Here’s another example of why you shouldn’t vote early:
As you read yesterday, I was torn in the state Senate District 4 race between Todd Bailey and Ty Cobb, indicating that if I had voted yesterday, I might well have made my decision with a coin toss.
And then I watched the SD 4 debate on “Face to Face” with Jon Ralston last night.
There are four GOP candidates in the primary. One is clearly not ready-for-prime time. I can’t even remember his name. The second is Ben Kieckhefer, a nice guy but clearly an establishment RINO government employee. The third is Bailey, a conservative grassroots activist – with the operative word being “active” – and taxpayer champion. The fourth is Cobb.
The first three candidates showed up for what would be the ONLY statewide televised debate in this race. Cobb, however, blew it off, advising Ralston in an email that since most voters had already made up their minds it was pretty much a waste of his precious time to show up and let us undecided voters hear what he had to say.
Which left me again undecided: Which word best describes such an attitude, hubris or arrogance?
Either way, it didn’t sit well with me.
In addition, Bailey then went on to credibly answer in the Cobb-less debate the very legitimate question so many conservative Republicans usually blow when asked: If you don’t support tax hikes, where would you have cut the budget to balance it last session?
Bailey pointed out that local government employees have recently been forced to make salary concessions because of the drop in tax revenues and that that’s where the Legislature should have cut last session instead of raising taxes.
Give that man a cee-gar!
Willy Sutton robbed banks because that’s where the money was. Similarly, to balance the state budget where some 80 percent of the cost is in personnel, you have to either reduce compensation or reduce the workforce (or, preferably, a combination of both).
It would have been interesting to see if Cobb would have agreed. But since the assemblyman was too good to appear in the only televised statewide debate for this race, we have no idea.
So even though I recognize that it’s highly unlikely that the underfunded underdog is going to win on Tuesday, his solid fiscal conservative credentials, his clear understanding of the nature of the tax-and-spend issue, his willingness to rock the boat, and the responsible manner in which he’s conducted his campaign – combined with Ty’s chickening out of last night’s debate….
I’m giving my personal endorsement in the Senate District 4 race to Todd “Taxpayer” Bailey.
