McClintock for Congress Blog

Likely voters gave Republican Tom McClintock an eight point advantage over Democrat Charlie Brown in the race for the congressional seat in the 4th Congressional District. The poll was conducted by veteran pollster Val Smith, Ph.D.  A telephone survey of high-propensity registered voters within the 4th Congressional District was conducted between the dates of Sept 22 and Sept 24, 2008. The sample size of 400 yields a sampling error of less than +/- 5.0%.

McClintock’s lead rose to a 53% to 39% margin when respondents were read campaign messages from both Brown and McClintock.

McClintock has strong support among Republicans with a 72% vote share.

Among independent voters, McClintock captured 37% of the vote compared to Brown’s 48%.  If McClintock can keep the independent differential near the eleven points found in this poll McClintock will handily win the election.

Charlie Brown’s trying to sell himself as a conservative has been a definitive failure.  On the attribution of “conservative” McClintock leads 66% to 9%.  On the attribution of “liberal” respondents identified Brown by a margin of 60% to 7%.  Regarding the attribution of “winning the war in Iraq” Tom leads 58% to 29%.  And on the anti-tax attribution McClintock leads 56% to 18%.

“Voters are focusing on the issues that matter to them and discovering that Charlie Brown lines up with  liberal Democrats on issues that are important to voters,” said McClintock for Congress Campaign Strategist John Feliz. “In uncertain economic times voters look for experienced leadership. McClintock is known and respected for his expertise in complex budget issues and understands how to solve problems without resorting to tax increases and massive government bailouts.”

McClintock was recruited by district residents to run for the seat. His conservative values and record of fiscal responsibility match up with the District’s conservative base.

The Republican voter registration advantage is 16 points.  Ideologically, the district self-identifies itself as conservative by a 2:1 ratio (60% conservative and 29% liberal).  Party loyalty favors Republicans by a difference of 45% to 24%, with a switch vote percentage of 31.

“This poll confirms that our message is being clearly understood by voters,” Feliz said.  “This is in stark contrast to other polls that were methodologically questionable. We look forward to debating our opponent and outlining the stark differences between the candidates on the issues.”

Click here to read the memo from Dr. Val Smith.

Sen. McClintock was on the Armstrong & Getty Show this morning to discuss the defeat of the bailout. He talked about why the $700 billion bailout was bad for our nation. Also Sen. McClintock put forth several measures that can be done now to improve the financial crisis.

Click here to listen to the Armstrong & Getty interview.

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Here is speech entitled, Freedom and Firearms, that Sen. McClintock gave on the 2nd Amendment. This speech was given in 2001 to the Western Conservative Conference and has been widely circulated around the nation as one of the best articulations of our 2nd Amendment Rights.

Freedom and Firearms

There are two modern views of government that begin from entirely different premises.

There is the 18th Century American view propounded by our nation’s founders. They believed, and formed a government based upon that belief, that each of us is endowed by our creator with certain rights that cannot be alienated, and that governments are instituted to protect those rights. This view is proclaimed in the Declaration of Independence and reflected in the American Bill of Rights.

The second view is 19th Century German in origin and expressed in the philosophies of Marx and Hegel and Nietzsche. It is a restatement of philosophies of absolutism that have plagued mankind for millennia. In this view, rights come not from God, but from the state. What rights you have are there because government has given them to you, all for the greater good – defined, of course, by government.

In the 20 years I have been actively engaged in public policy, I have seen the growing influence of this 19th Century German view. It disdains the view of the American Founders. It rejects the notion of inalienable rights endowed equally to every human being by the “laws of nature and of nature’s God.” In this view, it is the state, and not the individual, where rights are vested.

I mention this, because of a debate that occurred last week on the floor of the State Senate. It was a debate that occurred under the portrait of George Washington and the gold-emblazoned motto, “Senatoris Est Civitatis Libertatum Tueri” – “The Senators Protect the Liberty of the Citizens.”

At issue was a measure, SB 52, which will require a state-issued license to own a firearm for self-defense. To receive a license, you would have to meet a series of tests, costs and standards set by the state.

We have seen many bills considered and adopted that would infringe upon the right of a free people to bear arms. But this was the most brazen attempt in this legislature to claim that the very right of self-defense is not an inalienable natural right at all, but is rather a right that is licensed from government; a right that no longer belongs to you, but to your betters, who will license you to exercise that right at their discretion.

During the debate on this measure, which passed the Senate 25 to 15, I raised these issues. And I would like to quote to you the response of Senator Sheila Kuehl, to the approving nods of the Senators whose duty is to protect the liberty of the citizens.

She said, “There is only one constitutional right in the United States which is absolute and that is your right to believe anything you want.”

I want to focus on that statement. “The only constitutional right which is absolute is your right to believe anything you want.”

Now, compare that to the Declaration of Independence: “We hold these truths to be self-evident: that all men are created equal; that they are endowed by their creator with certain inalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness; that to secure these rights, governments are instituted among men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed.”

What rights has a slave? There is only one: a slave can think anything he wants: as long as he doesn’t utter it or act on it – he may think what he wants. He has no right to the fruit of his labor; no right to self-defense, no right to raise his children, no right to contract with others for his betterment, no right to worship – except as his master allows. He has only the right to his own thoughts. All other rights are at the sufferance of his master – whether that master is a state or an owner.

Now, let us continue to look at this new constitutional principle propounded by Senator Kuehl, under the portrait of George Washington to the delight of her colleagues whose duty, according to the proud words above them, is to “Protect the Liberty of the Citizens.”

She continued, “Other than that, (the right to your own thoughts) government has the ability to say on behalf of all the people – I will put it in the colloquial way as my grandmother used to – your right to swing your fist ends where my nose begins. It’s a balance of your rights and my rights because we all have constitutional rights. And the question for government is how do we balance those rights?”

Indeed, the right to swing your fist does end where my nose begins. An excellent analogy. Shall we therefore amputate your fist so that you can never strike my nose? And would you deny me the use of my own fist to protect my nose?

Senator Kuehl and her colleagues believe government has the legitimate authority to do so. It is simply the question of balancing.

It is very important that we understand precisely what Senator Kuehl and the Left are saying.

A thief balances your right to your wallet against his right to eat. A murderer balances your right to life against his right to freedom. A master balances your right to “work and toil and make bread,” against his right to eat it. These are matters of balance.

The American view is quite different. In the view of the American Founders, the Laws of Nature and of Nature’s God endow each of us with rights that are inalienable, and we are each equal in those rights. It is not a balancing act. These rights are absolute. They cannot be alienated.

But in a state of nature, there are predators who would deny us those rights. And thus we come together to preserve our freedom. In the American view, the only legitimate exercise of force by one person over another, or by one government over its people, is “to secure these rights.”

Senator Kuehl continues, “My right to defend myself in the home does not extend to my owning a tank, though that would make sense to me, perhaps, that no one would attack my home if I had a tank sitting in the living room.”

Let us put aside, for a moment, the obvious fact that a tank is only an instrument of self-defense against a power that employs a tank. But let us turn to the more reasonable side of her argument: that rights can be constrained by government; that there is, after all, “no right to shout ‘fire’ in a crowded theater. How can a right be absolute and yet constrained by government?

To Senator Kuehl and the Left, the answer is simply, “it’s easy — whenever we say so.” Or, in her words, “government has the ability to say (so) on behalf of all the people.”

The American Founders had a different view, also, not surprisingly, diametrically opposed to Senator Kuehl’s way of thinking.

The right is absolute. In a free nation, government has no authority to forbid me from speaking because I might shout “fire” in a crowded theater. Government has no authority to forbid me from using my fist to defend myself because I might also use it to strike your nose. And government has no authority to forbid me from owning a firearm because I might shoot an innocent victim.

Government is there to assure that the full force of the law can be brought against me if I discharge that right in a manner that threatens the rights of others. It does not have the authority to deny me those very rights for fear I might misuse them.

Senator Kuehl continues, “In my opinion, this bill is one of those balances. It does not say you cannot have a gun. It does not say you cannot defend yourself. It says if you are going to be owning and handling and using a dangerous item you need to know how to use it, and you need to prove that you know how to use it by becoming licensed.”

How reasonable. How reassuring. How despotic.

We must understand what they are arguing, because it is chilling. They are arguing that any of our most precious rights enshrined in the Bill of Rights – any at least they decide are conceivably dangerous — may only be extended through the license of the government.

If that is the case, they are not rights. With that one despotic principle, you have just dissolved the foundation of the entire Bill of Rights. You have created a society where your only right is to your own thoughts.

Inalienable rights are now alienated to government, and government may extend or refuse them upon its whim – or more precisely, upon a balancing act to be decided by government. Let us follow – in our minds at least – a little farther down this path.

Hate groups publish newsletters to disseminate their hatred and racism. Sick individuals in our society act upon this hatred. The Oklahoma City bombing killed a score of innocent children. Shouldn’t we license printing presses and Internet sites to prevent the pathology of hate from spreading? Such an act doesn’t say you cannot have a press. It does not say you cannot express yourself. It says if you are going to be owning and handling a printing press, you should know what not to say and prove that you can restrain yourself by becoming licensed.

And what are we to do about rogue religions like those that produced Heaven’s Gate and Jonestown? How many people around the world are killed by acts of religious fanaticism every year? Should we not license the legitimate churches? Such an act doesn’t say you cannot have a church. It does not say you cannot worship. It says if you are going to be running and conducting a church, that you must know how to worship and prove that you know how by becoming licensed.

The only right you have is the right to believe anything you want. The only right of a slave. The rest is negotiable – or to use the new word, “balanceable.”

In 1838, a 29 year old Abraham Lincoln posed the question for which he would ultimately give his life. Years later, he would debate Stephen Douglas, who argued that freedom and slavery were a matter of political balance. But in this speech, he spoke to the larger question that we must now confront:

“Shall we expect some transatlantic military giant, to step over the ocean, and crush us at a blow? Never! — All the armies of Europe, Asia and Africa combined, with all the treasure of the earth (our own excepted) in their military chest; with a Buonaparte for a commander, could not by force, take a drink from the Ohio, or make a track on the Blue Ridge, in a trial of a thousand years. At what point, then, is the approach of danger to be expected? I answer, if it ever reach us, it must spring up amongst us. It cannot come from abroad. If destruction be our lot, we must ourselves be its author and finisher. As a nation of freemen, we must live through all time, or die by suicide.”

The American Founders worried about the same thing. Late in life, Jefferson wrote to Adams, “Yes we did create a near perfect union; but will they keep it, or will they, in the enjoyment of plenty, lose the memory of freedom. Material abundance is the surest path to destruction.”

And as I listened to Senator Kuehl proclaim that “the only constitutional right in the United States which is absolute … is your right to believe anything you want,” and as I gazed at the portrait of George Washington, and as I thought about the solemn words, “the Senators Protect the Liberty of the Citizens,” I couldn’t help but think of an aide to George Washington by the name of James McHenry, who accompanied the General as they departed Independence Hall the day the Constitution was born. He recorded this encounter between Benjamin Franklin and a Mrs. Powell. She asked, “Well, Doctor, what have we got, a republic or a monarchy?” Answered Dr. Franklin, “A republic, madam, if you can keep it.”

For this generation, that is no longer a hypothetical question. History warns us that to one generation in five falls the duty – the highest duty and the most difficult duty of this Republic – to preserve the liberty of the citizens. It is the most difficult, because as Lincoln warned, it is a threat that springs up not on a foreign shore where we can see it – it springs up amongst us. It cannot be defeated by force of arms. It must be defeated by reason.

Have you noticed yet, that ours is that generation? And how ironic it would be that the freedoms won with the blood of Washington’s troops, and defended by so many who followed, should be voluntarily thrown away piece by piece by a generation that had become so dull and careless and pampered and uncaring that it lost the memory of freedom.

The Athenian Democracy had a word for “citizen” that survives in our language today. “Politikos.” Politician. The Athenians believed that a free people who declare themselves citizens assume a duty to declare themselves politicians at the same time. It is time we took that responsibility very seriously.

In 1780, the tide had turned in the American Revolution, and the Founders began to sense the freedom that was within sight. John Adams wrote these words to his wife that spring. He said, “The science of government it is my duty to study, more than all other sciences; the arts of legislation and administration and negotiation ought to take the place of, indeed exclude, in a manner, all other arts. I must study politics and war, that our sons may have liberty to study mathematics and philosophy. Our sons ought to study mathematics and philosophy, geography, natural history and naval architecture, navigation, commerce and agriculture in order to give their children a right to study painting, poetry, music, architecture, statuary, tapestry and porcelain.”

Ladies and gentlemen, the debate is not about guns. It is about freedom. And the wheel has come full circle. Our generation must study politics that we may restore the liberty that our parents and grandparents expect us to pass on to our children and grandchildren.

If we fail, what history will demand of our children and grandchildren, in a society where their only right is to their own thoughts, is simply unthinkable. And be assured, history will find it unforgivable. A generation that is handed the most precious gift in all the universe – freedom – and throws it away — deserves to be reviled by every generation that follows – and will be, even though the only right left to them is their own thoughts.

But if we succeed in this struggle, we will know the greatest joy of all – the joy of watching our grandchildren secure with the blessings of liberty, studying arts and literature in a free nation and under God’s grace, once again.

Ladies and Gentlemen, isn’t that worth devoting the rest of our lives to achieve?

We have received some emails and calls on where Sen. McClintock stands on health care. Here is a speech that Sen. McClintock gave on health care reform to the Camarillo Chamber of Commerce on October 12, 2007.

You may remember two months ago that we had a major battle over the state budget, with some of us warning that despite the governor’s assurances, it was dangerously out of balance.  I’m afraid those post-partisan pigeons are already coming home to roost. The state Controller’s cash report was released yesterday, and the numbers are nothing short of appalling…

I think based on the first quarter numbers that we could be ending this fiscal year with a shortfall in the neighborhood of more than $10 billion and when the budget is introduced in January we’ll be trying to close a two-year deficit of over $20 billion.

And I don’t believe we have the resources to cover that.

So what’s the news out of Sacramento yesterday?  The governor is proceeding with the most expensive bureaucratized health plan ever proposed in California.

As Reagan once said, “You could say they were spending like drunken sailors, but that would be unfair – to drunken sailors.”

I’d like to begin with a little background on that plan.  The Governor’s principal argument is that there are 6 ½ million Californians without health insurance and that Californians are paying a “hidden tax” of $1,200 per year in higher medical costs to cover them.

There’s only one problem with the argument.  It is hogwash.

First, the study the governor quotes DOES NOT say that there are 6 1/2 million Californians without health insurance.  It says that 6.5 million Californians don’t have health insurance AT SOME POINT DURING THE YEAR.  But 45% of those Californians have it within four months.  So 45 percent of these people are not chronically uninsured individuals – they’re people changing jobs.

And of those 6.5 million – 45 percent of whom WILL HAVE health insurance within four months — 2 ½ million are illegal aliens; 2 million earn over $50,000 per year, 1 million are already eligible for MediCal or Healthy Families.

The other argument is that that Californians pay a “hidden tax” through higher medical costs.  That figure comes from a self-interested pressure group called the “New America Foundation.” They’re pushing the bureaucratized health plan.  They’re the same rocket scientists who came up with Hillary Clinton’s plan to give $5,000 to every baby born in American.

So it might not be all that surprising that a group of economists at Stanford University’s Hoover Institution reviewed their calculations and concluded that they had exaggerated the number by nearly A FACTOR OF FOUR.

So based on utterly bogus assumptions, the governor is proposing the biggest and riskiest intervention by state government in a market since the electricity debacle.  Not only is the structure of his proposal a house of cards (as other states are now discovering), but it’s a house of cards that’s built on a shaky foundation.

What the governor is proposing in its latest version is a mandate that every Californian MUST carry health insurance, and it requires that every insurance company issue a health plan to anyone who applies, regardless of their medical history or age.  Meanwhile, for those within 350 percent of the federal poverty level, it provides free or heavily subsidized insurance, including for more than 2 million illegal aliens.  This will all be financed by up to a 4 percent payroll tax on companies that don’t provide insurance, and by leasing the state lottery to a consortium headed by Goldman Sachs and Lehman Brothers.

Just a few immediate thoughts on this.

FIRST, we already have a law that requires every motorist to carry auto insurance – and yet this law is ignored by ONE DRIVER IN FOUR.  Question: if you are guaranteed health insurance when you are sick, why in the world would you pay for it when you are healthy?  Imagine if we added a requirement that every insurance company was required to write a policy after you’ve had the accident.

SECOND, businesses that offer health insurance pay up to 14 percent of their payroll for these policies.  But under the governor’s plan, if they drop their coverage they can reduce their payroll costs by up to 10 percent of simply by dropping their health coverage the day before the law takes effect.  Their employees now qualify for heavily subsidized insurance and the employer and employee can split the 10 percent payroll savings.  What’s not to like?

THIRD, the latest version proposes funding a portion of the program by leasing the state lottery – and monopoly control over all lottery gaming – to a consortium headed by Goldman Sachs and Lehman Brothers.  The idea is that they can run it much for efficiently, and split the increased revenues between the Goldman Sachs-Lehman Brothers consortium and the state, with the state’s share supporting the health care system.  This raises an inconvenient question.

If the state government is so incompetent that it cannot run a simple lottery, what makes the governor think it can run an infinitely more complicated universal health care system?  And a bonus question: do we really want the same people who run the DMV to run the health insurance market?

Maybe, before we embark on this radical course of action, we should ask how other states – and nations – have fared with similar programs.

One place we can look at is Canada.  You may remember about six weeks ago when a Calgary woman gave birth to identical quadruplets.  That’s a very rare phenomenon and it got a lot of press coverage.  What didn’t get a lot of coverage is that the mother from Calgary, Canada gave birth to her identical quadruplets IN GREAT FALLS, MONTANA.  No, she wasn’t visiting – she had to be rushed 325 miles south into the United States to give birth to the babies, because the waiting list for Canada’s bureaucratized and socialized system was full.  It turns out that Great Falls is a popular destination for Calgary’s pregnant moms whose babies just aren’t willing to wait in line.  I’m afraid Great Falls is going to get lot more popular if Californians find themselves in the same fix.

But you don’t have to look to other nations for what the governor’s plan will produce – just look to the other states that have tried it.

This measure is very similar to the Massachusetts plan, which just celebrated its first anniversary in May.  You might have noticed that Mitt Romney has stopped boasting about it, and there’s a reason. After barely a year in place, it has been besieged with sky-rocketing cost over-runs.

In January, the Wall Street Journal reported that insurance premiums in Massachusetts are some six times higher than comparable policies in the neighboring state of Connecticut.

In fact, Massachusetts Senate President Therese Murray, a liberal Democrat and one of the principal architects of their plan, gave a speech this summer in Boston where she warned, “If we do not constrain healthcare costs, the system we worked so hard to create and implement will collapse.”  That’s after just the first year.

Tennessee State Senator (now Congresswoman) Marsha Blackburn wrote to Gov. Schwarzenegger in January to warn him of Tennessee’s experience.  She said: “In 1994, Tennessee implemented managed care in its Medicaid program and used savings anticipated from the switch to expand insurance coverage to the uninsured and uninsurable adults and children. Since then, the state has faced financial peril and numerous unsuccessful attempts to recover the state’s runaway health care system. State spending accelerated from $2.5 billion in 1995 to $8 billion in 2004 on TennCare alone.

“Combined state and federal funding could not sustain TennCare’s rising costs, and the program effectively lowered the quality of health care in Tennessee. Since the program’s inception, Tennessee’s doctors and hospitals charged that the $8 billion program was under funded by the state and federal governments, forcing providers to bear disproportionately high costs. Due to overwhelming dissatisfaction with the program, doctors and hospitals dropped out of managed care organizations or TennCare altogether, and hospitals were put out of business. Employers dumped employee coverage to save money, handing over employee coverage to the state. The poor could not find providers to take them and lost access to care due to cost-cutting measures. Furthermore, rampant fraud and abuse plagued the program.”

In Maine, major tax increases are now pending to bail out that state’s DirigoChoice universal health care plan.  According to the Illinois Policy Center, “Since Dirigo’s passage, Maine’s health care marketplace has suffered an explosion in Medicaid costs, higher health insurance premiums, uncompetitive health care providers and a dysfunctional individual insurance market.”

And just a few months ago, in what the Wall Street Journal
called the “political rout of the year,” Illinois Democratic Governor Rod Blagojevich saw his own Democratic house reject the tax for his universal health plan 107-0.  Said the Journal, “one lesson here is that it is far easier to talk about ‘progressive’ political causes than to pay for them without doing larger economic harm.  In today’s global economy, the margin for policy mistakes is smaller, even for individual states.”

Every time and every place this concept has been tried it has consistently produced massive cost overruns for government, massive increases in insurance premiums for consumers, widespread fraud and abuse and ultimately a deterioration in health care services and a rationing of what remains.

This is not to say that there isn’t a problem with health care – due largely to four decades of government intervention and interference in a system that once worked quite well.   But the Governor’s case for bureaucratized health care in California is phony and the plan is dangerously flawed.  His proposal has wrecked the finances of other states – it will be interesting to see what it does to a state whose finances have already been wrecked.

Big changes need to be made in our health care system – but those changes should be in exactly the opposite direction at that proposed by the governor: we need to get the bureaucrats OUT OF MEDICINE and put patients back in charge.

If somebody else owns your health plan – whether it’s your employer or your government – then somebody else is making your health care decisions.  If your employer chose your grocery store for you, do you think it would be more or less to your liking than the one you currently use?  Then why do we perpetuate a system where your employer chooses your health plan for you?

We got into this mess during World War II, when wage and price controls limited what companies could offer their employees.  So they began offering paid health plans that weren’t subject to wage and price controls.  And as that grew, we began giving EMPLOYERS tax credits and deductions for offering health plans for their employees – instead of offering those same tax benefits to the employees themselves.

We need to extend to individuals the same tax breaks that we give companies so that individuals can afford their own health insurance.  All health expenses should be tax deductible.

John Stossel made an excellent point on this recently.  He asked, when you buy auto insurance, why don’t you buy a plan that offers unlimited gasoline, oil changes and that will cover any dent or scratch?  Obviously, because it would be prohibitively expensive – in addition to dramatically increasing the demand for these covered services – we’d end up paying a whole level of profit-taking insurance companies to administer them.  And yet that’s how we now manage our health system.

Stossel pointed out that insurance doesn’t EVER make economic sense to cover routine expenses – in this case, routine doctors visits, coughs and colds and so forth.  Insurance only makes economic sense for those things that could bankrupt us.

And that’s what rational people would do if given the choice.

Second, we need to restore to people a full range of choices for the health plan that best meets their own needs.  An elderly couple doesn’t need maternity benefits – so why do we require them to pay for it?

I introduced SB 365 this year which would have provided California consumers the freedom to choose lower-priced health plans that are already available to consumers in other states.

Current law forbids Californians from buying health insurance policies that are available to every other American.  This not only limits the choices available to consumers, it forces them to pay premium prices for mandates that they may not want – or cannot afford.

We don’t restrict Californians from banking only at California banks, or buying only from California retailers.  And we shouldn’t restrict them from getting their health insurance only from California-regulated providers.

This simple reform would reduce the cost of health plans by as much as 12 percent according to a federal survey done on the subject.

But the measure was killed on a straight party-line vote.

Third and finally, for the truly indigent, I have long advocated providing prepaid, refundable tax credits – vouchers, if you will – on a sliding income scale – to bring within the reach of every family a basic health plan of their own choosing.  This approach – applied to a program like Healthy Families — would provide far broader coverage at far lower cost than today’s bureaucratized program.

But of course, we’re right back to individual freedom, individual choice, and individual responsibility and that’s what the Left hates.

I have every confidence that these three basic reforms will not be passed by this legislature or signed by this governor – although they are the cornerstone of what once produced the finest health care system in the world – before government got involved.  And unless groups like yours rise up and get deeply involved in the public policy debate, I have every confidence that in one form or another, a bureaucratized health plan will be imposed on California, that it will have the same disastrous consequences that it has had elsewhere.

A generation ago, the business community of this state devoted most of its attention to educating the public about how important freedom is to producing prosperity.  The Realtors spent huge amounts of resources explaining property rights.  Companies like General Electric sent people like Ronald Reagan around the country – not to sell G.E. Products – but to sell freedom.  Junior Achievement – teaching high school students the simple mechanics of enterprise – was a principal object of the Chamber of Commerce.  That’s all gone now.  And the damage that is being done to our once GOLDEN STATE is staggering.

In one of his letters to John Adams late in life, Thomas Jefferson wrote, “Yes, we did create a near perfect union.  But will THEY keep it, or will they, in the enjoyment of plenty, loose the memory of freedom.  Material abundance is the surest path to destruction.”

Let that not be the epitaph of our generation.

Here are several great clips from the surprise debate between Sen. McClintock and Charlie Brown on the KTKZ Radio Capital Hour with Eric Hogue.

McClintock on the Financial Crisis

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McClintock on Oil Drilling

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McClintock on Auburn Dam

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McClintock on Energy

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Here is the entire KTKZ debate between Sen. McClintock and Charlie Brown.

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Tom McClintock was a guest on the KTKZ Radio Capital Hour with Eric Hogue when a surprise caller phoned in; Charlie Brown, McClintock’s Democratic opponent in the Fourth Congressional District. Perhaps Charlie was motivated to call in because he had declined an opportunity earlier that day to debate McClintock at the El Dorado Hills Chamber of Commerce.

Was it the panicky tone of his trembling voice, the heavy breathing into the phone, or the non sequiturs and outright distortions that most distinguished Charlie Brown’s shaky performance in his first “debate” with McClintock?

Note to Charlie; when debating don’t start arguing with the host over what you did or did not do that night you wore a uniform to an anti-war demonstration where a U.S. soldier was hung in effigy.  And don’t try to lie about what you were wearing after the whole world watched video of you in your uniform standing with chanting anti-war demonstrators. Why would you possibly say “Look at the full picture of me I’m in blue jeans with a red shirt on,” when the video shows you in your Air Force uniform jacket and hat? And why would you claim Doug Ose supports you when he has officially endorsed McClintock and criticized you for opposing the surge? And why would you say you support off-shore oil drilling when you’ve said time and time again “drilling is not the answer” and you oppose drilling off the California Coast and in ANWR?

While McClintock offered a scholarly perspective on the unfolding financial crisis, Brown remained silent on the issue when asked to share his views on this issue that everyone is talking about. After all, it takes time and creative writing to come up with another wishy-washy position paper.

State Sen. Tom McClintock’s campaign for Congress unveiled a website today examining Charlie Brown’s evasive statements on the issues: www.wishywashybrown.com.

“The wishy-washy Brown website is dedicated to finally pinning Charlie down on the issues,” said Bill George, spokesman for the McClintock campaign. “The website shows where Charlie really stands on the issues, despite what he says.”

“Wishy-washy Brown” includes a section responding to Brown’s own statements, another section chronicling his far-left associations, and a comparison between him and Tom McClintock on the issues that matter most to the voters. The site will be a comprehensive source revealing how out-of-touch Brown’s liberal positions are from the voters of the 4th Congressional District.

Topics such as oil drilling, the Iraqi War, the presidential race, gay marriage and global warming are all featured prominently on the site.

The site is designed to expose Brown as the “wishy-washy” politician he has proven to be. “Barack Obama has the same strategy for getting into office,” the home page of the site explains. “Issue vague statements on patriotism that make people feel good, and try to hide just how liberal you really are.”

When will Brown Return Tainted Rangel Money?

Charlie Brown wants to clean up Washington; just ask him. Read his words but more important examine his actions in the developing ethics investigation of Rep. Charlie Rangel, Chairman of the powerful Ways and Means Committee.

Here is the rhetoric posted on the Brown website: “Charlie knows that Washington is broken, and partisan politicians are the problem.  Charlie Brown’s loyalty is to our country–not a political party or special interest donor.” Brown has also said “Congress is losing the moral authority to lead every day the news is about corruption, bribery, campaign-finance scandals and cover ups.” (Brown press release 10/6 2006.) So what has Charlie done? He took $11,500 in tainted cash from Rangel. And despite the fact that another Democrat is returning the money, Charlie is not giving up the ill-gotten loot, or calling for a Rangel resignation. Rep. Dave Loebsack (D-IA) did the right thing and gave up Rangel’s tainted cash.  When will Brown follow suit?  “Loebsack is now the first House Democrat to return campaign money from ethically-embattled House Ways and Means Committee Chairman Charles Rangel (D-N.Y.). His decision to return the money will put pressure on other Democrats, particularly those in contested races, to do the same.” (Politico, 9/22/08)

“Taking and keeping thousands of dollars in campaign contributions from one of the most powerful and partisan Democratic Congressmen belies Brown’s theme of patriotism before partisanship,” said McClintock for Congress Communications Director Bill George. “It’s time for him to put his money where his mouth is and return the thousands of tainted dollars. Or does he think it’s OK for one Charlie to take money from another?”

On Saturday, hundreds of volunteers came to the headquarters for a Volunteer Appreciation Barbeque. Sen. McClintock and his wife, Lori, were on hand to personally thank all of the volunteers who are working hard towards victory in November. Also attending was California Republican Party Chairman Ron Nehring.

The volunteers were especially excited to receive the first batches of McCain-Palin campaign materials to arrive at the headquarters. Volunteers lined up early to receive their McCain-Palin yard signs and bumper stickers.  Many of the volunteers’ also grabbed dozens of McClintock yard signs and bumper stickers to distribute to their neighbors.

Here are some of the pictures from the event.

Sen. McClintock and Lori talking with the volunteers

Lori at the HQs

Sen. McClintock speaks to the volunteers

The following is a letter sent to Charlie Brown in response to a letter where he called Sen. McClintock a liar.

September 19, 2008

Dear Charlie:

Thank you for your letter of September 12th calling me a liar.

Abraham Lincoln answered a similar attack with these words: “You cannot disprove Euclidian geometry by calling Euclid a liar.”

You accuse me of misrepresenting your position on tax and energy matters in our radio commercials, yet offered no specific examples.   Allow me.

Specifically, I said that you have advocated “continuing the federal law that prevents us from tapping America’s vast oil resources.”  I base that on your campaign’s assertion to PolitickerCA.com that “Brown opposed drilling for oil in areas where it isn’t already allowed, such as off the coasts of many states, including California.”  (July 22, 2008).  You went on to tell a fundraising reception in Beverly Hills (Aug. 20, 2008) that “drilling is no solution.”

I said that you had refused to sign the “No Tax Pledge.”  According to the organization that sponsors that pledge (Americans for Tax Reform), you have not signed it, despite repeated requests to do so.

I said that you had proposed a new energy tax that would cost our families another $200 per year at the pump.  I base that on your energy plan released on July 22nd that calls for $18 billion of new taxes on oil companies by closing “loopholes.”  Oil company taxes are passed on to consumers as higher prices, and $18 billion will translate into another $59 per capita or $236 for a family of four.

I said that you had attacked me for “not supporting the budget with its crushing taxes.”  I base that on your email of the first week of August to “4th District Residents,” in which you blamed me for the fact that “California still doesn’t have a budget.”  At the time you made that attack, the only budget proposal pending before the legislature was predicated on between $4 billion and $5 billion of additional taxes, coming to a minimum of $109 per capita or $438 for a family of four.

You are correct that China is not yet actually drilling in Cuban territory, but the Chinese government-owned Sinopec has indeed leased a tract for oil exploration and development west of Havana. (McClatchy Washington Bureau, 6/12/08).  Your energy plan would prevent American companies from doing the same on American territory.  In addition to its deal with China, Cuba has also contracted with numerous countries around the world for offshore oil development.

As a son of a World War II veteran, I appreciate your reminding me of the immense sacrifices made by those who wear our uniform.  I wish you had remembered those sacrifices when you wore that uniform to support a rally in which an American soldier was hanged in effigy.

Sincerely,

Tom McClintock