Just saw him interviewed by John King Roberts on Fox News, and I have to say, he was refreshingly blunt, as is his campaign website.
King Roberts referenced this tweet by McCotter:
But I don’t know much (indeed, almost anything) about him. I do know he supported the Goverment Motors bailout, so that’s an issue, and it seems inconsistent with so many of his other positions.
So tell me about Thaddeus McCotter.
Related Posts: So tell me about Rick Perry, Mitt Romney, Michele Bachmann, Tim Pawlenty
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I wasn’t aware that Fox had hired John King away from CNN. Thanks for the heads up on that Mr. Jacobs.
My error, John Roberts.
;-))
Just spent a week up in Detroit. Everyone was talking about him. He will get a huge push from the non-union automotive guys. Maybe even some of the union guys too. He knows his stuff. After listening to them I want to research him more.
I don’t know much about him, either. The times I’ve caught him on Greg Gutfeld’s “Red Eye” and Dennis Miller’s radio show I appreciated his quick wit. Seems to be at ease with cameras and microphones pointed his way, much the way Huckabee usually is. Hopefully, he supports Israel as much as Huckabee does and is more conservative. I can hope.
The only flaws I’ve seen in his otherwise sterling conservative logic stem from his strong support of unions (which explains his stance on the GM bailout). I’ve always written this off as a necessary evil for anyone running for elective office in his corner of Michigan. That is, that if Michigan’s 11th District didn’t have a pro-union Republican representative, it wouldn’t have a Republican representative at all.
I understand your logic that a Republican must be pro-union to get elected in that part of Michigan, however, what about the rule of law in regards to the GM bailout and the heisting of the company by the government for the unions? The GM bailout overturned over two hundred years of bankruptcy law in disregarding the senior status of bondholders in bankruptcy proceedings and there was hardly a peep from the corrupt media and the public in general. It seems to me that if this guy was serious about the rule of law he would have said something about the government’s actions in this regard. Instead, we now have the rule of man superceding the rule of law.
I couldn’t have said it better.
Supporting the initial bailout, and supporting the blatant seizure of the company and the ensuing illegal bankruptcy are separate issues.
Victor is on the money with his assessment.
I don’t live in his district, but close enough (Dave Camp’s) to know a little bit about the political realities of Southeast Michigan.
He talks the talk. But do his votes? Don’t know. Personally, his sarcasm is a turn off. We already have a joker in the White House.
I became aware of McCotter years back while channel surfing. I landed on C-SPAN and heard a man giving a highly articulate, intelligent, and fluid speech with the command of the English language I had not heard before in a politician. It was McCotter.
I think he exceeds in broader American philosophy, as opposed to policy–like a Paul Ryan.
I think he’s as close to an American Daniel Hannan as you’ll find.
Browndog, my sentiments exactly. I think of him as a “G.K. Chesterton conservative” in his thinking. And you’re right about his oratorical skills. Such a straight shooter. After two-and-a-half years of Obama’s hemming, hawing, stumbling and lies, malice, deceit, cynicism and cluelessness, the frank and articulate McCotter will be as refreshing as iced tea after a trek through the desert. See http://tinyurl.com/3der9zt
McCotter can win those “Reagan Democrats” and independents that we need in order to win the White House. And he won’t win them by watering down conservatism — but rather, by explaining it so well that people will be persuaded. Plus, he really cares about everyday Americans, and that sincere caring comes through nice and clear.
You might review comments Michelle Malkin brought up earlier this week. McCotter talks one way but votes another. He completely alienated the Tea Party by getting them all riled up behind his fight against the mortgage bailout bill and then voted for it. And that is only one example of his duplicity. Don’t waste your time.
http://michellemalkin.com/2011/07/03/welcome-back-mccotter/
One more thing, McCotter is merely the latest RINO entry that the GOP establishment is running in their “RINO stampede” strategy to confuse and water down the conservative vote.
One of the supporting arguments the GOP establishment will make in blaming conservatives should they lose is that “we can’t satisfy the purity rule conservatives impose on all of our candidates. No one is good enough.”
Yeah, we don’t like Democrats but they are stampeding us with nothing but while marginalizing conservatives like Palin and Bachmann with the “Goldwater Rule”. In other words, conservatives are not “electable” and the best conservative available will again be a liberal Democrat.
Pasadena Phil Rule: I don’t vote for liberals or Democrats, especially ESPECIALLY when they run as Republicans.
His support of the auto bailout isn’t just inconsistent with conservative principles; it’s also dishonest in that it has led him to criticize Mitt Romney’s original opposition to the bailout. Romney wrote an op-ed in late ’08 in which he said the companies should go through structured bailouts to shed debt, reorganize, and survive as an American industry. Despite the fact that that’s EXACTLY what they ended up doing, McCotter has picked up the liberal talking point that Romney’s op-ed was a sign that he wanted the auto industry to fail outright. Whether McCotter is being dishonest or just plain hasn’t paid attention to what’s been going on at GM over the last two years, it’s not looking good for his leadership abilities.
I like McCotter; I’ve liked him for longer than most people have known who he is, in fact. His floor speeches on the House against the original stimulus bill in ’09 and since have warmed my heart. However, that now only underscores the hypocrisy in supporting a completely ineffective and unnecessary bailout of Detroit that only served to solidify union control of one of the Big Three and place virtually half of another in the hands of a foreign company. The only reason Ford escaped becoming a government/union-run enterprise is because it didn’t take any bailout money. And guess what? It’s also the only one that didn’t go through any sort of bankruptcy/restructuring. McCotter is just plain wrong on this issue.
So — if Welcome Back McCotter is so smart, how did he get sucked into voting for card-check? He obviously supports unionism, else he could not be elected, so he can never be on my list.
Then again, nobody, and I mean nobody, knows who he is.
He’s another neo-con who would give us more of the same. Oh, and he voted for card check, but now that it’s political poison, he “apologizes”.
He’s on WJR in Detroit all the time. He’s very, very funny and honest. He has a few bugaboos in his background as previously mentioned, but I like him very much. He hasn’t a prayer, of course, but I think he’s in the running to push the field to the right. I guess I’m not adding much here, but to say he almost feels like one of the family. He’s not afraid to smack people around.
Long shot, lacks ticker, prior convictions, risky conveyance,
wouldn’t back it with bad money
Glossary of Australian and New Zealand punting
Thaddeus McCotter: brilliant name for a fictional candidate, not a chance in hell as a real one.
I am at a loss to see how someone who supports unions, card check, auto bailouts, making Patriot Act permanent, and a Constitutional amendment banning flag desecration pushes the field to right.
@Tea Party at Perrysburg
You added what I would have added, had I added…
I too listen to WJR (daily), and he flat out said he entered the race because, as he put it, he’s not hearing enough talk about American exceptionalism among the current field.
Lastly, I know of no current GOP candidate that hasn’t been labeled a RINO by someone, somewhere……something to think about.
Ron Paul
Ron Paul actually is a Republican in name only, but for a different reason: he’s a libertarian. It’s clear from the first word out of his mouth that he’s out of step with the majority of the Republican Party, and yet he’s never left the party. Why? Because he knows he hasn’t got a chance of becoming president unless he’s nominated AS a Republican.
I appreciate Pasadena Phil’s analysis. Interesting to watch but be cautious about relying on another McC too much.
He’s a legislator. His primary concern is reelection, so his position on any given issue is the same as the chicken on top of the barn: whichever way the wind is blowing. Legislators can do two things. They can attend meetings and they can hold press conferences. What we need is an executive to lead, not another legislator who lacks any employable skills.
Viator.
80% of those idioms are used in everyday life. Funny to see them listed like that .
The last time we elected a President about whom most voters knew nothing, the Country got screwed.
Equating Thaddeus to Barry?
If “most voters didn’t know anything” about Barack Hussein Obama, it was only because they CHOSE not to. ALL the info about his communist background, the dirty tricks he pulled to get his opponents in Illinois knocked off the ballot, his relationships with Bill Ayers, Jeremiah Wright, Tony Rezko, Rashid Khalidi, et al. — all of this was public information.
Granted, the MSM covered for him as best as they could — but even when the facts were laid before people, they just tuned them out. Case in point: As a Catholic and a pro-lifer, I informed people about Obama’s appalling advocacy of infanticide when he was in the Illinois Senate. Many of them were shocked and horrified — and then voted for Obama ANYWAY — because THEY’D ALREADY MADE UP THEIR MIND to vote for him. The old “don’t confuse me with the facts” obtuseness. It was all about feeling good about themselves, about congratulating themselves for being so enlightened and all, voting for America’s first black president. Trying to absolve themselves from their neurotic “white guilt.”
People knew plenty about Barack Obama. But their emotions overruled all the facts. They CHOSE to be stupid. Anyone not neurotically invested in the Obama cult could have predicted every single thing that he’s done.
Thaddeus McCotter, on the other hand, is an open book. You may not like everything he’s done, you may disagree with him on one issue or another, but by the time these primaries are over, you won’t “know nothing” about him. He is EAGER to tell you anything you want to know. Check out the interview videos on his website, http://mccotter2012.com.
“Our sovereignty is in our souls not the soil.”
That is off-putting to me. A false contrast. The soil (land) is as integral with our sovereignty and souls as our souls are integral with our sovereignty and soil. Civilization depends absolutely on six inches of top soil. Soul is civilization and soil is life. One cannot exist apart from the other.
Some will say that is a sophistical consideration. Developments will yield the answer.
I agree 1000%, David. Very poor choice of words on his part. If I had any connection to his campaign, I’d tell him to scrap that one, pronto. (Unfortunately, I don’t see a “Contact” link on his website yet.) I’ve read his book, though, and seen quite a few of his speeches/interviews, and I know that he doesn’t mean what it sounds like with this phrase. As I said, very poor choice of words — and he gets the point across plenty well with his first point: “Our liberty is from God, not the government.”
In his book, he frequently quotes G.K. Chesterton and Allan Carlson, who are known for their eloquent espousal of precisely the point you make — namely, that souls and soil are intimately linked. What I call an “Incarnational” view of the world — what GKC called “the sacramental imagination.” God looked at the world, and called it GOOD. And fashioned man out of the earth itself. (“Adam” is Hebrew for soil/earth/ground.) And the Word Himself BECAME FLESH. As someone once said, Christianity affirms that “matter… MATTERS.”
McCotter shares these views. I hope that he either drops “Point 2” or rephrases it — because if even people who are predisposed to listen to his message are put off by it, it’s sure to be confusing and/or off-putting to those who don’t know much about him.
I have heard him state the point as “Our sovereignty is in our souls, not the soil or a scepter” — the intent being that we are, as individuals, sovereign human beings, with God-given liberty that government has no right to take away.
As for the sovereignty-soil confusion, look at what he said in an issue paper on securing our borders (http://tinyurl.com/5v4mwpz), where he uses the concept in nearly an opposite fashion from the badly phrased 5-point campaign slogan:
“Responsibly and justly ending illegal immigration will secure our sovereignty and soil without animus or an amnesty…”
As a farmowner and longtime sustainable-agriculture advocate, I love the eloquence of your comment:
“Civilization depends absolutely on six inches of topsoil. Soul is civilization and soil is life. One cannot exist without the other.”
Hardly a “sophistical consideration”!! Rather it is the height of common sense, and essential for survival. As I said, I think such a Chestertonian as McCotter agrees with all this. Indeed, I notice he’s the only GOP candidate who consistently brings up the nation’s farms and farmers in his speeches and interviews.
If I can figure out a way to reach his campaign staff, believe me, I will urge clarification!
Instapundit likes him, at least as a character.
http://pajamasmedia.com/instapundit/119210/
http://pajamasmedia.com/instapundit/123004/
http://pajamasmedia.com/instapundit/123529/
and more
http://pajamasmedia.com/instapundit/?s=mccotter