Money and the November Election

Guest Blogging: Hayes McNeill

I have been thinking about this, and I have concluded that it seems strange that right now the Press can't talk about anything but Tea Baggers and how they are going to clean our clocks. And then turn those clocks back.

The Baggers tend to thump on the Constitution (which few seem to have read and even fewer respect), pulling odd bits out to justify their kind of crazy.

Some are demented, even more are deluded, still others child-like and pouty. But we must never forget that behind these people is Big Money, writing the checks that pay for their busses and rallies and their candidates. The Big Money Boys -- and now, thanks to Republicans on the Supreme Court, corporations hidden in the shadows -- these Big Money Boys can spread the manure in which their puppets roll and play.

I am too harsh, you think? I am so old that when I grew up in Wilkes County, there were still some farmers. From time to time one of these farmers would sell a horse or a mule by claiming that "he's good about standing still when tied." When I consider politicians like Richard Burr and Virginia Palmieri Foxx, I have to think of those horses and mules. Both Burr and Foxx have built their careers by doing exactly what they were told by the Big Money Boys. Almost two decades in Washington and ... is Burr known for a single piece of legislation? And Foxx ... against education, against heathcare, against disaster victims.

This is important because this November these two races, as well as all the races in which we are fielding candidates, allow us to choose among the character traits we want in our political leaders. We voters do not and cannot know what problems will beset us in the future. So we had sure as hell better choose leaders with strong and decent characters to represent us. It is on this character issue where the Richard Burrs and Virginia Palmieri Foxxes are weighed and found wanting. As are those who would challenge our Raleigh delegation. Big Money doesn't care a hoot in hell if their candidates have character. They just want them to do as they are told.

We know we will be outspent in this election. We know that Big Money will write Big Checks to fund the Big Lies which the Gullible will eat up. But we also know that our best defense -- sometimes our only defense -- is our vote. You know already that we have to vote early. You know that we have to make it our personal goal to see that our extended families and our friends vote and vote early. You know that we must reach out to neighbors and fellow-workers and people we see socially or in church to witness to them about Character and its importance to our futures and the futures of our children. We must remind anyone who will stand still to listen that the Tea Party is about exhuming the dried-up past. The Democrats are about the future.

This is the way we can stick it to the radicals and the crackpots and their big money backers.

See you at the polls.