The people who put together MeetEdRoyce.com for Jay Chen’s campaign really know what they’re doing. Then again, they’ve had so much to work with!
Meet Ed Royce. A career politician who has spent more than half his life bashing government and ignoring constituents, while collecting a tax-payer funded salary. After 32 years in the State Senate and U.S. Congress, this Tea Party member has become a symbol of everything that is wrong with government.
Ed Royce voted for two wars and voted to keep our troops in Iraq, yet wouldn’t serve when he had the chance and wants to cut services and care for our veterans. He voted to slash Medicare funding and turn Medicare into a voucher program, forcing seniors to pay thousands more while raising taxes for middle class families. He voted to cut student aid and pell grants, and allow student loan interest rates to double. In a Congressional district that is 60% minority, Ed Royce has pushed for draconian English-Only laws to suppress voting.
So who does Ed Royce fight for? The big banks that bankroll his campaign. Ed Royce has collected over $2 million in campaign contributions from the securities and investment firms he fights for. He is the top recipient of campaign dollars from Countrywide, and voted against regulating the subprime mortgage industry even after it had sent our economy into a tailspin. Almost 40% of his contributions come from corporate PACs, and his biggest individual supporters include Sarah Palin, Michele Bachmann, and Donald Trump. He’s Wall Street’s voice, not ours.
Meet Ed Royce. The wrong voice. The wrong choice.
That’s good stuff, but I found this simple list of top donors pretty eloquent all by itself:
BEST BANK FRIENDS
Bank of America – $81,201
Wells Fargo – $61,300
Washington Mutual – $61,800
Morgan Stanley – $57,250
Credit Suisse – $50,500
JP Morgan Chase – $49,570
CAREER CONTRIBUTIONS BY INDUSTRY
Banks and Finance – $1,332,864
Insurance – $901,670
Real Estate – $828,759
Lawyers and Law Firms – $435,755
See, folks, that’s how you build up a $4,000,000 war chest! (Too bad he’s squandering it all away now!)
On the issues, you’ll find sections on Royce’s positions on: Veterans, Wall Street, Women, Seniors, Immigration, The Middle Class, Social Security, Students, and Small Business. I’d quote more, but then you might not go there yourself and enjoy the clever graphics.
I expect good things from this site — especially regarding how Ed Royce is now backpedaling away from aspects of his record at near the speed of light. He’s doing it in really deceptive ways, too — but I don’t want to jump the gun on what promises to be a nice series of articles. (Word of advice to Rep. Royce’s staff: you might want to be more careful in who you send literature to — even Republicans — if you don’t want people like me to see it!)
Really? A student deferment makes you a draft dodger? S-C-E-T-C-H-Y claim at best. Extra scetchy if Mr. Chen’s IO position never included combat, but perhaps it did.
You folks over there at Mr. Chen’s place have plenty to work with. I’d suggest you stick to the facts and avoid conceding the moral high ground. “Avoiding” Vietnam has a significant popular connotation. It means moving to Canada, faking an injury, or some other less-than-legal or illegitimate deferral. An approved deferral, while perhaps worthy of discussion and criticism on its own given the context of Mr. Royce’s votes, does not make one worthy of a “avoider” moniker or anything similar.
You lose points with me on this one and you lost points with me from your direct mailer I received this week. Here’s to you having better luck with October.
Alright, after reading this, you’ve got a really big fat hole to climb out of if you want my vote: http://www.chenforcongress.com/akin-royce-women/
Yeah, it’s cute to think about attaching crazy people to your opponent. Not cute? Actually doing it. Really not cute? Blaming the entire opposing party for the crackpot’s bigoted/racist/sexist views.
Here’s what you do with stupid people: You confront them, disarm them, then ignore them. You don’t use them for political ammunition. The people who do only do so for the sake of winning.
“While the Republican Party is now struggling to distance itself from Akin’s ludicrous statement, Akin merely mouthed what has been clearly articulated by the GOP for far too long . . .”
I’m a proud feminist. On behalf of all of us who happen to don a (R) next to our voting registration: Go screw yourself. Akin is a clown. He doesn’t speak for me. I won’t vote for anyone who claims that he does.
Thanks for letting us know about this website! Royce is a scary dude with scary views.
Ryan, if you’ve got an R next to your registration you should check to see what your party has been doing. They added a strict NO ABORTION policy to their party platform in August, regardless of rape or incest. Royce also cosponsored a bill with Akin to create the new term, “forcible rape”. So no one really needs to attach crazy to Royce. He does it himself by supporting these things. And so does his party’s platform.
I was searching through the Royce site to find the word draft dodger but couldn’t find it. Don’t see anything wrong with pointing out that the dude avoided going to Vietnam when his number was called. That’s nothing more than fact, you can read into it what you will.
1) Thanks for assuming I’m ignorant on the platform. +1 point for you.
2) There’s a certifiable difference between delivering a critique of a bill sponsored by Mr. Royce and using the statement of a crazy person to summarize his (and the party’s views.) You know that, I know that, and Mr. Chen knows that. Doing so is low politics and if you approve of doing so, you’re closer in your political ethics to the Brownshirts than you ought to be. +2 points for you.
3) Stating that Mr. Royce “avoided” going to Vietnam is not just a fact and it implies certain things to the reader. You’re conveniently ignoring the connotation of the term. How many people that read that are going to think that Mr. Chen fought in Afghanistan and Mr. Royce was living in Canada during the Vietnam war? 1, 10, 100, 1000? Does it matter to you? +3 points for you.
There are three prerequisites to using this in an attack piece that should be met by an opposing candidate.
— The candidate should have the moral authority to make the claim (i.e., the same argument can’t be used against the candidate making the claim.) In this case, Mr. Chen’s suggests that when it came time for Mr. Royce to take a bullet for his country, he declined. Unless Mr. Chen has seen combat and been shot at, the same attack applies to Mr. Chen. You and I may disagree on who has a better reason to not get shot at, but the argument is still valid (but clearly stupid.) It also opens an examination on the Chens’ activity during the Vietnam war. Did his parents serve? If not, why not? <– These are really stupid questions that have no real business being asked, but Mr. Chen's campaign made the attack without really thinking . . . so perhaps they should answer them.
— The candidate being attacked should have illegitimately avoided his or her duty to the country (e.g, faked a disability, fled to Canada, lied about being a student, lied about being a conscientious objector, etc.) Attacking a legitimate deferral only erodes the moral fabric of the argument and exposes the accuser to the slippery slope . . . using the logic thread you could validly attack Mr. Chen for not being born sooner to fight in the war. It wouldn't be right, but it'd be just as valid (and again, stupid.)
— The accused ought to have materially benefited from his/her dishonesty or is using his/her position of authority to demand that others make a decision that he/she refused to make. In this case, Mr. Chen's campaign is confusing the argument that Mr. Royce is a "Chicken-hawk" with being a draft dodger. While the former is up for discussion, the later is not. There isn't a draft on and Mr. Royce isn't sending conscripts off to war, with or without student deferrals. If you accept Mr. Chen's argument, then you concede that only military combat veterans are suitable for elected office . . . which means you had better not be voting for Obama.
Here's the short version: Mr. Chen has SO much good stuff to work with! Why not focus on that instead of making lame ass attacks that make him look more like a 8th grader competing for a student council election than a legitimate contender for the United State's Congress? In other words, win the election; don't just beat your opponent. That's what young men and women campaigning today ought to be doing. Sadly, based on the evidence, Mr. Chen is not and he won't get my vote until he does.