by Roy Exum
posted May 18, 2008
 Roy Exum |
But then he became a politician. When he was mayor I called him one time about something that was important to me and, to put it in a nutshell, he told me to mind my own business. I told him, to put it in a nutshell, that I was sorry - real sorry - that I called him and, in a quiet voice, promised I would never call him again.
Now when the senator sends me mail, I send it back. Once during his campaign I got seven different pieces of mail from his people on the same day. As I mailed them back, I asked to be taken off his mailing list. I have now written him seven different times in an effort to rid myself of his garbage because that is what political solicitations are now to me.
During Bobby’s most recent campaign, I voted for him early because, as has sadly become my pattern, I am usually voting “against” somebody. Had I known his campaign would include a late TV ad that had a sultry blonde urging his opponent to come to the Playboy Club, I can assure you I would never have voted for my old high school chum.
The reason I bring this up is because earlier this week a syndicated Washington Post columnist, E.J. Dionne, wrote a pointed piece on the Republican Party’s lunacy, best summarized by a retiring representative who said, “If we were dog food they’d take us off the shelf and put us in a landfill.”
But the better part was Corker’s admission that his party’s tawdry tactics during his campaign almost cost him his election and the senator said he was “furious” over that radioactive Playboy commercial, adding it was aired without his knowledge.
Corker further redeemed himself when the article claimed he recently advised his party colleagues to avoid mud-slinging, to instead focus on the positives and not to mention their opponents. Could it be that he senses many of us are increasingly fed up with the slimy way his party characterizes “hard-fisted politics?”
Has Bobby come to his senses, finding when he resorts to the gutter, he’s the one who stinks?
Well, to hear his version was refreshing to me, but, alas, it lasted only one day.
The very next day the state’s Republican Party – Corker’s crowd –unleashed a scathing attack on Barack Obama and his wife, which was described this way by one party spokeswoman, “We had a little opportunity to paint a contrast between the elitism coming from Barack Obama and his wife, Michelle, and the grass roots, blue-collar reception extended to John McCain and his wife, Cindy.”
The video shows these people from Tennessee saying how proud they are to be Americans, but then this spokeswoman, in a way that will surely glean McCain’s rival countless votes, said in an acid way, “You (Mrs. Obama) and your husband don’t look this way. It is not a matter of color; it is a matter of culture.”
Are you kidding me! That is every bit as bad as the Playboy commercial, if not worse. I don’t know what the Democratic Party is paying the Republican advertising people, but – believe this – it isn’t enough. Next they’ll show McCain sitting in his wife’s personal jet and calling himself a hitch-hiker.
But what is worse it makes Bobby just a talker. Twenty-four hours after he had soft-soaped the Washington Post, out comes the sleaze in his own home town and it makes the senator appear to be a politician who, as they are wont to do, talks out of both sides of his mouth.
He may later claim that, once again, he knew nothing about the latest Republican folly, that he from his august chair would never say, “It’s not a matter of color; it is a matter of culture.” But if I was a senator and these people were clearly costing me votes, you can bet Mrs. McCain’s tax-return I would do something besides talk.
Don’t you see? The hay is in the barn – the damage is done. And I don’t want to be around people like that, even if they were friends of mine a long time ago.
royexum@aol.com
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