#NCSEN: The ”effectiveness” argument
The Thom Tillis campaign is coming after incumbent Democrat Kay Hagan for being ”ineffective.” On one hand, it’s a sweet piece of karma. Hagan beat Elizabeth Dole over the head and shoulders in 2008 with the same accusation.
The charge is based on the scarcity of Hagan-backed legislation being passed. (Given Hagan’s liberal sycophancy, I am relieved that she can’t get anything passed.) But is a lack of legislation passed under your name truly a sign of effectiveness?
Let’s look at Thom Tillis’s record in Raleigh for the 2013-2014 session. As speaker, he is not required to vote on every matter. But he is free to introduce whatever he wants. According to the NCGA web site, Tillis has introduced SIX pieces of legislation this session. Only one of those, a bill dealing with the humane treatment of animals hunted for captivity purposes, passed.
South Carolina’s Jim DeMint had little to no legislation passed in his name. One could argue that he was quite effective in voicing conservative concerns and rallying the grassroots to pressure Congress. Ted Cruz has little to no record of legislation passed under his name. But he is doing yeoman’s work for grassroots conservatism on Capitol Hill.
Our very own Jesse Helms was regularly criticized by the Democrats for having few pieces of legislation passed under his name. Helms was effective by using the rules to block or water down really bad legislation introduced by RINOs and Democrats. His efforts at obstructionism likely saved us from even worse government overreach.
I wish the US Senate (and the House) would do a lot less. I don’t want to “get things done.”
Instead of getting into this tit-for-tat ”Who’s got the most” argument, I’d rather hear about how significantly different Senator Tillis’s voting record will be from that of Senator Hagan.
So far, I know they’ve both been pretty silent on the border crisis. Hagan champions ObamaCare. Tillis tried to push through health care exchanges, and was reluctant to refuse Medicaid expansion — both vital components for the launch of ObamaCare. Tillis talks about “replacing” ObamaCare, rather than getting the government’s talons the hell out of our health care delivery system. Hagan is a big fan of alternative energy. Tillis voted for alternative energy mandates and used his power as speaker to block efforts to cap or repeal them.
It’s a strange coincidence that Civitas removed their Conservative “effectiveness” grade for Tillis because in 2009 he earned a D and in 2010 it was an F.
Luckily the Internet can’t be totally cleansed and we can look back and see exactly how effective he was:
https://web.archive.org/web/20130510234119/http://www.civitasaction.org/house/Thom%20Tillis/2010/
So we have the choice between the ineffective Progressive Democrat Hagan, and the (according to his campaign) “effective” and certainly NOT Conservative Tillis?
I’ll be writing in John Rhodes to let the NCGOP and Karl Rove know that I won’t support their RINO candidates. When they quit meddling in our primaries and allow NC Conservatives to have a Conservative candidate then they won’t have to try so hard to convince Republicans to volunteer and vote for him/her.
Without meddling who do you think would have won the primary?
I cannot answer for Ren, but in looking at the polls just before Rove and his allies started dumping a ton of money into the primary, Tillis and Brannon were neck and neck, and both were far short of winning without a runoff. Tillis would have lost a runoff, no matter which of the others he had gotten into a runoff with.
Tillis rolled to an easy victory and it is hard to imagine him losing in a runoff once the spotlight hit any Tillis challenger. The Tillis challengers had a walk in the park during the primary because Tillis was surely going to win. However, due to the weakness of his challengers Tillis strolled to an easy win.
But all that is merely conjecture since Tillis is the nominee.
I’ll be choosing from one of the write-in candidates, as well.
I’m through, rewarding establishment RINOs with my vote. They clearly despise conservatives and only have any use for us when it’s election time, or they need us to send them a check.
They’d better call Tokyo Rove for the bucks. I’m done.
Oh my, the two party’s, the D’s and the R’s and their chosen children that are effectively wrecking our country are spatting in the sandbox over effectiveness. Both of these career politicians and their party goons have been effective in weakening our state and country, hurting citizens, allowing illegal invaders to freely pass in and out of the country and pop a few citizens while there here. Their support of the political ruling class stealing from the public is without question. Are there any adults in the park? Here’s to both having a long hard fall on their head from the top of the monkey bars.
When the choice is between a Big Government Democrat like Hagan and a Big Government Republican like Tillis, I would rather have the least effective one. They are likely to do less damage to our liberties.
Has the Tillis lead NC General Assembly done more damage than the Hagan lead Obama administration?
If Tillis gets credit for all the damage that the NC General Assembly has done then does Hagan get credit for all the damage the Obama administration has done?
Who has hurt me the most?
The damage Tillis does is significant, like undermining our state’s sovereignty over its coastal waters to the Obama feds in the last legislative session, as told by the Outer Banks Voice:
http://outerbanksvoice.com/2014/08/11/joint-enforcement-back-door-politics-from-an-unlikely-party/
In this caper, Tillis was carryiing water for the radical environmentalists of the CCA in stabbing our state’s rights in the back. It is hardly the first time Tillis has carried water for the radical environmentalists against the interests of our citizens.
Tillis should be approaching issues from a standpoint of trying to get conservative voters comfortable enough with him to take a chance on holding their nose to vote for him, Instead he pushes us farther away by running even farther left. I guess it is all in the Rove playbook. No wonder Rove has lost 10 or the 12 US Senate races he has been involved in.
The measurement of effectiveness is wrong. The primary role of government is to protect our rights not ‘get things done’
When it comes to Tillis and the ”issue” of effectiveness, two things come to mind.
First is Tillis’ 2006 House primary against Rep. John Rhodes. Tillis blasted Rhodes for being ”ineffective” based on the ”effectiveness” rating of a liberal group, a rating that had been blasted by the NCGOP Central Committee as a fraud in a unanimous resolution. That rating was compiled based on the subjective opinions pf the liberal media elite and the special interest lobbyists, than almost all Democrats. According to Tillis’ position, Rhodes did not please these lefties and therefore he was ”ineffective”.
Move forward, and a conservative group, Civitas, started doing an effectiveness rating and this time was much more honest than the liberal group and called theirs a conservative effectiveness rating, and it was based on an objective methodology on selected policy issues. On this one, Tillis got a G and and F for conservative effectiveness.
Tillis needs to address substantive policy issues that matter to conservatives and in a manner that conservatives take him seriously. This ”effectiveness” blather just hides the fact that he is failing to do so. Does Tillis having morons for advisors?