According to the Livingston County Daily Press & Argus, Rep. Chris Ward, R-Brighton, has backed off his previous endorsement of Sen. John McCain, R-Arizona, for the Republican Presidential nomination and switched his allegiance to former actor and lobbyist Fred Thompson, if he runs.
It’s not really earth shattering news for those people living outside of Livingston County, but it speaks volumes about the Republican minority floor leader. This is a pretty big flip-flop. Some nine months ago, Straight Talk America, the political action committee for the then prospective presidential candidate McCain, (R-Ariz.), announced in early September of 2006 that four state representatives from Michigan will join the organization as legislative co-chairs, including Rep. Chris Ward, who was named co-chair of the Straight Talk America Michigan Legislative Advisory Team. Ward was quoted in subscription only MIRS saying:
“Senator McCain is very popular among members of the Michigan state legislature and we look forward to working closely with him in the 2006 Elections,” said Representative Chris Ward. Representative Ward is in the GOP leadership as the House Majority Flood (sic) Leader.
That’s a heck of a flip-flop; going not only from endorsing McCain but also working for the candidate. It makes you wonder what the real reason for the change. Apparently loyalty is not a trait Ward is familiar with, and according to the P & A the decision is based on just one issue, immigration. Ward even modeled the alleged camping finance reform he was working on after the McCain-Feingold campaign finance reform bill, only Ward’s version so favored Republicans it died in the last session. Yet Thompson voted for McCain-Feingold when he was a Senator. Ward claims his “change of heart had more to do with Thompson than with McCain.”
I once had a lot of respect for McCain, a former Navy pilot and POW in Vietnam. Actual veterans are rare in the party that claims to support the troops, and Thompson is just one more Republican politician from conservative Hollywood. I lost a lot of respect for McCain when he allowed George Bush to get away with smearing his family and military service.
I just don’t get Republican’s infatuation with Thompson. Speaking a few lines a week in the TV series “Law and Order” qualifies you to be president?
Thompson only served one and a quarter terms in the U.S. Senate representing Tennessee, and he served in the Senate some eight anonymous years from 1994 to 2002, his only elective office. He was elected to serve the remaining two years of the term of Tennessee’s favorite son, Al Gore, when he was elected Vice-President. Thompson’s longest stint at anything has been as a Washington lobbyist from 1975-1992. His lobbying efforts helped usher in the deregulation of the Savings and Loan in 1982 that led to the S & L crisis in the late 1980s that cost U.S. taxpayers more than $125 million.
He has been such an apologist for Bush’s failed polices in Iraq it’s ridiculous at a time when the rest of the GOP hopefuls are running from Bush, and Thompson even made a commercial that falsely tried to link the 9/11 attack to the occupation/civil war in Iraq. This is the man Republicans want to be president without him even being involved in a debate with the other candidates.
I guess this does away with the myth of “liberal” Hollywood, and it goes the way of the “liberal” media lie.
8 comments:
I guess this does away with the myth of “liberal” Hollywood, and it goes the way of the “liberal” media lie.
Not at all. What it shows is Hollywood conservatives are more likely to put their money where their mouth is and run for public office than jet-around and feign outrage for the cameras and a celebrity-smitten public.
While Darryl Hannah climbed a tree to express her political courage, Arnold Schwarzenegger is the one that went out on a limb and won the governor's office.
There is nothing unusual about changing your mind when new facts, or a new, and arguably better, face enters the race. Don't we want people are flexible and not rigid in office - who re-evaluate situations as facts change?
That's different from "flip-flopping," which is changing your mind on issues for political expedience. For example, changing your mind when no facts have changed is reasonable evidence of a flip-flop, or changing on an issue that is primarily a moral judgement where the facts couldn't reasonably change. Candidates need to carefully explain the why of such changes - which is a fair game question. If you can't explain the why, then its a flop.
That’s funny, Mr. Gagne. All the politicians coming out of supposedly “liberal Hollywood” are conservatives, yet even calling it “liberal Hollywood” is an oxymoron. When all the politicians from Hollywood are right-wingers you somehow reach the ridiculous conclusion based on nothing that Hollywood is still not only liberal but wacky. Brilliant.
It’s like everyone flocking to Fred Thompson, and if you look at his record and background his biggest qualification seems to be was in the Die Hard movies.
You are correct to a point. I have not yet decided who I am supporting in the Democratic primary, other than the winner. The difference is that Ward not only made up his mind who he was supporting almost a year ago, he was the co-chair of McCain’s Michigan Legislative Advisory Team. He was the co-chair, not just endorsing him or he was going to vote for him.
Flip-flopping is flip-flopping, and this is much worse than changing your mind on an issue. I have less problem with that because things change. This flip-flop is exactly for political expedience, in my opinion. After going so far and thinking so much of a candidate that you decide to work for his campaign, and then you change your mind on just one issue does not sound above board to me. I have also not seen any reason to flip McCain over an actor and Washington lobbyist. We have recently seen how honest Republican lobbyists have been lately.
Ward hasn't convinced me that his change is justified, nonetheless, I can't figure out the political expedience to Ward's switch. That is, it is inexplicable at this point. I'm surprised he'd endorse Thompson before the official declaration. Either this is a bad decision by Ward, or he knows something that we don't for sure.
Let's congratulate Al Franken for leaving the safety of his comedic soap-box and running for senator.
Chet will have change his position about all the politicians from Hollywood being conservative. Hollywood has finally contributed a liberal candidates to go with its liberal donations to liberal candidates and liberal causes.
Eh. It's not the best sentence I could come up with but it's all I had time for.
I forgot the link to the article.
Franken Leads Incumbent in Fundraising.
Actually, I wouldn’t call what Franken did safe. He threw in his lot with a start-up company called Air America in a medium that traditionally belonged to right-wingers, talk radio. He proved that if you give it a chance, liberal talk radio will not only survive, it will flourish. That’s why we are seeing liberal stations with good ratings flip to formats with low ratings. Nonetheless, I also congratulate Al Franken. It will nice to see a liberal from Hollywood in office for a change. It’s much better than to have a D.C. lobbyist in the White House.
Chet will never change his position, and he will not let facts get in the way of believing anything but the Republics political strategy of a “liberal media” bias.
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