Clay vs. Hamlin - The Choice Is Clear

So Lacy Clay is out stumping to retain his seat in Congress. He is trying to say that he is being misrepresented and...

My Republican opponent wants to reverse course, cancel the Recovery Act, put insurance companies back in charge of your health care, give Wall Street speculators a free handle to steal even more of your retirement dollars, and then explode the deficit by giving tax breaks to millionaires and billionaires.

Her Tea Party friends and the Republican leadership are part of an extremist partnership who want to use intolerance, ignorance and outright lies to cripple President Barack Obama, and turn America back to a much darker time. I’m confident that the voters of the First Congressional District will totally reject that.

More of this dribble can be found here. I suggest you read it and take notice to his lack of agenda or plans. He talks of job creation and building a stronger community, but he does not talk about what he plans to do about it.

As I have talked about in several posts, Lacy Clay has not done anything to truly improve the first district. In fact he refuses to hold open townhall meetings and as noted by myself and others including a letter to the editor in the St. Louis Post Dispatch, is nearly impossible to get a hold of.

As a refresher, take a look at these posts:

NEW TAXPAYER FINANCED JOBS IN ST. LOUIS
WHAT HAPPENED TO TRANSPARENCY LACY
CLAY WILLING TO GO THE DISTANCE - FOR RENT TO OWN INDUSTRY
CLAY BACKS BANKS WITH NO BUSINESS PLAN
LACY CLAY AND PAYDAY LOANS - Two articles HERE and HERE
LACY CLAY AND THE RENT TO OWN INDUSTRY

On top of this, Lacy has yet to even speak his opinion on what his plan is for the expiring Bush Tax Cuts (other than blame Republicans) and he has not yet commented on the claim that he is one of 70 members of the Democratic Socialists of America (Discussed HERE). Add to that, Lacy Clay was given a failing grade by the Center for Security Policy.

All Lacy has proven he can do is attempt to expand government to create jobs and promote himself. I give the guy credit, he comes off as a like able guy in interviews and he knows how to present himself. That said, he has had the job for 10 years and has not proven himself as a true leader for the first district or Missouri.

His opponent, Robyn Hamlin, is a small business owner who has had to deal with the concepts of job creation, health care benefits and balancing a budget. She has not done these as some ivory tower intellectual in Washington, who has never held a job outside of politics. No, she has done so in the real world, dealing with real world issues.

Is Robyn perfect. No, but I think she would agree that she is not. Does she have a better sense of what we need to do to create jobs, balance our federal budget and keep our nation safe? I think so and I am not the only one.

NumbersUSA has ranked Robyn as a "True Reformer"
Robyn is endorsed by

• Liberty Candidates
• Missouri Eagle Forum
• Americans for Legal Immigration

Robyn also signed the Tea Party Treaty

Just listen to and read her interviews, and you can see that she is the candidate that we need. You can find some HERE, HERE and HERE

If Robyn is elected, I plan, and expect each of you, to hold her feet to the fire, just as we would Lacy Clay or any other candidate.

If you are happy with things in the first district and our country, then Lacy is your guy. If you want to see a non politician go into Washington and help to clean up the corruption and politics as usual, then vote for Robyn.

Let's send Robyn to Washington as part of the Republican congressional takeover and party like it's November 1994

Yard Sign Theft

All,

We need your help in the 1st district. Robyn Hamlin's office has been made aware of people stealing yard signs and in one reported case replacing them with signs for Charlie Dooley.

According to Robyn Hamlin as posted on her Facebook page:

We have a voice mail on the campaign phone and a guy says that he is removing 5
of our signs a day from St. Louis City. The call came in from Cutex Corp and I
called them and let them listen to the voicemail. The VP there assured me it was
not one of their employees. We have tracked it back to a truck driver.

And

..Just got a call from a lady who saw an elderly man taking down our campaign
signs on Shamrock at Howdershell. She said he had a lot of our signs
in his trunk and was putting up Dooley signs.

It is obvious that the opposition is afraid of the message that is being presented. Lacy is just now sending out mailers. He assumed that he was not going to get a fight and Robyn is giving it to him. Check that, Robyn is giving him a fight and YOU are not willing to sit on the sidelines and let him win.

If any of you see these things happening, take a camera phone picture or video. Call the police and email it to Robyn or me. We will post it online and get it all across the blogosphere.

Be vigilent. They are worried and resorting to illegal tactics to keep the message from getting to the voters.

It is happening in other states and we are now seeing signs of it happening here.

Do what you can to help. We CAN win this!

Robyn on Allman In the Morning

On Thursday morning, Robyn Hamlin appeared in the last hour of Jamie Allman's show on 97.1 FM Talk.

It's great to hear her message getting out there and that people are receptive to her and her campaign.

Add to that the letter to the editor which just appeared in the Post Dispatch and that leads to a lot of positive momentum going into November 2nd.

There is still a lot to do and we still need a lot of volunteers to help Robyn and her campaign. If you can spare anytime during the week or weekend, do what you can to help her campaign out. Let's help get out the vote and fire Lacy Clay!

Get Out and Volunteer While You Still Can

This is a quick post.

I received an email from a friend asking me where I have been. In all bluntness, I am out working the ground. My wife volunteered to work on a couple of campaigns and I am helping her. Even now there are still many people who have not made up their minds. It is our job to inform them of their options and make sure they are informed voters.

As I have said all along, it is now up to each of YOU to make sure you are working with a candidate. Are you in the second district and want to make sure that DC is not being controlled by Reid and Pelosi, then get up off your couch/office chair and volunteer.

This weekend, Robyn Hamlin, ED Martin, Bill Corrigan and the St. Louis Tea Party can all use your help.

If you want to help but don't know how check out these sites

Robyn Hamlin - http://www.hamlinforcongress.com/
Ed Martin - http://edmartinforcongress.com/
Bill Corrigan - http://www.corriganforexec.com/
St. Louis Tea Party - http://www.stlouisteaparty.com/

Also, do you live on or near a busy intersection or street. You can help out by allowing one or several of these campaigns to put out yard signs. Believe it or not, the name recognition helps.

Right now, the Dems are on the ropes and are scared. All of their gerrymandering of districts over the years is not helping them with this election. Carnahan and Clay have both voted for very unpopular bills including health care control, TARP, and the auto bailout. These bills were all passed and have done little to nothing to improve our overall economic condition.

I am signing off for now to go work the campaigns. You should do the same.

Lacy Clay's Radio Interview

In case you did not know or hear about it, Congressman Lacy Clay was on KWMU on Monday. Don Marsh gave what I will call a friendly interview with Clay, not really challenging him as much as he could have been. You can listen to the interview here:

Windows Media Version or MP3 Version

Honestly, you do not really get anything new out of Lacy that we have not heard before. That said, there were a couple of things that I found interesting.

1. Why is it that Lacy feels the only way to creat jobs is via the government. He touts jobs saved but it was only through government intervention. He talks about 600 jobs created but it was only because of newly created government jobs. At no time did he talk about making it easier for businesses to hire new employees. He did briefly mention the small business bill, but that was in reference to his whining about Republicans being obstructionist.


2. When did Lacy Clay become a hawk (pro defense). This is a man who repeatedly talks about and speaks ill of going to war in Iraq and Afghanistan, yet he talked highly of the defense spending for Boeing. Maybe it is just me, but it seems hypocritical.


3. He talked of the cynicism and obstructionism of Republicans and how after the election they should have come together to work with Obama. Well, it seams to me that the Democrats are just as guilty of obstructionism, see Freddie and Fannie reform as covered previously, and Republicans did offer alternatives that Obama, for the most part refused to listen to.

After listening to the interview, I was able to touch bsae with Robyn Hamlin regarding his remarks about the Federal Reserve. He took some not so subtle swipes at Robyn and others regarding the Fed. This is what Robyn had to say.

He would not co-sponsor HR 1207 until Barney Frank told him it was okay and by
that time there were enough co-sponsors for the bill to pass if it made it to the floor. Clay sits on the financial services committee and they watered it down then added it to another bill. He did NOT vote for HR 1207 to Audit The Fed in it's initial wording. The Audit The Fed bill was a one page bill.

In essence, Lacy did not have the backbone to do what is right and stand up for a cause. He had to wait for others to get involved.

Lacy is lock step in with the likes of Nancy Pelosi and Barney Frank.

The Truth Behind Budget Surpluses

You know how Dems are out there saying that it was Clinton and the Democrats that brought about budget surpluses. Well this great video debunks that myth with the one thing that Dems cannot argue, statistics and facts.

It was not Clinton that brought budget surpluses, but a Republican majority that forced it.

New York Times Gives Hamlin & Martin No Chance

It’s funny what you can stumble across when surfing the web. While surfing through the many news websites I stumbled upon this piece of gold from the New York Times. Apparently, the grey old lady is not giving Robyn Hamlin and Ed Martin much if any chance of winning their elections. Even though their polling shows Martin and Carnahan in a tight race, they are giving Ed Martin only a 5% chance of winning. In the case of Robyn Hamlin, they are giving her no chance of winning, predicting she will only take 24% of the vote in the first district.

You can find these forecasts here and here

Now, you may be asking yourself, where does this come from? Well, the Times appears to be using a group call FiveThirtyEight. You can find out more about them by going here.

I am sure some of you will read this and immediately believe this guy, Nate Silver, to be a political hack. You know what, he may be. That said, he is a stats junkie for Baseball Prospectus and tends to be right more than he is wrong. I have read and listened to this guy on the radio and he knows his stuff. Additionally, he made some early calls on the 2008 primaries that were spot on. He tends to know his stuff given enough information.

That said, I post this as more of a wake up call to you first and third MO district residents. This information is based upon history of the area including voter turnout, etc. but is also based upon polling data. In the case of Robyn Hamlin vs. Lacy Clay, it does not appear there is any polling data to support this case, it is all based upon history. In the case of Ed Martin vs. Russ Carnahan, it is based upon history and polls from August.

What does this mean, it means the establishment is writing off the challengers for these two districts. They are saying that Robyn and Ed have no chance of winning. Do no let this get you down, though. The forecasters have been wrong and will continue to be wrong. It is up to YOU to make the difference. In the case of Robyn Hamlin, all we have is history of the district. There have been no polls that I can find to show where she is truly at. In the case of Ed Martin, even though the polls are old, the forecasts are showing a fairly close race. YOU are the ones that need to make sure you vote and get other like minded individuals out there voting. YOU are the ones who need to make sure that the uninformed are informed. Otherwise the uninformed and the like minded will get their information from the MSM and either skip voting or be an uninformed voter.

We are now less than 30 days away. Quit hitting the snooze button and do what has to be done. Let’s prove the forecasters and the New York Times wrong.

Now Playing In A Theater Near You

It's Time For Us To Go John Galt

My friends, whenever I go away for work I always bring a book with me. You never know if you are going to be stuck in a terminal, a hotel room, waiting room, etc. You cannot always guarantee Internet coverage on your phone or an interesting movie in your hotel room. With this past week, even though it had not been that long, I decided to pull out my well worn copy of Atlas Shrugged. It being one of my favorites, I thought I would re-read it as time allowed. Considering what was supposed to be a 1 week trip turned out to be much longer, I was glad I did.

I bring this up because as I read about this and the more I think about it, the more I think it is time for each of us to go John Galt. No, I am not saying that we need to disappear in the cloak of night and come together in some secret society. No. Instead what I feel we should each do is start to disassociate ourselves from our communities. Instead, we should make do with what we can without using that which any government has to offer. Are you or your spouse a stay at home parent, then home school and make the educational choices for your children instead of having the government make them for you. Teach them the way that you think they should be taught. Give them the education they deserve instead of the education that the school system has elected to give them. This is just one of many ways you can unplug yourself from the shackles of the government. If you can, restrict your usage of any government buildings and properties. Do not purchase from companies that support non-defense government agencies. The more you remove yourself from the government, the free-er you become.

I know this sounds seperationist, but it is not. You see, the more that you become reliant on the government, the more you become enslaved by it. That is the beauty of a book like "Atlas Shrugged". Those doers of society, those of us who work hard, pay our taxes and do what we can to improve ourselves are constantly penalized by a government that is trying to create some sort of equality that is not possible or plausible. By removing yourself and as many dependencies as you have from the government, you are taking away their power and influence.

The government, and I mean all forms of government from Federal to state and local, has made each of us dependent upon them. This was done in order to make the government and each of those government employees necessary. Unlike working in the private sector where streamlining and cost efficiency is paramount to survival, the government works with what they believe is a limitless check book. They can justify their spending because of each one of us and the way we use them. By removing ourselves from them, their need becomes less and more prevalent.

The US Constitution is a set of rules and limitations on the government, not a set of rights for its citizens. This is a powerful thing. The way the government has gotten around this is by making each of us more and more addicted to what it has to offer. As of now, there is no way that I know of to be a part of a community that completely disassociates ourselves from the government, but we can slowly remove ourselves. So, as we go into the upcoming elections, vote for smaller government, vote for less government intervention and work to remove yourself as much as you can from the use of any government program.

Go Galt.

Post Script
I wrote this article late in the evening on 9/30. I decided not to post it so I could have a close friend read this article and give me any feedback. This is something I normally do when I write an article at night. This way another set of eyes can look at it and make sure I do not ramble or I made my points. After reading this article, he called me laughing,
"So you listened to Glenn Beck?"
"No", I told him, "I could not find a station it is on down there"
"Are you sure", he said.
"Yeah."
"Well then you two must be mind melding. Check out the link I just sent you."
Opening it, I read the link and started to laugh.
"Well", I said, "Maybe Glenn just got done re-reading Atlas Shrugged too."
I am glad to know that I am not the only one thinking this way.