HoodaThunk?

To say I’ve gotten a bunch of direct mail political advertising the past couple of weeks would be an understatement. I still go through them, however, because even the opposition candidate’s stuff can give you information you can use down the road. So it was with a letter received Saturday from one Pat Heelen of Haymarket, VA.

Pat’s studying for the bar exam in Virginia. I know that because it says so at the bottom of the better. Also says he works in Haymarket. I can’t say what he does there because there’s no other biographical data nor is there any contact information, web site, or such. All I do know about him is he works in Haymarket and he’s studying to pass the bar.

Pat leans on those credentials pretty hard as he goes into a 2-page letter describing how Frank Wolf, Republican Representative for Virginia’s 10th District, isn’t a conservative and isn’t really a Republican. The letter details 9 points of order on Wolf’s voting record and his support of certain positions that are, in Pat’s opinion, antithetical to being Republican. Pat wants me (and other letter recipients, I trust) to call on Congressman Wolf and direct him to call a press conference, immediately, and apologize for and disavow his votes in these 9 issues. While he is careful not to say it explicitly Pat obviously wants us to add the “or else” action to our request to Mr. Wolf of actually voting against him on November 7. From his letter:

If Mr. Wolf continues to ignore his base and Mrs. Feder wins, will Feder’s votes be worse than Mr. Wolf’s votes? Yes, but only marginally. At least Feder will have come as advertised and we can easily rid ourselves of her in 2008.

What charmingly idiotic naivete. Feder’s votes will be a whole lot worse than Wolf’s by a damn sight more than marginally. Feder’s entire campaign has been very little more than “vote for me because I’m not Wolf and I’ll yank those troops out of Iraq so fast the vaccum left behind where the soldiers used to be will make sonic booms we can hear from DC.” As for “easily rid[ding] ourselves of her in 2008,” well, that’s just childish talk. Incumbents are extremely difficult to dislodge. Don’t take my word for it, look at history. And even if you subscribe to that theory, how would it be any more difficult to “rid ourselves” of Frank Wolf in 2008? It wouldn’t, that’s how.

There’s no arguing with the facts of Wolf’s voting record and, from the quick spot check I performed over at house.gov and the Thomas Locator it appears that the information in this letter is accurate insofar as reporting the vote record. I’m not afraid to say that there’s some very troubling trends in that voting record. Wolf voted against the Online Freedom of Speech Act which would have exempted the Internet from the seething train-wreck of an intrusion that is the McCain-Feingold Act. My stance on that issue is well-documented and I’m not happy that Wolf voted against this bill. The letter says Wolf voted against repealing the private ownership of firearms ban in DC. I can’t confirm that, yet, but if it’s true then that’s a very large black eye for the Congressman in my book.

There are other issues. The letter goes on to say that we don’t need Frank Wolf “voting with Democratic Majority Leader Nancy Pelosi 80% of the time.” That figure may be an exaggeration or it might be accurate, I’ve not done all the math, yet. I challenge the unspoken suggestion that we’d be better off (or at least not worse off) with a Representative Feder voting with Pelosi 100% of the time.

In other words, whatever the problems are with Frank Wolf – or, indeed, in general – the answer isn’t to elect more Democrats to office. You think Congress has been gridlocked the past couple of years? Wait until a Democrat majority in the House starts issuing subpeona after subpeona and passing one impeachment resolution after another. Even if they’re all shot down in the Senate the massive amount of manpower and funds going to investigate every little decision and move made by this administration in the past 6 years will bring everything to a grinding halt. And I do mean everything.

If we, as Republicans, have a problem with Frank Wolf, the time to address that problem is in the primaries. That didn’t happen in 2006, there wasn’t even a challenger. And now there are some who are suggesting that we throw away a Congressional seat in order to register a complaint? That’s called cutting off your nose to spite your face. It’s not the smart move in any regard.

Even if I concede everything in that letter (and I don’t, for the record), I’m still better off with a vote my way 20% of the time than 0% and that’s the choice being offered here, even if it’s unspoken.
If someone wants to start up a dialog for running an opposing Republican candidate for the primaries in 2008, fine. But don’t ask for Republicans to vote against their party’s candidate now, with the only choice being to put a Democrat in office. That’s not smart on all kinds of levels and it’s definitely not going to turn out well for anyone who follows that advice.

I’m supporting Frank Wolf for Congress and I think you should, too.

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