Stansell Can’t Say For Sure He Didn’t Vote For Patrick Buchanan
Posted on July 2, 2008 at 8:31 pmI must say I read with interest the news this morning that a Democratic 52nd State House District candidate voted in the 1992 Republican primary. It was interesting not only because it was his very well-financed opposition chose to divulge the information and thus acknowledge their underdog adversary (a clear indication that the man much have some traction) but because that election was so very interesting.
1992, you see, was my political awakening. It was not an election I was able to vote in but it was the first one that I was really engaged in and I can’t imagine having a better one.
An incumbent Republican President, the heir of the Reagan Revolution, goes back on his his pledge not to raise taxes. Despite his sheparding a coalition force of the freedom lovin’ world to drive Saddam Hussein from Kuwait, he attracts a primary opponent. Unusual for a Republican primary of an incumbent president.
That candidate, Pat Buchanan, did not win a primary, of course, but his nearly forty percent share of the vote in New Hampshire shocked the establishment and probably emboldened a certain independent Texan, just one month and some change later, to go on Larry King Live and announce an “openness” to taking a few of his millions of dollars out for a whirl on the campaign trail.
This is to say nothing of the Democratic primary which featured the populist liberal Jerry Brown shopping a flat tax, a Southern Governor with serious scandal-related issues and a Greek deficit hawk former Massachusetts Senator who sounded quite a bit different than the Greek Massachusetts Governor who had nabbed the nomination just four years previous.
It was a truly glorious election to behold in many, many respects.
But back to Stansell. Having experienced the same election at only a slightly younger age than Stansell, I thought it very revealing that he viewed his vote in 1992 “as an act of rebellion.”
Now in the right context, as counterintuitive as it may be, I suppose one could vote for George Bush the Elder as an act of rebellion but as a young conservative of that era myself, I knew where young conservatives stood in that election.
Young people do not generally vote in elections, but when they do, they tend to go for more pure, less comprising men of politics.
In 1992, that was Pat Buchanan. Stansell tells Mr. Braisted he can’t remember whom he voted for in that primary but he thinks it was the incumbent President Bush the Elder. Intrigued by a the prospect of a nineteen year old man not sure of whom he voted for in his first election, I called Mr. Stansell just to see how the same question others had asked him would fall on my ear.
When asked, he reiterated that he likely voted for Bush. “I can’t give you a definite answer. I don’t wanna lie and say I’m sure because I’m not. But like I said, I’m almost positive,” said Stansell.
I decided to ask the question another way. You see, in 1992, there were only three men on the ballot here in Tennessee for the Republicans. There was the incumbent president. There was the conservative commentator Pat Buchanan. And, finally, there was former Klansman David Duke.
I asked Stansell, since he wasn’t sure and there were only three options, whether it was possible he voted for David Duke.
“Absolutely not,” asserted Stansell, “David Duke stands for everything I am against, now and then.”
Of course, I next asked him if could say with 100% certainty that he had not voted for Pat Buchanan.
“No, I can’t say that. Like I said, my Republicanism back then was an act of rebellion against my Democratic family so that kind of a vote would foot that bill. But am almost certain I voted for Bush, ” Stansell said.
When asked to put a percentage on it he said there was a 10% percent chance he voted for Buchanan and a 90% chance he voted for Bush.
Now, what does all this mean in the end? Not a damn thing. 19 year olds do a lot of silly things. Stansell tells Post Politics that his college experience ended up reinforcing what his Democratic parents had taught him and based on his activities since then there is certainly no reason to think this man is either a closet Bushie or Buchananite.
So what was the point? Why did Stewart’s campaign put this little birdie in the ear of Chris Hambry of the City Paper?
Well, again, Mr. Braisted says it was probably was done because it was fun. Maybe so.
But, then again, you don’t have to have the cynicism and Waller hatred of a Scenester to understand that the crew at Waller know political campaigns. They know better than most which buttons to press and when and, most importantly, those not to press. It is hard to believe that a Waller partner’s campaign would willfully provide this information, on the record no less, to a news organization without realizing that they were giving an underfunded underdog opponent a chance to get his name in the paper.
Folks who may have never heard the name Eric Stansell before today, after reading the City Paper, went and Googled his name and ended up right here.
Sure, it is important to define your opponent and you definitely want to do that — if you think you have an opponent worth defining.
If Stansell is as outmatched as some portray him to be, it would seem silly to give him any kind of exposure, any opportunity to get his name and his message out there.
Is it fun to do opposition research and then put it out there for the world to see? Sure, but a campaign with some discipline would not have publicized that information “for fun.” Mike Stewart is not raising the kind of money he is raising “for fun.”
So this episode either tells you that a Waller attorney has a State House campaign with no discipline or, the more likely scenario, this was a very calculated dissemination of information designed to serve a specific purpose and accomplish a specific end.
What that end is exactly is up to interpretation but it certainly wasn’t done “for fun.”
SEE ALSO: GoldnI
Keyed Off On Tennessee’s Digital Download Tax
Posted on April 25, 2008 at 7:56 amBoth the City Paper and the Knoxville News Sentinel write up the TNGOP’s rallying cry to prevent a new digital download tax and the subsequent revelation that the tax is already being collected:
As for the confusion perhaps caused by the Tennessee Republican Party, spokesman Bill Hobbs said he doesn’t now “dispute” that iTunes sales are taxed.
Hobbs said he based his description on a memo from the law firm of Waller Lansden Dortch & Davis, which called the section of the technical corrections bill the “Digital Products/iPod tax.”
“It’s probably an unfortunate choice of a headline, but Waller Lansden called it that, and I just keyed off of what they wrote,” Hobbs said.
Click here for yesterday’s Post Politics report on the issue.
No New Tax: Tennessee Already Collecting Revenue From Digital Media Downloads
Posted on April 24, 2008 at 3:11 pmIt turns out that the Tennessee Republican Party and the rest of the anti tax crew were a little late to the party on this digital tax scare. Tennessee currently taxes digital downloads, such as songs from iTunes, and have been since the beginning of this calendar year.
A Waller Landsen email yesterday on the technical correction bill currently being drafted by the government started people talking when Instapundit linked to a section in the draft called the Digital Products/iPod Tax.
The Bill contains sweeping legislation that would subject downloaded sales of digital media, including music videos, motion pictures, news and entertainment programs, music, ringtones, electronic books, etc. to the retail sales tax. Under current law digitally delivered goods are not taxable unless delivered in a tangible form.
The Tennessee Republican Party, in the form of Bill Hobbs, whipped up a frenzy about this impending doom both in a press release and a blog post warning folks about the long reach of Johnnie Q. Tax in their digital library. Turns out however that tax is already being collected on your downloads as noted by Nashville Is Talking.
Department of Revenue Commissioner Reagan Farr tells Post Politics that the State of Tennessee began to collect revenue from digital media starting January 1, 2008. Companies such as Apple are currently charging taxes on downloads to consumers in the state of Tennessee and the Department of Revenue is collecting them.
The Department does not have any numbers for the amount of tax being collected on downloads because the Department keeps no records on line items, an iPod bought in the Apple Store in Green Hills is no different than a song downloaded by a Tennessean via iTunes.
Because Apple maintains property or payroll in the state they are subject to the sales tax where a company like Amazon, who does sell traditionally tangible products to Tennesseans, is not subject to tax.
Farr concedes that even though current law subjects downloads to sales tax that the code “needs cleaning up.” Right now, for instance, the Department of Revenue makes no distinction between tangible personal property and intangible personal property.
Downloads are considered tangible personal property by the State. According to Farr, under Tennessee code an ITunes song is considered “pre-written computer sofware” [T.C.A. §§ 67-1-102 (60)] that then “performs the task“[T.C.A. §§ 67-1-102 (17)] of playing on your iPod. It is thus taxable under Tennessee law.
Farr looks forward to fashioning a more modern definition of software that makes makes clear that downloaded songs, books, or movies, while intangible, are the digital equivalent of tangible personal property.
UPDATE: A statement and a linkable PDF timeline of the changes in the code that resulted the tax levy beginning this year, courtesy of the Department Of Revenue.
SEE ALSO:
Rex Hammock
The City Paper
Tom Humphrey
Terry Frank
Glen Harness
TNGOP Updates
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