[Politics] Last night, I have to admit, I gasped a little bit when I heard the reign of six-term incumbent Chris Cannon was coming down. Usurped by the likes of Jason Chaffetz, some young upstart who managed to pull off an incredible campaign that beat Cannon by twenty points. All the while being out spent by Cannon's money machine by almost 7- to- 1, and not even having a physical campaign headquarters.
But when I gasped, it wasn't just the shock of seeing such an upset occur, this gasp was accompanied by a pang.
Yes, a pang. Now if any of you has ever had a pang before, you know that they mean either you're hungry or remorseful. This one was the latter, believe it or not.
Don't get me wrong, I'm as much a good ol' dimmycrat as I ever was, and for being from Utah county I've voted against and campaigned against Cannon back in the day. If truth be told, there was even a time in my more impetuous youth when some "friends" of mine, terrorized suburban Utah county neighborhoods plucking pumpkins off people's porches and smashing them over Chris Cannon yard signs.
And now after all that I can't believe he's leaving us.
The truth is that when you're liberal in Utah and also a pragmatist you come to appreciate that some Republicans are better than others. And truth to be told, in the last year or so I've realized that Cannon has been one of few federal congressman who has truly got their head squarely on their shoulders when it comes to immigration.
He wasn't lazy enough to build a campaign in the extremity of either side of the issue: he wasn't any modern day "know-nothing" clamoring for mass deportations of illegals and at the same time he certainly wasn't gung ho for amnesty.
He advocated a thoughtful approach to immigration that recognized that border security is an imperative, but also that immigrants deserved to be treated as human beings (and ones for which have bolstered our economy in a myriad of ways).
Now I know people are claiming that Chaffetz, unlike previous Cannon opponents, did not win just on the immigration issue. That he rode dissatisfaction with $4 a gallon gas and a shaky economy all the way to victory along with criticizing Cannon for being too soft on immigration.
But if you ask me, it sounds like this election season was one bad enough for all incumbents, that for Cannon, the immigration issue was the coup de grace that finally put him away.
Oh well, we may have gained Chaffetz who has promised a hard line on undocumented immigrants, but on a happier note, we also lost Glenn Donnelson R-North Ogden, who has been as about as ornery an old fart when it comes to the immigration issue as there ever was.
But when I gasped, it wasn't just the shock of seeing such an upset occur, this gasp was accompanied by a pang.
Yes, a pang. Now if any of you has ever had a pang before, you know that they mean either you're hungry or remorseful. This one was the latter, believe it or not.
Don't get me wrong, I'm as much a good ol' dimmycrat as I ever was, and for being from Utah county I've voted against and campaigned against Cannon back in the day. If truth be told, there was even a time in my more impetuous youth when some "friends" of mine, terrorized suburban Utah county neighborhoods plucking pumpkins off people's porches and smashing them over Chris Cannon yard signs.
And now after all that I can't believe he's leaving us.
The truth is that when you're liberal in Utah and also a pragmatist you come to appreciate that some Republicans are better than others. And truth to be told, in the last year or so I've realized that Cannon has been one of few federal congressman who has truly got their head squarely on their shoulders when it comes to immigration.
He wasn't lazy enough to build a campaign in the extremity of either side of the issue: he wasn't any modern day "know-nothing" clamoring for mass deportations of illegals and at the same time he certainly wasn't gung ho for amnesty.
He advocated a thoughtful approach to immigration that recognized that border security is an imperative, but also that immigrants deserved to be treated as human beings (and ones for which have bolstered our economy in a myriad of ways).
Now I know people are claiming that Chaffetz, unlike previous Cannon opponents, did not win just on the immigration issue. That he rode dissatisfaction with $4 a gallon gas and a shaky economy all the way to victory along with criticizing Cannon for being too soft on immigration.
But if you ask me, it sounds like this election season was one bad enough for all incumbents, that for Cannon, the immigration issue was the coup de grace that finally put him away.
Oh well, we may have gained Chaffetz who has promised a hard line on undocumented immigrants, but on a happier note, we also lost Glenn Donnelson R-North Ogden, who has been as about as ornery an old fart when it comes to the immigration issue as there ever was.
You win some, you lose some I guess. (Eric S. Peterson)
Interesting comments about Representative Cannon. I, too, was surprised at the outcome. However, I don't write to comment about election results, but rather to point out an inconsistency in your paper's views of itself.
ReplyDeleteRecently, a CW staff member wrote an article breathlessly complaining about missing copies of a CW issue from locations in Taylorsville, blaming that city's police force for the thefts and, as the staffer alleged, the resulting loss of CW's constitutional freedoms.
But now I read about another CW staff member's "more impetuous youth" when he and some friends "terrorized suburban Utah county neighborhoods plucking pumpkins off people's porches and smashing them over Chris Cannon yard signs."
I don't condemn anyone for their "impetuous youth", but the thoughtful reader can't help but wonder why destruction of political signs during a congressional campaign would not be right up there with alleged thefts of your papers. On the other hand, perhaps it should be the other way around: CW's loss is down there in the same category as youthful pranks.
In either event, most rational people would judge that neither incident deserves to be the subject of hysterical speculation about anyone's loss of First Amendment privileges.
Soooo glad this arrogant wack job is out of office. Still, I did not vote for either, not being able to register as a Republican (in good conscience, and I mean that in more ways than one).
ReplyDeleteI figured it was like choosing between Hitler and Mussolini.
Hitler and Mussolini??
ReplyDeleteDude, way to diminish the suffering of milions and milions of people.
The correct analogy is Enid Green Waldholz and Paula Houston
"Some Republicans are better than others"
ReplyDeleteYep, guys like Chris Cannon who betray Republican voters - especially the blue collar ones - are terrific Republicans to you, because they create more Dimmycrats!
The man was a giant schmuck - and I mean that in the original Yiddish sense of the word. Just listen to the crapulence he's spouted since losing office. Republican voters and convention goers were "boorish." He didn't really want to run but felt he owed it to his constituents. Republicans are going to lose big this fall because of extremists, rather than the failures of Republicans in office. He won't endorse Chaffetz for the general because he doesn't know him. He lost - 60-40, no less - because of low voter turnout.
Congressman Chris Cannon is one of the most powerful men, politically, in the country - but nothing that's gone wrong is his fault.
The man is disturbed, demented, deceitful, meanspirited, paranoid, tyrranical, and in complete denial about who caused his defeat. But, according to this states "progressives," the 3rd District voters who voted him out were crazy and stupid. According to the left, they were dumb to throw out Orton. Now they're dumb to throw out Cannon.
I can engage thoughtfully with an honest liberal ideologue; but I find few of those here or anywhere else. All I find are nuts who demonize everyone on the right and glorify everyone on the left.
Aside from all that, I still can't get over Dimmycrats who bitch and complain about how awful it is that working class Americans are falling behind and our schools suck and more and more people are without health insurance - SO WHAT WE SHOULD DO - according to these brilliant leftists - is keep importing millions of more people (illegal aliens) who are only going to make those problems even worse!
Any wonder so many people think today's leftists are so completely full of shit?
"I can engage thoughtfully with an honest liberal ideologue; but I find few of those here or anywhere else. All I find are nuts who demonize everyone on the right and glorify everyone on the left."
ReplyDeleteAnd referring to Democrats as "Dimmycrats" serves as a fantastic example of how one should engage one's political opponents thoughtfully how exactly?
And referring to Democrats as "Dimmycrats" serves as a fantastic example of how one should engage one's political opponents thoughtfully how exactly?
ReplyDeleteThe difference is that one is just good clean fun.
Take this quote by Michael Moore, posted on the Utah State Democratic Party blogspot:
We will not tolerate politicians who are corrupt and who are bought and paid for by the rich. We will go after any elected leader who puts him or herself ahead of the people. And we promise you we will go after the corrupt politicians on our side FIRST. If we fail to do this, we need you to call us on it.
BUT Michael Moore DOES ignore his own party's corrupt pols - there are plenty around being tolerated by the leadership right now, like these folks:
1) US House member Laura Richardson, (D) from California, who has 3 home mortgages on which she's in arrears even as she used the money to self-fund her campaign. One of her homes was put in foreclosure and sold at auction. Richardson used her power to try to get her house back from the guy who had bought it and was already moved in.
Abandon her? Like hell! Majority Leader Steny Hoyer was appearing at a fundraiser for her.
2) William Jefferson, (D) of Louisiana, who was found with $90,000 bribe cash in his freezer and was re-elected in 2006 and will probably get re-elected this year, as well.
3) Bill & Hillary Clinton. Need I say more?
4) John Murtha, (D) of Pennsylvania, an out-and-out crook who hosts fundraisers from military contractors right before his committee rights the military appropriations bill.
5) Alcee Hastings, (D) of FLorida, a former federal judge who was impeached by Congress and then elected to that body. Strike 1 was the Democrats in his district voting for him. Strike 2 was Nancy ("we're gunna do things more ethically") Pelosi almost giving him a House chairmanship.
The list goes on. I could mention the thefts and electoral shenanigans that led to Democrats winning the US Senate seats in Louisiana and New Jersey and the governorship of Washington.
I know - KNOW - Republicans aren't perfect. You will find few Republican voters who pretend that they are. But we do tend to get rid of our crooks far better than the Dems do. Democrats, on the other hand, like to delude themselves that their side is perfect.
And then when we do get rid of our corrupt and out-of-touch pols we are still called nuts and fanatics - as we were on Tuesday for getting rid of sleazebag Chris Cannon.
And then should I get into the Utah electoral shenanigans - like all the Democrats who were bitching back in 2004 that they wouldn't get a chance to vote for Olene Walker? If you wanted to vote for her you always could have nominated her at your convention.
Olene Walker lost in a big way at the GOP convention, which follows basically the same rules as the Democrats, but Dems were crying foul.
God, I wish liberals would stop automatically whining about immigration policy. The targets of these enforcements are in the country illegally. What part of that don't you understand?
ReplyDeleteDo you know how many Iraqi's we've helped relocate to this country after we scorched, murdered and exploded our way across theirs?
About 2,000 so far. Spread a little of that loopy, liberal love their way, won't you? They're small, brown and from a third world country...they fit the template, why not?
Speaking of loopy, Chris Cannon is/was an embaressment. He was part of the Republican wolf pack that became obscessed with Bill Clinton's sex life and couldn't speak two sentences without saying "impeachment."
Now that we have a true impeachment-worthy president, I just didn't hear any Cannon fire, did you?
When I read pathetic explanations from his camp of why he lost, it reminds me of BYU football fans after a loss: they played injured, they had bad calls against them,they were playing a really tough conference (for a change)any excuse other than the fact that the other guys beat them. Period!
Let me have a little fun and deconstruct one of Cannon's excuses for the trouncing he just received: "Only 10 percent of the electorate showed up at the polls."
Why does that matter as an excuse for being a loser? What it tells me is one of two things:
The 10 percent that showed up were in favor of a change. By huge margins.
So, I guess Jason Chaffetz either did a better job energizing his voters or Cannon couldn't get his peeps to turn out. I'm thinking because they didn't want to turn out. Did they not know their guy was in an election?
Good riddance.