Month: February 2006

The first joint meeting of Republican U.S. Senate candidates is in the can, after Tuesday night’s forum at Mid-America Seminary in Germantown. Considering that the event virtually had to compete with President Bush’s State of the Union address, which immediately followed it, the turnout was considerable.

What attendees got from the three candidates on hand – former congressmen Ed Bryant and Van Hilleary and political newcomer Jeff Moder – was less a debate than a brief sampling of each candidate’s persona and positions. What they didn’t get was Chattanooga mayor Bob Corker, the acknowledged moderate in a race that otherwise is wall-to-wall conservative.

Corker was in Washington – as a press release of his put it, attending the State of the Union; as his opponents put it, avoiding Tuesday night’s debate and soliciting more money to fill out his already top-heavy war chest.

Corker’s absence drew fire from all three participating candidates at the forum – with Hilleary offering sarcastic congratulations to Moder and Bryant for “showing up,” while Bryant chided the absent Corker for his fund-raising activities in D.C. and challenged him to start appearing in joint formats. (One such, involving not only Corker but Democrats Harold Ford Jr. and Rosalind Kurita, is scheduled for Nashville next week.) Even the event moderator, Jonathan Lindbergh of the conservative publication Main Street Journal, made a point of asking the audience to note “who felt it important to be here and who did not.”

On the money score, relative unknown Moder, whose fundraising is so far negligible, jested that Corker “has more money than me.” What the Chattanooga mayor has, according to the latest financial disclosure reports, is some $4.74 million, well above the amount on hand for any other candidate. By comparison, Bryant has raised $1,416,000 and Hilleary $1.407,000.

Though both Bryant and Hilleary acknowledge privately that the presence of the other in the race is a threat to split the conservative vote and maximize Corker’s chances, each said Tuesday night that he could win even if the field stayed exactly as it is. “There’s more than adequate vote out there for a conservative to win,” said Bryant, who vowed he would never drop out and said he enjoyed the “energy and excitement” of a multi-candidate race. Similarly, Hilleary said there was “enough conservative vote to go around.” Both Hilleary and Bryant cited the importance of nominating someone with enough appeal to counter potential Democratic nominee Ford

An intriguing feature of the forum – and a possible measure of the changed political climate — was that each of the three Republicans on hand found it necessary to put some distance between himself and his party. Answering a question about social/moral issues, Hilleary said voters motivated by those concerns might have experienced “a bait-and-switch” in Washington after the presidential election of 2004. “I don’t recognize some of the Republican Party I see in Washington right now,” he said. Bryant, who, like Corker, made an issue of curtailing illegal immigration, said, “I think we have Republicans in Washington who would like, down the road, to see amnesty as a program,” and deplored the “message” that would send. Moder said there was a Republican majority in both houses of Congress but not a “conservative majority. He said he represented a “grass roots movement” to do something about that. All three candidates made statements deploring the current Abramoff scandal.

On specific issues, the three candidates found themselves in general agreement – all espousing right-to-life opinions on abortion and a desire to roll back Roe v. Wade; all expressing general approval of President Bush’s recently publicized domestic wiretapping activities, which they perceived as operating in the clear interests of national security (“listening to Ahmed talking to Mohanmmed,” as Hilleary put it), and all supporting the president’s wish to revive the debate on private accounts for Social Security. (Hilleary did acknowledge, however, that there was “no immediate crisis” and that the proposal might be “an idea whose time has not yet come.”)

Both Bryant and Hilleary, when asked about the lobbying activities each undertook after leaving the House to make unsuccessful statewide races in 2002, said they had observed all proprieties in doing so and had, in any case, ceased to function as lobbyists. As is his custom, Bryant made much of his desire to join the Senate Judiciary Committee so as to counter potential judicial attacks on “our 2nd Amendment rights” and other liberties. Hilleary, like the others, criticized porkbarrel spending but declined to condemn all budget “earmarks,” noting ongoing efforts to shore up Tennessee’s National Guard component in Congress.

On the whole, the debate results amounted to a case of All Have Won and All Must Have Prizes. Bryant, a native West Tennessean who seemed to have more supporters on hand, maintained the serious but easy-going demeanor that is his trademark; Hilleary, who has a greater reputation for oratorical skill, generated somewhat more applause at key points of his responses; and Moder, the previous unknown, seemed to make a favorable impression on the crowd with his sometimes self-deprecating quips.

For that matter, even Corker, despite the attacks on his absence, probably saw little change in his overall status – though there was much speculation by audience members later on as to how the Chattanoogan might do in future common appearances with Bryant and Hilleary.

“I will never relent in defending America, whatever it
takes.”  – George Bush

“Whatever It Takes”is the new Bush rule of law. Get used to
it.  It’s the only law in our Brave New World. No other laws are necessary. 
It’s short and simple:  I will do whatever I damn well please, and you damn well
better like it.  If you don’t, you are an unpatriotic obstructionist who is an
enemy of America and of course, an enemy of God.

Tuesday night, we watched the law get put into action.
Cindy Sheehan was invited to listen to the State of the Union address by a
member of Congress from her home state of California. She accepted the
invitation, showed her required ticket, and was escorted to her seat.  In the
Brave New World, getting familiar with the new law is sometimes confusing. When
it comes to attire, one must choose carefully and wisely.  Cindy had chosen
poorly. She was wearing a black T-shirt with the big white numbers, 2,242 that
reflected the number of the dead soldiers in Iraq on it. At that moment, our
country was so threatened and so under attack it had to be defended! So Cindy
got Whatever It Takes. She was removed by force, handcuffed, booked, and put in
jail.  If only someone had told her freedom is on the march.

In our Brave New World, we’re not scared, because we’re
free.

We’re free to have our phone conversations wiretapped.

We’re free to have our e-mails read and examined.

We’re free to have our library and book purchasing records
tracked.

We’re free to have our bodies searched any time, any place,
for any reason.                    

We’re free to have our religious services monitored.

We’re free to be put in a cage indefinitely without a
trial.

We’re free to be locked up without being charged or being
able to confront witnesses against us.

We’re free to be tortured.

We’re free to have our homes searched and possessions
seized without probable cause.

We’re free to be watched and recorded by public
surveillance cameras  every second of every day.

And the
freedoms just keep on coming.  But in the Brave New World, with its singular
rule of law, unless  federal Storm Troopers knock down the doors of your home
and drag you off to the gulags, hell –  you’re free!  With liberty and justice
for all, George W. Bush and a Republican-controlled government will make sure
every  American will eventually get Whatever It Takes.