First Campaing Update for the 2010 cycle!

CAN WE WIN KIRSTEN GILLIBRAND’S SEAT?

by William J Murray

            The House
Democrat leadership is very unhappy with the appointment of 20th District
Congresswoman Kirsten Gillibrand to the Senate by New York’s Governor David
Paterson. Even Speaker Nancy Pelosi is making it known that Gillibrand’s seat
in upstate New York will be very hard to hold. Republicans view the 20th
District as a stronghold for their party that they lost in 2006 only because of
scandals and the total ineptness of former House Speaker Dennis Hastert. Also,
Kirsten Gillibrand was one of the few New York Democrats conservative enough to
be backed by the NRA. She is an avid hunter and a fiscal conservative.

            “This
should be a Republican seat,” said Bob Bellafiore, a former press secretary to
Gov. George Pataki (R). “Having hit rock bottom, this is the first step for
Republicans in New York to start their comeback, by winning a seat that should
be rightfully theirs.”

            But the
big question is whether the Republicans will run a conservative who fits the
nature of the district or “go for the middle” with a anti-tax candidate who
supports same sex marriage, or even worse, is pro-abortion. As Republicans
moved away from social conservatives in the Northeast they lost more and more
seats.

           Within hours of Gillibrand being sworn into the Senate,
Republican leaders met and picked Assembly Minority Leader Jim Tedisco as their
candidate. It is unknown if the Conservative Party will back him as well.
Tedisco was the 2006 candidate for governor on the GOP ticket. As you may recall,
he lost to Elliot Spitzer who is best known nationally for hiring high dollar
prostitutes. Tedisco has received at times a 100% rating from the NY Right to
Life Committee, and a zero rating from abortion group NARAL. He is also part of
an Alliance Defense Fund lawsuit to stop Gov. Paterson from allowing homosexual
marriage.

            If Jim
Tedisco wins this special election it will show that the Republican party does
not lie cold in the grave. But Jim Tedisco is not the kind of candidate the big
money guys in the Republican Party want. Wall Street favors anti-tax candidates
who also favor same-sex marriage and the whole homosexual agenda. Walls Street
and the big corporations see big bucks in the “gay agenda” and favor going back
to the days of Richard Nixon, when social conservatives were not welcome in the
Republican Party at all. Wall Street and particularly the editors of the Wall
Street Journal just do not understand that without social conservatives the
Republican Party can’t win elections. The problem on Wall Street is that they
don’t understand who Billy Joe is or why he votes Republican.

WHO IS BILLY JOE AND WHY IS HE A REPUBLICAN?

            Billy Joe, his wife and three children live in a double
wide in Virginia, and last November he voted for the McCain/Palin ticket. Billy
Joe does construction work that has not been easy to find for the last year or
so. He has no medical insurance, and his children are covered under a
combination state and federal medical program. His family would qualify for
food stamps, but he is not willing to apply for them. He did not earn enough in
2008 to pay any income tax and will get a refund equal to a little more than
was withheld from his checks for taxes. Just doesn’t sound like he should vote
Republican, but he does. He told me he votes Republican because he loves his
God, his family and his shotgun, in that order.

            I
met Billy Joe in the parking lot at the Super Wal-Mart when he asked me where I
got the “Palin for President 2012” bumper sticker that was on my Jeep. I told
him the PAC I am chairman of made them up and handed him two, which he tried to
pay me for. He had no idea what a PAC (Political Action Committee) was. We
talked about his kids and he told me how he wanted them to grow up in a country
where they wouldn’t be ashamed to talk about the Lord at school and could go
hunting it they wanted to. He was afraid the public schools were going to teach
his boys that being gay was better than being straight, and he smiled and
assured me it wasn’t. Billy Joe is one of the faces of the Republican Party we
never see on Capitol Hill; he is the part of the party that would stand in line
overnight to get a glimpse of Gov. Sarah Palin.

            The
day after I met Billy Joe, I attended a meeting with the new chairman of the
House Republican Conference, Congressman Mike Pence. At the meeting he talked
about how the Republican Party  was
moving to a stance of “protecting  the
taxpayer,” and how that was going to move the party back into the majority two
years hence. As Congressman Pense went on and on about protecting the
taxpayers, I thought about Billy Joe and realized that the good congressman had
no idea who the real constituency of the Republican Party was. Most
millionaires and billionaires, including Warren Buffet, voted for Barack Obama.
It was guys like Billy Joe who elected Ronald Reagan and George W. Bush, and
they had done it out of principle, not out of greed. A lot of them did not even
make enough money to pay income taxes.

            As
Pence spoke, he didn’t realize he was telling us, “We can buy the votes of the
taxpayers by telling them we will help them keep more of their money to buy
consumer goods.” This just does not matter to Billy Joe and millions like him
who have voted Republican since Ronald Reagan ran in 1980. It was Reagan who
convinced them that the Democrat Party had deserted him and them, and adopted
the gay Hollywood lifestyle that promoted killing babies in the womb and
banning God in the classroom.

            I
don’t know exactly how many Billy Joe’s there are  who voted Republican, but after talking to
him I drove through a trailer park and discovered a lot more American flags
flying there than in my own neighborhood, and a lot of McCain/Palin bumper
stickers still on the tailgates of pickup trucks. I can’t prove this, but my
guess is that as many as a full quarter of those who vote GOP do not make
enough money to actually pay income taxes. I base this on the fact that 41% of
those who file income tax returns have a “zero tax liability.” That means they
got back 100% or more of any tax withheld from their paychecks.

            Congressman
Mike Pence is a good man and a smart man, but he has read too much drivel in
Heritage Foundation White Papers. Pence and a few other key Republican figures
should stand in front of a Wal-Mart to meet some Republicans who actually work
for a living, the kind that care more about their families and God than about
buying alligator skin covered trash cans at Rodeo Drive boutique shops. With
the knowledge of who their constituency actually is, just maybe they could
start to understand how to win elections again.

WE MUST REPLENISH OUR FUNDS

            There are
going to be run-offs and special elections almost immediately. Just about all
of our funds have been exhausted during the hard fought 2008 election cycle. We
must prepare now for the upcoming fight to put more social conservatives in the
House and Senate. Please send a check or give an online gift at
www.gingpac.org .

William J. Murray, Chairman

Government Is Not
God – PAC