberal Supreme Court justices. Like Nixon, Tillis doesn’t have any hard core principles and will position himself as whatever he needs to be in order to rake in the cash and keep his hands on the reins of power. And, like Nixon, he’ll do whatever he has to in order to protect that political capital.
A Senator Tillis will be a lot like Richard Burr — standing politely behind Mitch McConnell at the press conference nodding approvingly and sympathetically as ol’ Mitch tells us how raising the debt ceiling and tweaking ObamaCare will be good for us. Do we need to give McConnell, McCain and Graham one more member of their entourage — or do we need someone who will rock the boat and try to force DC to get back to The Constitution and to act in the interests of the people back home?
I agree that we need to hear more about Obamacare, and particularly Tillis’ waffling on it. Tillis running that bill through the House to set up a state Obamacare exchange in NC needs to be brought front and center, and Phil Berger and the Senate Republicans should be publicly thanking for stopping that Tillis blunder. In fact, I would try to build on that by throwing in other areas where the conservative Senate stopped some sell out by Tillis, like on Voter ID.
Maybe Tillis needs to be directly asked how in the world he would be able to use Obamacare as an issue against Hagan when he himself ran a bill through the House to create an Obamacare exchange in North Carolina.
I also agree that the conservative candidates need to draw a distinction with Tillis’ ”reach across the aisle” mantra. Our Senator should represent the people of North Carolina, not try to be popular with the Washington beltway elite at the expense of principle and the taxpayers’ interests.
I think I would use Gay Marriage in one way without dwelling on it. That is to mention the New York City fundraiser held for Tillis by the main money man behind the Gay Marriage campaign.
I would also try to bring up as many examples as possible of Tillis talking out of both sides of his mouth. I would ask Tillis where he really stands on amnesty for illegal aliens, but given the way Tillis tries to spin that term, I would phrase it as ”a pathway to citizenship for illegal aliens” rather than using the A word. I would cite Tillis statement to the NC Farm Bureau.
” If you get deep, down to it — people are more interested in the idea of self-government, and not partisan government. Who is really interested in having one group labeled Democrat and one group labeled Republican taking turns busting the budget and increasing the size and scope of government? People want to be left alone by Washington. They want DC to protect them from external threats, but they want to make most all of the other decisions affecting their lives close to home.”
^^^This.
Mr. Clifton, when you put whole paragraphs in italics, what does that mean? I’d like to use this, but I’m not sure to attribute it to you or someone else?
Italics just emphasize a point I think is important. Quoting someone else typically involves: (1) quotes around the passage, or (2) indented copy with a dark vertical line to the left of it, or (3) a link to external copy. I will have to confess that I was sold on the concept of self-government vs. partisan government by the great book “The Ruling Class” by Angelo Codevilla.
What a nice plug for “The Ruling Class”, an excellent book which clearly defines who we are (and who “they” are) and where we stand.
It’s amusing to hear people argue about the differences between communism, socialism, Marxism, and fascism, failing to realize there isn’t a whits difference between any of them. They all mean totalitarianism, and we are the loser.
We, if we have any chance of restoring our Republic, must stand against the political elites. It’s not enough to elect conservatives; we must make them accountable and continue to groom other conservatives to take their place after a couple of terms.