Sunday, October 01, 2006
An Open Letter from Leslie to John Yarmuth
Found this on My Space Via Technorati
An Open Letter to 3rd District Congressional Candidate John Yarmuth
Hi, John –
Sorry for yakking your ear off at last week's Waterfront Wednesday concert. I'm sure you're already tired of having well-meaning folks accost you and thrust their own personal political "wisdom" upon you, but it's something of an occupational hazard. The good news is, it usually happens most to the well-liked underdog candidate, and that's you. Hey, we carp because we care.
Your most recent ads are a step in the right direction, but you're still letting Northup's machine lead you astray. You're a tad off-message right now as a result of pure self-defense, and you need to re-focus. You're correct to swing back hard, but next inning, pitch her a ball she has to catch and return.
Northup's platform is simple and weak in several key areas. Her biggest flaw is her blind loyalty to Bush, to which you've already alluded. Take the next step and make the point that her commitment to the so-called "War on Terror" is a single-sided one (we'll kindly let go for the moment the fact that wars on nouns such as terror and poverty are almost always unwinable). She's committing more federal money – and more Kentucky lives – with Bush's ill-advised "stay the course" strategy. That kind of money can be better spent here at home, beefing up homeland security in areas specific to Kentucky, such as railroad security (not much passenger safety at risk here, but plenty of hazardous material travels our rails every day!) and riverport security (ditto), not to mention the obvious terrorist target threat issues of having the UPS hub here in Louisville and having Ft. Knox right down the road. She's all about Iraq, and it needs to be all about the 3rd Congressional district of Kentucky. Make her fight the war on terror on our ground, not on foreign soil. While you're at it, make her read the 9/11 Commission Report. Seems like not many Republican lawmakers have.
Her healthcare platform is pure GOP propaganda – all about caps on lawsuits. Sure, that's part of the problem, but only part. That would help reduce liability costs for physicians, which I'm all for, but also for the pharmaceutical industry and its multi-billion dollar lobby. She's all for allowing US citizens to buy their prescription drugs from Canada, but for pete's sake, why should they have to? Bush says he can control AIDS in Africa for approximately $300 per year per person. Why does it cost over $2400 per year per person here? Why is the pharmaceutical industry allowed to pat itself on the back for providing low or no cost drugs to the impoverished rather than being forced to curb its hideously monstrous advertising budget to make the drugs affordable to everyone in the first place? It's plain to see they're spending as much or more (probably much more) on advertising than they are on research. And while you're at it, ask why that same industry can seemingly make enough Viagra for every federal inmate who wants it for obviously recreational purposes, but can't seem to promise enough flu vaccine for a potential pandemic? Here in the land of Kentucky Fried Chicken, bird flu ought to be taken fairly seriously, one's personal thoughts on PETA notwithstanding.
Her economic platform is based on immediate job creation rather than long-term sustainability. This means she's willing to dish out tax incentives to mega-monster corporations like Wal-Mart which threaten the mom-n-pop operations everywhere and bring more and more foreign goods into the country which used to be manufactured here. Economic growth needs to be about more than just job creation. It's a short-sighted approach to the problem.
Northup's latest ads say voters deserve to be informed of the issues. So, why won't she share her stand on the issues with voter information sites like VoteSmart.org, which uses a standardized non-partisan National Political Awareness Test for all candidates? (Uh, you might want to answer those questions yourself before you attack her on that one, of course).
MAKE HER DEBATE YOU. You're better informed on a wider spectrum of issues and you're quicker on the draw to boot. Let her stammer the way she does in front of WHAS's Mark Hebert in front of a more public crowd.
Meanwhile, congratulations on the results of the first WHAS-TV viewer poll. Your strong showing proved exactly what I told you the other evening – Northup is fighting dirty because she knows you can win, and she's scared.
No charge for all the free advice, of course!
Yer pal,
Frank N. Stine
(inside joke)
An Open Letter to 3rd District Congressional Candidate John Yarmuth
Hi, John –
Sorry for yakking your ear off at last week's Waterfront Wednesday concert. I'm sure you're already tired of having well-meaning folks accost you and thrust their own personal political "wisdom" upon you, but it's something of an occupational hazard. The good news is, it usually happens most to the well-liked underdog candidate, and that's you. Hey, we carp because we care.
Your most recent ads are a step in the right direction, but you're still letting Northup's machine lead you astray. You're a tad off-message right now as a result of pure self-defense, and you need to re-focus. You're correct to swing back hard, but next inning, pitch her a ball she has to catch and return.
Northup's platform is simple and weak in several key areas. Her biggest flaw is her blind loyalty to Bush, to which you've already alluded. Take the next step and make the point that her commitment to the so-called "War on Terror" is a single-sided one (we'll kindly let go for the moment the fact that wars on nouns such as terror and poverty are almost always unwinable). She's committing more federal money – and more Kentucky lives – with Bush's ill-advised "stay the course" strategy. That kind of money can be better spent here at home, beefing up homeland security in areas specific to Kentucky, such as railroad security (not much passenger safety at risk here, but plenty of hazardous material travels our rails every day!) and riverport security (ditto), not to mention the obvious terrorist target threat issues of having the UPS hub here in Louisville and having Ft. Knox right down the road. She's all about Iraq, and it needs to be all about the 3rd Congressional district of Kentucky. Make her fight the war on terror on our ground, not on foreign soil. While you're at it, make her read the 9/11 Commission Report. Seems like not many Republican lawmakers have.
Her healthcare platform is pure GOP propaganda – all about caps on lawsuits. Sure, that's part of the problem, but only part. That would help reduce liability costs for physicians, which I'm all for, but also for the pharmaceutical industry and its multi-billion dollar lobby. She's all for allowing US citizens to buy their prescription drugs from Canada, but for pete's sake, why should they have to? Bush says he can control AIDS in Africa for approximately $300 per year per person. Why does it cost over $2400 per year per person here? Why is the pharmaceutical industry allowed to pat itself on the back for providing low or no cost drugs to the impoverished rather than being forced to curb its hideously monstrous advertising budget to make the drugs affordable to everyone in the first place? It's plain to see they're spending as much or more (probably much more) on advertising than they are on research. And while you're at it, ask why that same industry can seemingly make enough Viagra for every federal inmate who wants it for obviously recreational purposes, but can't seem to promise enough flu vaccine for a potential pandemic? Here in the land of Kentucky Fried Chicken, bird flu ought to be taken fairly seriously, one's personal thoughts on PETA notwithstanding.
Her economic platform is based on immediate job creation rather than long-term sustainability. This means she's willing to dish out tax incentives to mega-monster corporations like Wal-Mart which threaten the mom-n-pop operations everywhere and bring more and more foreign goods into the country which used to be manufactured here. Economic growth needs to be about more than just job creation. It's a short-sighted approach to the problem.
Northup's latest ads say voters deserve to be informed of the issues. So, why won't she share her stand on the issues with voter information sites like VoteSmart.org, which uses a standardized non-partisan National Political Awareness Test for all candidates? (Uh, you might want to answer those questions yourself before you attack her on that one, of course).
MAKE HER DEBATE YOU. You're better informed on a wider spectrum of issues and you're quicker on the draw to boot. Let her stammer the way she does in front of WHAS's Mark Hebert in front of a more public crowd.
Meanwhile, congratulations on the results of the first WHAS-TV viewer poll. Your strong showing proved exactly what I told you the other evening – Northup is fighting dirty because she knows you can win, and she's scared.
No charge for all the free advice, of course!
Yer pal,
Frank N. Stine
(inside joke)
