Cynthia Hardy, Jim Felder, me and Jon Parker on the radio Sunday night. At this moment I’m apparently making a terribly cogent point that requires hand gestures, even on the radio.
(Editor’s note: I wrote this last night, but am just posting it today because of problems with the sound file. WordPress will take an MP3, but not a WAV.)
Did y’all watch that Democratic gubernatorial debate tonight? I didn’t get to see most of it, but I heard a good bit on the radio while I was driving first to a program at my youngest grandchildren’s school, then over to my parents’ house to check on my Dad (he had a fall recently, but is doing better), then home. A few seconds after I turned on the TV, it was over.
I did pull over a couple of times to Tweet about what I was hearing. I Tweeted this at the end:
Remember when candidates — especially ones who had not held office and were introducing themselves to the public — would try to be PLEASANT so people might actually WANT to see them in office over the next four years?
— Brad Warthen (@BradWarthen) June 5, 2018
Speaking of unpleasantness…
Sunday, I was a guest on Cynthia Hardy’s show on the Big DM (you can watch the show here). Before the show started, Cynthia asked whether Jim Felder and I had heard the “race-baiting ad” — as she said some had called it — that Marguerite Willis was running. I said no, and she played it for us.
Give it a listen. And (let me know if you had technical difficulties.)
When it was done, I said, “So… I suppose she’s playing that mostly on the country stations…” As soon as I said it, it occurred to me that my joke might fall flat, although Jim Felder laughed politely.
That’s really something. And it’s totally consistent with what I heard of the debate, which at another point caused me to Tweet:
Wow. Phil Noble and Marguerite Willis, I am now convinced, will say and do anything, will stop at nothing, to tear down the only Democrat any rational person can imagine winning in November…
— Brad Warthen (@BradWarthen) June 4, 2018
But that ad was something — grossly unfair, misleading and desperate. But the issue remains, will she and Noble manage to inflict enough damage on a good man so as to ensure a GOP victory in the fall? Because surely the two Democratic challengers are bright enough to know neither of them would have a chance in a general election…
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It’s an insulting ad, similar to her contention that as a woman she has the same issues as women of color. John Scott, bless his heart, is a poster child for political hacks. The ‘smells like smoke’ baloney is really close to some line. Finally, I’m offended by the arrogance that because she was politicized by Trump, she’s qualified to lead. Start with county council, at least. I don’t see a difference between her and Trump except the rhetoric.
Right. If being ticked off about Trump were a qualification for office, I should be king by now…
Right now you can just go stand over there next to Nancy Pelosi and Maxine Waters.
Where are they? Over on the Group W bench?
Also… and I may be the only person this bothers, because I’ve got such a problem with Identity Politics, but…
It bugs me that her whole critique of Trumps seems to be that he’s “a racist and a sexist.”
Well, he’s a lot more than that. Those two labels don’t give him enough credit for being the singular threat to our Republic that he is.
Yeah, being a racist (for instance) IS a terrible, terrible thing. We’re all agreed on that these days. Even stone racists exert a lot of energy arguing that they are not racist, because they grant that it’s a bad thing to be.
But… is having an atavistic, prejudicial attitude worse than being the kind of person who will brag that he could kill someone on 5th Avenue and get away with it? Or being the kind of guy who taunts equally unbalanced foreign leaders who have nuclear weapons? While an abhorrent figure, it seems to me that your garden-variety racist is a little easier to cope with…
By the way, Ms. Willis holds the indoor speed record for calling Trump a racist — five times in eight seconds. Here’s how she did it:
Never mind the logical fallacy. To me, it seems obvious that a racist who goes around acting openly as a racist and does terrible things to people of other races is kinda worse than the kind who keeps it in as a personal secret…
The part that really puzzled me was attacking Smith on ethics, basically for working and playing well with others. It reminded me that Ms Willis’ running mate, Senator Scott, said on the Senate floor in 2016 that he demanded a provision in the new ethics law giving legislators a chance to privately quash the results of Ethics Commission investigations. His reason — he said it is so easy to make false ethics complaints against an opponent during a campaign.
Thinking about the debate when I made the preceding comment, not the ad.
I think I have a followup comment awaiting moderation because I made a typo in my email address. Anyway, my comment above about Willis’ ethics attack refers to the debate, not the ad.