This has been an interesting week. I spent a couple of days in Raleigh for the day job and had my first opportunity to get a first hand look at the NC legislature in action. Here's my takeaways from the experience:
Compared to the US Capitol the state legislature is very casual. It's nothing special to bump into a state rep or senator and give them your two cents while walking to a meeting or getting on an elevator. Heck, it's expected.
There's no security to speak of; no line to go through a metal detector and no one standing at the door to wand you. Of course there are security guards but I've seen tighter security at a day care center.
With some exceptions their offices are tiny. I'm talking room for a desk and two chairs.
The legislators, and their staffs, were very responsive. When I contacted them last week to try and schedule appointments I heard back from most in a matter of hours, which I found pretty impressive given the amount of work they're doing right now.
The other thing that made this week interesting was the hometown drama known as the downtown baseball stadium. While I could probably write dozens of pages of thoughts on the whole situation, I'd rather just ask the leaders of Winston-Salem some questions:
What the heck were you thinking when you broke the multi-million dollar news on Friday and told the public they had a whole weekend to share their thoughts and give you their feedback before a probable vote at a special city council meeting on Monday night?
Were you trying to make it look like you were railroading the thing?
Were you trying to make people even more suspicious than they already were?
In short, were you trying to be obtuse?
Seriously, the city's leadership couldn't have tried to make this deal look any worse. I'm really not sure what the motivation could have been to handle it this way, but whatever it was I can't imagine that it balances out the negative taste that this left in the public's mouth. Put it this way: Mayor Joines and the city council spent a whole lot of their political capital to get this done and while they were going to take a hit no matter how they handled this, I think they at least doubled the damage by handling it in the manner that they did. It will be interesting to see what happens with the next economic development deal that comes along.
Winston-Salem's mayor Allen Joines, or someone on his staff, just posted this status on Facebook:
Allen JoinesDoing what is responsible for our future Sometimes doing what is right is not the easiest or most popular course to take. But the plan we have come up with to get our baseball stadium completed is responsible and will not cost our taxpayers any additional money. For more discussion please go to my blog page at AllenJoinesForMayor.com - Thanks
He's referring to the story that broke today that the city is going to have to pony up a BIG loan to Billy Prim to get the downtown baseball stadium finished. They're giving citizens today and the weekend to share their comments with the mayor and the city council before a special meeting next Monday night. More on that later. Anyhoo, head on over to the mayor's site and give him an eareyeful.
BTW, props to the mayor for using Facebook. I can tell you that there are LOTS of constituents there, no matter what the Luddites and old codgers say. Not sure why he's only asking for comments on his website since Facebook is also an ideal environment for online discussion, but at this point let's just say that something's better than nothing.
Whoever said, "Bad press is better than no press", was obviously never a CongressCritter who completely mischaracterized a murder while speaking from the House floor with the murder victim's mother in attendance. Even in uber-conservative NC-5 (the district in which I reside, BTW) where it's normally safe for a politician to take any anti-gay/lesbian stance, Rep. Foxx clearly stepped over the line when she said what she said on the floor yesterday. She's paying for it in the press and she's also getting smacked around on Twitter. I don't think this will hurt her in the next election because, first, no one will remember it next year, and second, this is a very conservative district and while most of her constituents may feel she made a mistake they won't think it's that big a mistake. On the other hand this won't do her much good in building a leadership position for herself in the House.
Over in Guilford County, where I now spend my days toiling, they have some, uh, interesting politics. That's why it doesn't go un-noticed when the local Democrats or Republicans announce their party leaders, and that's also why I noticed when Fec wrote the following in reference to the Guilford Republicans' choice of Tony Wilkins as their leader: "I particularly like that he isn’t illiterate, pompous and beating us over the head with Jesus."
The Sunlight Foundation has released a funny yet meaningless report about CongressCritters' favorite words. Their Capitol Words project takes speeches recorded in the Congressional Record to calculate the frequency of specific words used by each member of Congress. When I clicked on North Carolina on their interactive map I found out the following:
Over the last year (April 22, 2008 - April 21, 2009) Rep. Virginia Foxx was the biggest chatter box from NC. She uttered 6,021 words. Sen. Richard Burr came in second with 3,083 so you can see that Rep. Foxx took the talking title by a mile.
Rep. Foxx's favorite word was "democrats" which she uttered 428 times, followed by "energy" at 373 times, "country" at 316 times and "oil" at 229 times.
Sen. Kay Hagan apparently lost her voice with each only uttering 242 words over the last year. Well, since she's only been there since January I guess we can cut her some slack. Or maybe she's just a "walk softly and carry a big stick" kind of gal.
My Blackberry beeped. I looked at it. The message from Twitter: "Virginia Foxx (virginiafoxx) is now following your updates on Twitter." As much as I've written about disagreeing with my Congresswoman I have to say that I'm flattered that she'd bother to follow me. If I was in her shoes I'd have completely ignored me. Welcome Congresswoman Foxx, and whether or not we agree on anything I'm glad to know you're listening. Now about that stimulus bill...
Have you heard about the latest high-end scam artist? No, not Madoff, but this joker Sir Allen Stanford who is accused of running an $8 billion fraud that on the surface sounds an awful lot like Madoff's scandal. Part of the emerging Stanford story ishis soft money donations back in 2000 to prominent Democrats, and I think it's an important reminder because it reminds us that the sleaze in Washington is bipartisan. The next time you hear someone slamming all Republicans or all Democrats but giving their side a free pass please remind them that the problem isn't the parties it's the politicians. As a breed they make ambulance chasers look good by comparison.
One of the adjustments you have to make when you move to North Carolina is dealing with a ballot that seems like it's 100 pages long when you vote. I mean we vote for positions that are appointed in most other states, and to think that we citizens actually know who every joker on the ballot is is just plain ludicrous.
That's why it's not entirely shocking that a guy who ran for and won a Guilford County Soil and Conservation District Supervisor seat used a false name on the ballot and was actually a transient. The Rhino Times has the full story here.
If you read the story you'll find that the alleged election fraudster had a landlord/roommate who was also his campaign manager until the two had a falling out. Where'd the two meet? Why at the Forsyth County Central Library in Winston-Salem. I knew there was something fishy about that place, what with all those books.
Thanks to Ed Cone for the tip. I'd also like to say that I agree with him that we have entirely too many positions on the ballot.
Republican US Senator, and Winston-Salem home boy, Richard Burr has a blog. He started it on New Years Eve and he's posted consistently since then. Since things are just getting started for the year in Washington he hasn't really had anything exciting to post about, but once the inauguration is over next Tuesday I think things will heat up and I hope that Sen. Burr gives us some of his viewpoints without the filter of the press or a ghost/staff writer.
Virgil Goode, the five term US Congressman from Virginia's 5th district who gained some notoriety when he made a stink about an incoming Congressman taking the oath of office using the Quran (apparently he didn't care that the incoming Congressman was Muslim, thus making it much more sensible to use the Koran than the Bible), has probably lost his reelection bid. The margin is so slim that he's going to demand a recount, but if the count holds up then it will give Virginia more Democrats in Congress than Republicans, a stunning turn of events considering Goode had a 30 point edge in the polls as recently as August and the Republicans entered the election with an 8-3 edge in Congressional seats.
I'm not sure exactly why Goode lost, but I'm sure the economy had more than a little to do with it, especially when Goode continued running ads based on a fear-based campaign strategy straight out of Lee Atwater's playbook. Well, whatever the reason I'm sure some of the media are going to miss some of the gems that came out of Goode's mouth or pen. I'll share a couple below.
First, from a letter to constituents about that Muslim Congressman taking the oath on the Quran, who by the way was born and raised in the U.S.:
Thank you for your recent communication. When I raise my hand to take
the oath on Swearing In Day, I will have the Bible in my other hand. I
do not subscribe to using the Koran in any way. The Muslim
Representative from Minnesota was elected by the voters of that
district and if American citizens don’t wake up and adopt the Virgil
Goode position on immigration there will likely be many more Muslims
elected to office and demanding the use of the Koran. We need to stop
illegal immigration totally and reduce legal immigration and end the
diversity visas policy pushed hard by President Clinton and allowing
many persons from the Middle East to come to this country. I fear that
in the next century we will have many more Muslims in the United States
if we do not adopt the strict immigration policies that I believe are
necessary to preserve the values and beliefs traditional to the United
States of America and to prevent our resources from being swamped.
Immigration is arguably the most important
issue facing the country today. At least 12 million immigrants are here
illegally. And diversity visas, a program initiated in 1990 to grant
visas to people from countries that had low U.S. immigration at that
time, are bringing in 50,000 a year from various parts of the world,
including the Middle East.
Let us remember that we were not
attacked by a nation on 9/11; we were attacked by extremists who acted
in the name of the Islamic religion. I believe that if we do not stop
illegal immigration totally, reduce legal immigration and end diversity
visas, we are leaving ourselves vulnerable to infiltration by those who
want to mold the United States into the image of their religion, rather
than working within the Judeo-Christian principles that have made us a
beacon for freedom-loving persons around the world.
I wonder if anyone ever pointed out that a lot of illegal immigrants are Christian? Is a legal Christian immigrant preferable to an illegal Muslim immigrant? Oh, and as for our Judeo-Christian principles being a beacon I'd like to point out to the good ex-Congressman that many people, including the people we celebrate every Thanksgiving, came to America to escape religious persecution and to practice the religion of their choice without fear. There's nothing exclusive to Judeo-Christian tradition about it.
What truly kills me about people like Goode is that they seem to not realize that by imposing their religious values on the entire populace they open the door for someone else with other religious values to do the same at a later date. They also don't seem to see the hypocrisy of our country celebrating non-secular governments in the Middle East, and taking position that Islamic regimes like Iran's are bad and simultaneously calling for government policies at home to be based on Judeo-Christian values. In other words non-secular is good for the rest of the world, but not for the United States.
Of course the cynic in me thinks that this was a policy of convenience for Goode, a red-meat issue that he figured he could use to fire up his conservative base. Unfortunately for him I think his opponent did a good job of painting him as a political opportunist who's vote was for sale and by implication who's policies were for show only. I'll end this with the ad that his opponent ran that some observers think put the stake in the Goode campaign's heart:
