Leatherwood Reacts To Frist’s Blackburn Endorsement
Posted on May 28, 2008 at 10:43 amCongressman Marsha Blackburn’s insurgent challenger, Tom Leatherwood, has reacted to yesterday’s endorsement of Blackburn by former Senator Bill Frist:
I’m disappointed that Bill Frist would endorse the unethical behavior and ineffectiveness of my opponent by getting involved in this Republican primary, however it is his choice. I’ve always known that my victory would depend on whether or not rank and file Republican primary voters believe issues of integrity and effectiveness are important.
While many families are struggling to pay for gas and groceries, incumbent Blackburn has funneled over $300,000 from campaign and PAC accounts to her daughter and son-in-law. They received $46,935 for “campaign work” leading up to Blackburn’s 2004 victory, in which she didn’t have an opponent in the primary or general elections.
While many Tennesseans are unable to afford vacations this summer, she has allowed special interests to “privately finance” over $100,000 of travel during her tenure, to places such as Fort Walton Beach, Aspen, Las Vegas, Chicago, California, and more. This is one of the ways that special interest groups gain influence in Washington.
The price of gas, groceries and vacations do not greatly affect incumbent Blackburn or others who are a part of the money and power culture of Washington D. C. However, they are very important to me and most other Tennesseans.
It is ludicrous for anyone to say she has been effective on the major issues facing our nation. Can anyone seriously look at the problems in our country today and say any of the incumbents in D. C. have “effectively” addressed them?
Since I entered this race, I’ve always known that my victory depends on rank and file Republican voters who feel disenchanted with the ineffectiveness and lack of integrity in our party’s leadership.
This is the same party that once held a majority in both houses of Congress, and recently lost all three of the special elections held for House seats. I believe Republican primary voters know we need effective conservative leaders in the Republican Party– those who will lead with integrity and the drive to accomplish objectives, rather than just talking about them.
Interestingly, Lamar Alexander’s campaign folks relay to Post Politics that Tennessee’s senior Senator told Congressman Blackburn months ago that he would support her re-election and has contributed to her campaign.
I don’t remember seeing a presser touting that endorsement. Is Bill Frist’s endorsement more valuable in a GOP primary than Lamar’s or did the press release just get past me?
Comments
14 Responses to “Leatherwood Reacts To Frist’s Blackburn Endorsement”
To say a former Senate majority leader’s endorsement is not important is ‘ludicrous.’ Maybe a Lamar announcement is coming…who knows…
So far all Leatherwood has talked about is the FEC and some vague notions of ineffectiveness. So she hired her daughter to work on her campaign. Not smart but not the worst thing in the world. Who hasn’t worked with friends or family? And wasn’t it more like $60,000 over the course of 6 years? Clearly her daughter is getting rich…
Blackburn has also fought for a gas-tax holiday this summer. That should affect the ‘rank and file’
I’ll bet anyone else on here Mickey shows up on here and mumbles something about Blackburn being the queen of pork. Any takers?
Marsha also fought for the Bridge to Nowhere.
Did Tom just call former Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist ludicrous? Not only has this seemingly unknown register of deeds insulted Bill Frist but he has blamed Tennessee’s Senior Senator Lamar Alexander, Senator Corker and the rest of the TN Delegation for their ineffectiveness in dealing with the problems facing the country today through a lack of integrity and leadership. Who is Tom going to throw under the bus next? Fred Thompson and Howard Baker? Tom’s press release is sounds like nothing more than the pent up frustration of a Left Wing Blogger. Those that can do and those that can’t teach. As a former educator, Tom might want to check to see if he can get his old job back as a Shelby County school teacher because I have a feeling that his involvement in the TN GOP is about to come to an abrupt end.
Endorsements by Frist and Alexander are nothing to brag about. These men helped create and foster a big mess my grandchildren will be left to deal with.
Donna is correct. IF we are lucky, Bush will endorse and campaign for Marsha
I don’t think I would take anything that is said on “bluecollarrepublican.com” seriously. Mickey White ran for Congress against Blackburn and received less than 1% of the vote. Another one of their bloggers over there, Austin Farley, ran against Jim Coley for State Rep and only received 996 votes. And if either blogger were a student at UT-Knoxville they probably would have lost to Curtis Sanderfer for SGA President who won with 2,120 votes. Sanderfer has accomplished something that neither Blue Collar blogger has been able to, he�s surpassed the epic 1,000 vote mark!
Novak, you sound as stupid here as you did there.
Mickey,
For you to be a constitutional advocate you tend to conveniently dismiss a little thing called freedom of speech. You and John Farmer over at BlueCollarRepublican.com have about as much respect for free speech as Benito Mussolini did. You censor and edit the comments of anyone on that site that does not buy into your Marsha Blackburn is a liberal John Birch Society propaganda. The last time I checked not only did you lose to Blackburn in 2006 but you also lost the Independent vote to Kathleen A. Culver who no one has ever heard of before. Where was the mass support from BCR readership during that race? Were they uninspired by their candidate and choose to stay at home?
Yes Ms. Culver (green party) beat me, but I was 2nd and beat the other independents. My mission, that I have accepted, is to show the inconsistency of Marsha Blackburn’s vote and how she SAYS that she voted.
To The Fayette County Review:
Congressman Marsha Blackburn came to Oakland, Saturday 04/09/05, for a town-hall visit. I went to see her for three reasons: So that I could hear her speak, the questions and answers at the end, and to hand out the latest report card of her performance.
Her speech was typical, short on specifics and long on generalities. She spoke about her visit to Iraq, Tort reform, a Balance Budget Amendment, reduction in non-defense non-homeland security spending, social security, and how she is on the committee on government reform that is looking at waste, fraud, and abuse in government spending.
She apparently takes her Fayette County constitutes as fools. Congress does not need a balance budget amendment; they just need to balance the budget. This could be done without an amendment, but they cannot do it because they are spend-aholics; all they have to do is raise taxes to balance the budget. She voted this year to increase the debt limit to $8.18 TRILLION. And talking about waste, Marsha Blackburn has voted for just about every Omnibus Appropriations bill that has been put through Congress on her watch. The latest spending bill, with a cost of $388.4 BILLION, contains $121,250 for renovations at a Philadelphia ballet school. She voted for that, which does not sound as if she is trying to control waste to me.
The question and answer period was too short. Someone asked her if she would cosponsor the bill that would withdraw the U.S. form the UN (with at least half of the citizens attending applauding this request) and she said a most definite “NO”.
I handed the report card of her voting record to all in attendance. Her score was poor, to say the least. It was only 2 stars out of 8 (25% out of 100). It can be viewed on the internet at: http://www.trimonline.org/bulletin/108-5/tennessee/TN07.pdf
Marsha Blackburn is no conservative.
“TRIM is a division of The John Birch Society. For more information about The John Birch Society please visit the official website at http://www.jbs.org.”- From Trimline.org
As I said before Bluecollarrepublican.com is nothing more than a mouth piece for the John Birch Society. BCR censors and edits all dissenting comments. You are clearly a card carrying member and facilitator of their propaganda: http://home.midsouth.rr.com/mickeyw/ (an actual pic of your JBS card can be seen here)
“At no point in your rambling, incoherent response were you even close to anything that could be considered a rational thought. Everyone in this room is now dumber for having listened to it. I award you no points, and may God have mercy on your soul.”
Mickey, I award you no points.
My patrol: I have been a JBS member for over 25 years. It used to mention my membership on BCR, but the site was hacked and all was lost about 4 months ago…
The truth still stands. Marsha Blackburn’s voted and I take her to task for the bad ones.
Oh patrol, BCR is John Farmer’s blog, and John is not a member of the JBS. And least we forget:
Comment by BCR
May 17, 2008 @ 4:28 am
I warned you Novak. This blog is open to everyone to express their views, but it is not open to operatives from a candidates campaign who wish to come on board and malign my authors.
Jim is a citizen who does not like his representation in Congress nor the alternatives being offered by either Party. So, he stepped up to the plate and ran himself. I don’t agree with his views on some things, but that is okay. However, this latest Marsha tactic is in very poor taste. Issues fine, personal attacks on my authors will be ended by me if warnings are not heeded. Yours have been ended.
Just an FYI for others. Jim’s remarks about being “liberal” were in context, joking around with other authors who are so far to the right as to make Jim look “liberal”. You had your say Novak, your comments are still present. But I don’t like you and you did not heed my warning. My blog, my rules….if you don’t want to follow them, then kiss my grits and start your own blog.