"If only we taught our children the all-too-human facts of our own history, they might be more critical of the ahistorical hysteria fed to them daily by an agenda-driven press," we emailed Senate Historian Dick Baker three years back in a brief and delightful exchange about the caning of Massachusetts Senator Charles Sumner by a South Carolina Representative in opposition to the Senator's anti-slavery campaign in the heated political climate of pre-Civil-War America. (Caning of Senator Charles Sumner, May, 1856, NY Public Library collection)
"It's pointless to try to reform this outfit. Instead, a write-in campaign should be started," writes Former Republican in the comments to our previous post, "Let's make Scott Brown's Senate race a 'referendum on Obamacare'":
The Massachusetts Republican establishment has a long history of conceding the majority of elections in return for a small but significant slice of the patronage and an agreement to allow a few dunderhead hereditary Republicans to run unopposed for the state legislature.
The commenter's words ring all too true for us in the wake of the recent unpleasantness at the local Newburyport Republican Club Christmas Party. Having become aware of the Northshore Boston bedroom-community group at our very first ever Tea Party last March here behind enemy lines in Taxachusetts, we assumed there would be, as our imail correspondent and partner in crime put it, "a great meeting in the catacombs" with a tea-party equivalent of the early Christians' drawing in the dirt of the sign of the fish:
Instead I found glad-handing self-promotion among the men in suits and ties while the women were relegated to discussing what's for dinner and toys for tots.
We had been led to believe that Scott Brown himself would be there, but the party's choice was a no-show, preferring to schmooze with perhaps a more influential group of men in suits somewhere in the western part of the state that night. We gave Scott Brown a piece of our mind via this blog, Facebook and Twitter, but all we got back was a form letter telling potential supporters like us that the big guy was "too busy running for Senate" to "be more personal." So. About that write-in campaign for the Kennedy seat? Who would you nominate? We tried to come up with a starter list, but no one came to mind. As Tuck said, anyone we might want to have represent us inside the Beltway probably wouldn't want to run. Any takers?
This just in from Jim Murray in the comments to that previous post:
Yup. Mad as Hell, and we aren't going to take it anymore.The grand old party of good old boys think they can continue business as usual and the tea party crowd will jump on board. Sorry, Charlie. It isn't going to happen.
It seems that most politicians of both parties are not people of principle but opportunists hoping to live a life supported by the public udder. Damn the politicians, full speed to elect those who will strive to restore the land of the free.
Posted by: goomp | December 27, 2009 at 05:55 PM