If your answer would be "Yes of course, why do you even ask such a stupid question?", you and I will get along just fine.
This past Saturday the, so far only, Democratic candidate to take on Elizabeth Dole for her US Senate seat was answering live questions on another favorite blog hangout of mine.
That candidate is Jim Neal.
At one point in the question and answer session the following came up:
Question: I've heard you're gay...Neal went on to write that he plans to win the race and is "not running to make some social statement."
Answer: I am indeed. No secret and no big deal to me-- I wouldn't be running if I didn't think otherwise.
"When people meet me, they'll see beyond the labels and into my character," he wrote.
Does the sexual orientation of a political candidate matter? Of course it doesn't. Does it matter to a bunch of right-wing nutjobs? You bet it does.
What a lot of republicans will forget is that they already have gay representatives in their own ranks, e.g. Senator Larry "wide stance" Craig from Idaho.
The difference is that gays in the republican party have to remain hidden and lie about their true nature or they'll be forever banished.
There's plenty of other national republican figures, even from North Carolina, that have a lot of questions about their sexuality circulating around them. You'll never hear them openly say that they're gay though, because that pisses off the oh so important "conservative values" voter block within the republican party. How you can call being homophobic a "value" is beyond me.
Something else that's not a value is total hypocrisy, which brings me to the following.
Sen. John Ensign, who chairs the Republican Senatorial Campaign Committee, made clear that he wants embattled Sen. Craig to leave the Senate immediately. Ensign said:
"He pled guilty to something that, you know lewd behavior, that's not the behavior a United States senator should be engaged in."What Mr. Ensign forgets to mention is that he never asked another republican Senator, David Vitter, to resign even though Vitter has admitted to committing a "serious sin" with a Washington prostitute when he served in the House.
There are even stories saying that Vitter also frequented prostitutes in his native Louisiana.
The difference? Vitter isn't gay.
Saturday's conversation gave a lot of reasons why you should vote for Jim Neal next year although I'm sure the press will focus on the "gay issue".
Jim Neal's 5 priorities: restoring Protecting our nation and its freedoms, fiscal responsibility, health care for all Americans, protecting our environment and restoring government accountability to the voters who elect and pay the freight for the elected reps.
Some of his statements on Saturday:
"I'm running to lead in the Senate for the voters in NC-- something Senator Dole has not done."
"We have no choice-- as a state and a nation-- to move with a sense of urgency to make up ground and move forward with light speed to address the assault on our environment which this Administration has ignored. Our state and its natural resources and incredible and are treasure we can't lose-- and that's one battlefront which has been ignored."
"When I win, I will represent every voter and citizen of this state regardless of whether they supported me or not. That's the right thing to do. It's what I believe a good leader should do."
"NCLB (No Child left Behind) simply don't work. It's flawed in concept, doesn't engender positive outcomes and is underfunded by about, say, $50 billion. Catchy name with no substance or money to match the moniker."
"As someone who's done a lot of fundraising, I've always referred to political dollars as "the dirty underbelly of democracy." It's repugnant the amount of money required to mount a national campaign-- which I'll do-- but it's gotta change. Public financing across-the-board: the only way to take dollars out of the equation. This is an election, not an auction."
"We are a noble republic made up of giving and generous people. However, we are trapped by a misguided Administration with misplaced priotities-- or in kid-speak, they got lost in a forest and can't find their way home. However, a rescue team is on the way."Folks, get on over to Jim Neal's website and let him know how much you appreciate an honest and open candidate. While you're there, don't forget to send him some monetary love.
7 comments:
Well, at least he's honest. That's a virtue not often found in politics these days.
But still the same old cookie cutter democrat.
Looks like I'll be writing someone in... Oops, can't do that in NC, thanks to Jim Black and his buddies.
Well, in that case, I'll just be voting for none of the above...
The Democrats will have to do better than this to beat Dole.
What exactly do you mean by "better than this"?
You wrote "Does the sexual orientation of a political candidate matter? Of course it doesn't."
Surely you jest! Certainly the sexual orientation matters, as well as his/her religious background, marital situation - pretty much everything about a person matters when they throw their hat into the ring to run for office. All of these factors together give you some indication of the type person you are voting for and the way they will vote on items that come before them.
None of these should be the only reason to be for or against a candidate, but they are part of the equation in making an informed decision about a candidate.
I'm no stranger to "jesting", but in this case I am most certainly not.
Why would a politicians sexual preference at all matter to me?
Why would it matter to me if he/she is married or not?
Why would it matter to me if he/she claims to be religious or not?
What at all does that have to do with them being a good politician or not?
Does it make a difference in my taxes if a politician is gay or not?
Does it make a difference in where a candidate stands on health care if he's married or not?
I vote for politicians because of their political viewpoints and what they want to accomplish for this country, not because of what they do in their bedrooms and I would hope most people decide on who to vote for in the same way as I do, but I know I'm naive :-)
In fact, these days I might hesitate more to vote for people who make their religion one of the reasons people should vote for them, because it gets proven to me over and over that those eventually turn out to be the biggest perverts. I can give you a very long list of politicians, mostly republican, who very recently keep proving this theory to me. The more a politician proclaims to have "moral values", the bigger of a pervert he turns out to be eventually.
e.g Senator Craig, David Vitter, Mark Foley, Stanly County Rep. David Almond and of course our very own Coy Privette, the list goes on and on...
So no, sex, marriage, family, don't tell me anything about what kind of politician a candidate will be when he gets elected.
On the other hand, if a politician built his political career on so called "moral values" and then usually turns out to be a pervert, then those "factors" as you call them might matter a whole lot to me because that politician then turns out to be an enormous hypocrite.
If there's one thing I hate, it's hypocrites.
I believe you are mistaken to think a person can be a good politician - separate from all of those other things. It is very possible that a single person would vote differently on a healthcare issue than a married person due to coverage for maternity and children. It is likely that John Edwards would make decisions favoring the bar association. Consider the accusations against sitting politicians who are continually accused of making decisions based on their former relationships (Halliburton).
When a person runs for office, fairly or unfairly, every corner of their life becomes open to inspection and consideration. It is not just which party they represent.
Finally, I enjoy your blog and your comments. It is obvious you are a flaming democrat. But, you can carry on an intelligent discussion without the mindless swipes at republicans. For example, the most pervs are republican comments of your reply were not needed to make your point.
"It is very possible that a single person would vote differently on a healthcare issue than a married person due to coverage for maternity and children."
And it is evenly possible that they would not vote different. If you want to know what a candidate thinks about health care, why not ask them?
I really don't see the logic in looking up if a candidate is married and then somehow deducting from that how he will vote on certain issues.
"When a person runs for office, fairly or unfairly, every corner of their life becomes open to inspection and consideration."
I totally agree with you on that and I would say that it's unfair, unless those candidates make their private life part of their campaign.
"But, you can carry on an intelligent discussion without the mindless swipes at republicans."
Swipes, sure, but mindless?
I think it is perfectly good reasoning to point out that the party that paints itself as having "high moral values", shows itself time after time as certainly not having anymore morals than any other party. On the contrary, if you look at the long list of "revelations" the past years.
My point with the whole post was to show that just the mere fact that a person is married, gay or claims to be religious doesn't give you any guarantee on how that person will vote. On the contrary, you should be very suspicious of political candidates that make their marriage and/or religion part of their campaign, because in reality it gets proven day after day that those usually turn out to be the biggest perverts.
Thanks for the nice words about the blog. Even if it seems that you usually don't agree with me, I'm glad you're here.
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