From my days in high school, I remember the concepts of the Class Valedictorian and the Class President (and, of course, the Head Cheerleader...but that's a whole 'nother tangent).
These folks were supposed to be the "best of the best." Class Valedictorian was the person with the highest academic achievement. Class President was the person who won the popular vote.
The candidate choices made in elections by the people in this country are based on a combination of many factors that include the two aforementioned for high school.
Once a person has been elected to public office, it becomes incumbent upon them to act, not only to represent the interests of the people who elected them, but also to act in a manner that is not embarrassing to the other folks in public office. At least, that’s the way I think it should be.
I’m going to skip the recent Trent Lott issue for just a moment because, to tell you the truth, I’ve had a problem with Senator Lott for awhile, and it dates back to his ridiculous decision to see things Senator Tom Daschle’s way and grant the Democrats an opportunity to share power in 2001. Mind you, we did have the majority in a 50-50 Senate due to the tie-breaker belonging to Vice-President Cheney.
And, what did the GOP get out of that deal? We got ZIP from that stupid move by Lott. And, in fact, we got downright screwed when the Democrats took Lott at his word and acted autonomously to block our legislation for a few months there. And, when Jeffords jumped ship, they blocked EVERYTHING with no input from our side. Yeah-boy howdy. Clever lad, that Lott was.
From that point on, my conclusions about Trent Lott was that he was a political moron for even thinking about making deals with such snakes as the Senate Dems, much less actually giving them power over our legislative agenda.
So, let’s flash-forward to recent events, and combine it with his classless quotes in 1980, and I don’t exactly see where Mr. Lott is of value to the GOP except as just another GOP vote in the Senate.
His repeated apologies for his stupid comments aside, Lott cannot be what any of the 50 other GOP Senators would consider to be “Class President.” To you 50 others, as you jockey-around the interview circuit, you must keep in mind that if Lott remains as Majority Leader, he represents you with his image to everyone else…in much the same fashion as Bill Clinton represented all Americans to other countries when he was President.
I do agree that Lott shouldn’t resign, though. I want to see him kicked down in defeat. I think he should be challenged for the leadership (Don Nickles comes to mind) and get voted-out. This is politics, after all. Enough of the hand-wringing “Ohh..we don’t want to look like we’re fighting amongst ourselves…boo-hoo-hoo…”
You Senators are grown-ups for Pete’s sake. Demonstrate it or let someone else takeover your position who has the BALLS to do what needs to be done.
| Bill Simon - Thinking Outside The Box Bill Simon is the creator, editor, and publisher of The Political Vine. He has been a Republican since 1990 and been active in Republican politics since 1996. Professionally, Bill runs a political research services firm called Political Intelligence, Inc. and has another venture called ID Builders that helps political and business clients promote and market themselves using effective and innovative promotional products. He is single and lives with his adopted 90 lb. Yellow Lab named Brewster. |