Color me surprised – NOT!
City Manager Regina V.K. Williams, former City Councilman W. Randy Wright and Assistant City Manager Stanley A. Stein knew about overruns and did not immediately divulge that information, the audit says.
I’ve spent some time reading the report. It is damning. That so many players in this fiasco are no longer on the scene or soon to be gone should not stop the federal government from initiating its own investigation into the wrongdoing, as suggested by this Virginian-Pilot editorial.
At the end of the day, every citizen – in Norfolk, in Hampton Roads, in Virginia, and even in the country – should be absolutely outraged by the disclosures in this report, because the funding for HRT in general and the light rail specifically comes from local, state and federal sources.
There is no place in public service for those who would hide from us the details of how our money is to be spent.
VIVIAN J. PAIGE | All Politics is Local 
Whis is this a surprise to so many? When I worked on natural gas projects with hrt 15+ years ago when Michael Townes took the helm it was well known he was a crooked man stealing for himself and his cronies when he ran Pentran. He surrounded himself with like minds who know what was going on and would shut up for mean green hush money. The era of looking the other way and fearing retribution when someone of color does this has not ended but it needs to come to a close regardless of race creed or color. Yes I said that and I stand by my words. I knew several people working there who wanted to expose the ring leader who greased palms of the inner sanctum with public funds but they knew all too well they would be labeled as a racist and thrown under the bus, no pun intended. I discussed this with Jim Wood who did a good job of cracking open the mess that was dumped in his lap and with all due respects we need more like him who will hold people accountable when they screw the public in this manner.
Williams, Wright and Stien are derelicts who served.. you people get what you elect. If you people did your due diligence and stopped electing those who self serve at the public trough you would live better lives and less of your tax dollars would be siphoned off and wasted like this.
Why does everything have to be about race? When white people do the same thing (surround themselves with other white people who take hush money) no one ever mentions it. And you can stand by your words all you want but to play the race card in this matter pretty much tells us a lot about you.
The only color that matters in this is green, the color of my money that has been wasted.
And you mention 3 people but only one was elected – and when the voters realized what he was up to, he got booted. So what “you people” are you referring to?
Seriously – I’m pretty mad about this whole situation but your comment didn’t add anything to the discussion.
I think Turbo’s point is that a lot of people fear blowing the whistle on anyone of a minority for fear of being called a racist. Based on my person experiences, I’d have to agree. I’ve spent more time in the projects (real projects, not just bad areas) than likely every local, state, and federal legislator in Norfolk combined. If I or anyone I worked for ever attacked anyone for neglecting the hood, we’d be immediately labeled a racist and fried in the press. Not to mention Townes himself played the race card multiple times during his ousting. I mean the guy showed up in a wheelchair just to gain the sympathy vote. Remember the picture in the Pilot? Remember the “Just act white, you’ll be fine” comment?
Back to the main point, the responsibility for this should rest at the end of the day with Paul Fraim.
He had to have known about the original budget for $360 million, he had to have known it was arbitrarily chopped up to meet funding guidelines. He must have had his signature on some paperwork at some point approving some kind of changes. Some elected leader needs to take responsibility and as Mayor it really ought to be him.
He was so concerned about being buddies with Will Sessoms and getting Light Rail for his development friends that he didn’t care what gone done so long as it got done. All you have to do is watch his conduct in any council meeting to see that Fraim really has no respect for the law or for the people’s business.
Last minute add ons to the agenda, not discussing pay packages, closed door meetings for business that shouldn’t be discussed behind closed doors, trying to change the city charter with 0 notice to the citizens, and letting Pishko practically run the show meeting after meeting despite consistently ignoring the rules and regulations. He was even illegally paying rent for one of the Ward 7 candidates. No in-kind contribution listed, but it happened according to multiple sources that I’ve talked to.
Hopefully we can avoid a 3 or 4 way race in 2014 and finally get Fraim out of there. If I knew Pishko wouldn’t demand $5,000 to answer my FOIA request, I’d uncover the incriminating documents myself.
I agree with Vivian.
If Townes was white, you mean to tell me you still wouldn’t be afraid to be a whistle blower? When that much money is involved, and there is already law breaking involved, you SHOULD be afraid.
One person in power can make your life a living hell, get your fired, and black listed just because he decides he doesn’t like you. Here you’re talking about a coalition of powers that have a vested interest to eliminate any troublemaker that poses a threat to their shared vulnerability. Add a train load of money to the picture and you really need to fear for your personal safety. Race isn’t an issue, they will “take care of you” in a non-discriminating fashion. What name you get called is merely style and has no real effect on the end result which will always be the same.
I wouldn’t be afraid to blow the whistle no matter what, but there are certain political realities one must contend with.
When I was running Jason Call’s campaign against Algie Howell, we learned that he had completely neglected the needs of his district and hadn’t even walked the streets since being elected. We wanted to “blow the whistle on him” but we couldn’t because we were white, he was black, and it would have ended our campaign as soon as we opened our mouths to criticize a black man for not taking care of the needs of a minority-majority district.
I’m not saying that’s the right thing or the way things should be, but it is an indisputable fact of life.
A lot of people don’t care about being a whistle blower, a lot of people do care about being labeled a racist in the process.
You can say race isn’t an issue all you want, but your just kidding yourself.
If race wasn’t as issue, I wouldn’t have had 1000+ people look at my sample ballot on election day 2009, see it was a white person (no party affiliation was on there) and immediately say “yeah right” and walk away looking at me like I was crazy.
The truth hurts, but denying race is an issue hurts the community worse. Being labeled a whistle blower may get you fired, being labeled a racist means your practically un-hireable for life. People wanted to avoid the Rev. Al Sharpton coming out blasting them and having their name forever associated with him and racism in a cursory google search that any employer is going to embark upon.
Thank you, Britt, for getting my point. I agree – it’s about power, not race.
Vivian, I am very sure that any subject about moving this area forward will have a “race” component. In some way we are still fighting the Civil War that was not about race but really was. We need a good transportation system in this area to create jobs. We live under the Dillon Rule that denies a locality a way to define methods to meet its needs. I don’t know why Norfolk leaders chose to cover up cost over runs to the public but feel they were connected to the loud voices from Virginia Beach that did not want to see Light Rail happen. That said, in our present circumstances how can we grow as an area with the bleak realities that this area provides? This comes back to racism and economic reality.We need living wage jobs here and a way to access them. I hope our newly elected officials have some great ideas that will transform all our lives.
Fran and Vivian, Race is still a major social component for worse or better like it or not but speaking of it openly does not condone racism does it? And Fran you are much smarter than that.. we are waaayy past the civil war as a society. I know Waly and others do not oppose better transportation, I sure support it. I have used rail transportation in many major cities here and abroad and I LOVE rail transportation! The issue is money. Who or what entities will put up the money? Who will cover the shortfall when the ride costs $30 and the fare is $6? Do you really see that many people paying $6? And lets be real here.. Norfolk leaders chose to lie about the costs involved and way too many people knew it including the profit motivated suppliers and contractors who are not in this business for the welfare of norfolk and vb. As for your Dillon Rule comment I agree in many aspects but that does not change the fact that money is the handicap issue. The last mile is another can of worms.. HRT wants rail of course but it will force us to design communities for it and in our case which comes first the chicken or the egg? Or Tax Credits for developers who build population density along the rail routes?
And Vivian, everything is not always about race but it is surely a component here. To deny it is one thing but to acknowlege it labels me as the bad guy? I am nauseated by racism Vivian.. you know better and you are better than that. I withheld replying after your comment that I add nothing to this discussion.. I love your writing and respect you but have no apologies for my comments.
Merry Christmas to you and all of your readers. Hopefully the XtransX issues we face will become a real priority and we find a responsible way to fund the components that make economic sense.
I wonder why the Pilot waited so so long to run this story. When the light-rail project was first conceived members of council were grumbling behind closed doors about potential cost overruns and fears they would not get any money from the Bush Administration. When Michael Townes was pushed from his job members of the Norfolk council and the transporation commission admitted he was scapegoated because he was allowed to lie about the cost projections because he knew the feds would step back from funding!! Told to keep his mouth shut, Townes knew about the problem and the hiding of the truth and so did most of the Norfolk council and other management. Shame on all of them for putting on this false act of surprise!!!!!!
DITTO!!
When the subway system in New York city was being built in NYC, I’m sure at the time there were many naysayers. I lived there for twelve years and because I didn’t need a car to make a living made my life great. I’ve lived in Virginia Beach for over thirty five years. It has always been obvious to me that we needed decent public transportation if we were meant to go anywhere(sorry for the pun)as a region and have recognition as a valuable work force other than being support staff for the military with big box stores and burger flipping joints representing the wages we could earn. Without decent public transportation for workers we will never be anything other than support staff to car dealers and car insurance companies, considering the fact that this is a low wage area with strong right to work feeling by employers. I do not like being lied to as a taxpayer but know that I am lied to all the time by my elected representatives. They tell me that they will not support any new tax but “fee” me to death. At this point all I want is a good transportation system to negotiate my present life and the circumstances of being older when I shouldn’t be driving a car. South Eastern Virginia’s needs have been too long ignored while the citizens of Northern Virginia get to enjoy the taxes we pay down here to make their lives better up there with better roads and a good public transportation system. Enough already. If representatives down here lie, so be it, just deliver a public transportation system that in the end will make all of our lives better.
I ride the bus everyday to work and back, well not now because I’m working around Norfolk, but still, express bus service is the way to go. Put 3 lanes down the right of way in Virginia Beach, make an express only bus system to the highest commercial density areas and you will get 10x the result light rail could ever deliver.
Mr. Shapiro, I appreciate your comment. It comes from a place that informs the way you need to negotiate your life and getting your needs met. In my own way I am saying the same thing. As it stands now the only way a person can negotiate having a job is in the way they can get to said job in this area. It requires that you own a vehicle. You must have enough money to maintain the vehicle. You have to earn enough to make the monthly payments. You have to earn enough to buy car Insurance. Whatever that amount is sorely reduces the amount of money you have to meet your needs in the way of housing and being able to eat and plan for your childrens education. I’m trying to put forward the argument that just merely owning a car and the expense of that ownership reduces our individual ability to create a quality of life that we might all well enjoy if recognized. No one should have to own a car just to access a menial job with no benefits.Good Public transportation provides a way for all citizens to negotiate their circumstances while making the purchase of automobiles something you do when all of your basic needs are met. Don’t think this is radical unless you own a car dealership and this questions the way thing have been done in the 2nd district of Virginia for a very long time.
Trust me, I agree more than you know. If I owned a car, I would have never worked for Kenny Golden, instead I would have taken the chance to work for Rigell when it was offered to me.
Really, I would have never worked for the candidates I chose to work for if I had to pay for the expenses that a car necessitates. I would have had to take jobs with people I didn’t believe were right for the state or I would have had to find a different line of work. Taking the bus everywhere has allowed me to work for people who truly deserve to be elected, not ones capable of raising the millions needed to make it happen.
Mr. Shapiro, Thanks for your observations. I agree. If citizens in this area had a choice in transportation then we would not be forced to take jobs to survive based on the ability to own a car. Now that we are represented by Jeff McWaters who has an interest in health care remaining in its current status and Mr. Rigell, a car dealer with an interest in the staus quo, where does that leave the 2nd district in any real chance for change in our future? (The first issue for this post.) Did appointed reps lie about what they knew and when they knew it? I don’t know and at this point don’t care. I just want to live in a place where I can take public transportation in a timely manner to go to a grocery store, to see a Doctor when I need one, to visit my grand child in Norfolk, to visit the Ocean front in Virginia Beach when I want to sans owning a car and finding/paying for a parking space to do it.
Ms. Roem:
When the subway, elevated, and bus systems were developed in New York, they were all private enterprises from the private sector. Taxpayer money was not involved to the point the the operating costs and were funded through ridership. The Inter-borough Rapid Transit (IRT), the BMT, IND, Fifth Avenue Line, Rapid Surface Transit and others were eventually bought up by the city in a progressive socialist move.
The similarity of the Tide and New York’s mass transit don”t even remotely compare. Nor does the usefulness or necessity.
Mr. Erb, My past comments about our need for light rail and improved public transportation still make sense to me. Your world view says their is no usefulness or necessity. My world view says a light rail and rapid transit system would greatly lift the quality of all our lives. That’s my story and I’m sticking to it.
Fran, when the subways were being built in nyc and elsewhere in the world, one of the driving factors was the fact that there was so much snow to deal with. NYC, Tokyo, Chicago, Paris, Seoul, and especially the magnificiently artistic architectured Moscow underground, among other cities, trade and revenue streams would bog down real bad so their architects, planners and developers whether public or private all had to accomodate that fluffy white stuff.. we down here in HR seldom have to contend with it. Subways and light rail are an engineering solution, not a neccesity, and all of them were built before strong political forces and then unions came about that drove the costs up so high that the private investors, who risked private capital to build it, were accused of making a profit at taxpayer expense and were forced to sellout to partnerships. The forces of socialism won and the cost rose as can be expected but people stopped complaining when the token fare mind trick was deployed and everyone was taxed more to fund it.
Public rail transit is damn convenient for some.. and expensive for those who cannot use it but here in VB/Norfolk it will be a luxury.. To bring it about may require a long term cooling of the planet to produce enough snow and to change enough minds to go all the way with modern rail transit. And I agree with Wally who has been on this topic a long time, private investors need to make a case for the rail to economic sense, otherwise it will lose a ton o mean green.
Give my best regards to Ed.
Either snow or gas has to go back up to $4-5 a gallon, which it will do as soon as the dollar collapses or the new Gulf Coast Council currency comes out and replaces the dollar for the pricing of oil sales.
Subways aren’t the only thing to avoid the snow, look at the Minneapolis-St.Paul area. Instead of subways, they have building to building walkways above, below, and on ground level. When I was there in 08 for the Republican National Convention, the locals told us that before they were put in place commerce shut down in the wintertime.
It will take more than $5 a gallon before the present LRT makes economic sense.. As much as I like rail in many instances, especially heavy cargo tx, it is a hard sell unless developers partner heavily to offset the cost.
I didn’t mean LRT specifically, just use of mass transit in general. Lack of parking and traffic is also a big factor. Even if I had a car, I’d never drive it to the oceanfront because it’s just asking for a major headache.
When someone realizes that they can make it from downtown Norfolk to the strip in amount as much time as driving for $5.50 and not have to pay for, that’s when they will start using mass transit.
The flip side is when they realize they can avoid a DUI by taking the bus. That should honestly be the major ad-campaign for light rail to the beach.
“3 dollars and an extra hour will save you thousands in court costs!”
This is ludicrous and actually is one of the issues that I have with Republicans around here. For whatever reason, you guys think the black community has to be handled with kidd gloves, and that is far from the case. You made the decision to not address the issue, and saying that “you couldn’t” is just a cop-out. You could have – there was nothing stopping you other than your own warped sense of how the voters would react.
Jason Call got 33% of the vote without mentioning the issue. Tell me – how many fewer votes would he have gotten had he mentioned it?
Were you in Grandy Village, Diggs Town, Moton Circle and Ingleside on a daily basis?
Have you ever knocked on doors in the projects?
Have you ever had people yell, “Hey white boy, wtf are you doing here in my neighborhood?”
Have you had little girls tell you, “Don’t go back there, you’re white, they will beat you up”
Have you had shop owners tell you that “your too light skinned to be hanging out around here”
Have you had people avoid you at a polling place, refuse to take your sample ballot, and give you dirty looks?
I don’t think it was because they thought I was a Republican. This was at Brambleton, Chesterfield, and Bowling Parks precincts. I was the only white person there and people definitely took notice.
The fact is that on some occasions we did mention it when we talked to people. 9 times out of 10 people took offense and immediately pulled the race card.
I got insulted so many times for being white and being in the ghetto. I got called all sorts of names, threatened, we had whitey written on the hood of our car, one time I got confronted at Merrimack Market by a group of people saying “your kind isn’t allowed out here.”
The reason I personally think the black community has to be handled with kids gloves is because I have experienced so much racism against me being white that I fully empathize with what it must have been like during the civil rights movement.
I have seen dozens of time on TV where people like Al Sharpton and Jesse Jackson pull the race card for nothing but political gain. I’ve had dozens of black people look me in the eye and say they were going to vote for my candidate only to see us get 4 votes when the results were released. We did phone polling showing us beating Algie in several precincts, we made sure those people got called to go vote, we still got 12 votes in that precinct.
Maybe that has to do more with party affiliation than race (we didn’t included the R in the polling, in retrospect that was a mistake, but it was on all of our literature), but why do you think they are all democrats? People automatically assume Republican’s are racist. You obviously have not experienced someone assuming your a racist because your a Republican. I have. You ever had someone hesitate to shake your hand? You ever had a kids run away from you? I don’t think it was because I smelled bad and they certainly didn’t know I was a Republican. Maybe they thought I was a cop… Those experiences have had a massive effect on my view of the black community in Norfolk, just like the same treatment by whites in the civil rights era has effected the views of the people that gave me that treatment.
Maybe it doesn’t have anything to do with race. Maybe I am just crazy and your right. But for some odd reason having racial slurs hurled at me on a nearly daily basis for months has changed my opinion about race not being an issue.
Race is an issue. I don’t care what color someones skin is, but I can’t say the same about the electorate in the 90th legislative district.
Then again, we weren’t necessarily going after likely voters, we went after everyone, we hit every single door, registered voter or not. We felt it was the right thing to do, voter or not he would have represented them just the same so they deserved a chance to learn about where he stood.
Warped sense or not, it was based on months and thousands of voter contacts worth of empirical evidence.
I also feel like I must say that I encountered plenty of people who were very nice to Jason and I.
People who invited us in their homes, people that brought up water on hot days, people who didn’t care that we were Republicans or that we were white, but even those people sometimes brought up racial issues in saying that their neighbors and friends wouldn’t vote for us either because we were Republicans or because we were white.
You can say race doesn’t matter all you want. The fact is that race shouldn’t matter, but it does.
Just look at a map of legislative districts, look how racially gerrymandered school zones are. The major reason I decided to start the elected school board thing is because I was absolutely astounded that they gerrymandered the high school lines around public housing projects.
Like I said, I don’t care about color or race, but I’m not going to fool myself into thinking its not a major issue in Norfolk politics. Bringing it to the forefront and talking about it seriously is the only way things are going to change. Saying its ludicrous is self-defeating.
Looking back on my previous post, I’m astounded at how many times I used “your” as opposed to “you’re.” Looks like I need to pay more attention to my typing.
Max – you forget that I ran citywide, not just in a much smaller House district. And I’ve knocked thousands of doors, both for myself as a candidate and for others.
Had people refuse to shake my hand? More times than I’d care to count. Had doors slammed in my face? Yep.
I know what can be encountered when knocking doors. But your claim – that you couldn’t mention it – just doesn’t hold up. And despite your rather wordy screed, you didn’t say anything to deflect that.
Your candidate ran in a Democratic district which happened to be a minority-majority district. The only way a Republican wins that district is if the Democratic candidate is damaged, like Billy Robinson was when Winsome Sears won it.
And yes, it is ludicrous. Because black voters are not a monolithic group. And as long as Republicans (and Democrats) treat us as such, we all lose.
This is, by the way, completely separate from any argument that race is not a factor in Norfolk, because it is. But it is a cop-out to blame everything on it.
And I never said race didn’t matter. What I said – and what you have not answered – is how many votes would Jason Call have lost had he told the voters about Howell.
If you honestly think that the Norfolk Democratic Committee, Algie Howell himself, and the NAACP would not have jumped down our throats for saying Algie hasn’t done crap for the projects, black youth, or the schools in Norfolk, then I really don’t know what to say.
For goodness sake, the NAACP around here thinks Virginia Beach should have appointed a black person to city council simply because there are no black people on city council. They would have loved the opportunity to attack a Republican claiming a Democrat is not doing enough for black people.
The Democrats will never hesitate to use race as a weapon if it serves there needs and the GOP does the same thing. Is it a cop-out to not give them that opportunity despite the fact that the statements would be true? I don’t think it is.
As for how many less votes, I honestly don’t know? Considering we specifically targeted areas that McCain got less than 25 votes in and hit every single houses at least 3 times and still got 4-25 votes per precinct, it probably wouldn’t have made any difference, except maybe gotten me shot.
We were able to win a lot of people over because we were consistently in the hood (every housing project, every month, March till election day). Had we made the race about Algie doing nothing for them, we would not have been welcomed back. Had this been a more affluent district, we could have pointed out the failings of the incumbent, but in the 90th, it just would not have worked.
The point is not how many votes it would gain or lose, but the effect on the candidate. Jason got a call the day after he lost from the Dean of TCC asking him to be a teacher there. I’d bet that had he made the campaign about Algie doing nothing for his district, that it wouldn’t have happened, he would have been damaged goods.
Going negative is rarely the right thing to do, but a white person going negative on a black person for not serving the needs of a minority district is just not going to end well for the white person. Its a political fact of life.
Back to Turbo’s original point, race is a factor in whistle blowing for the same reason. You can blow the whistle on someone and lose your job and get a new one, but if you get labeled a racist in the process, then you won’t be getting a new job anytime soon. The thought of blowing the whistle on a prominent black man, no matter how guilty he is, and having Al Sharpton or someone like him eviscerate you on MSNBC is enough to make anyone think twice about it.
Do you remember the talking heads on all the major networks chattering for months about how anyone could go about attacking Obama without being labeled a racist? You think that doesn’t apply for other minority politicians as well? The media uses race to gain ratings, they jump at the chance to inject it into anything.
It’s not a cop-out to avoid attacking someone for fear of being labeled a racist, its a simple fact of life in America these days and that’s sad. It won’t ever change though unless we have more conversations like this one.
I totally agree, black voters aren’t some monolithic group, but this is politics. Perception is reality. If you want to avoid being labeled a racist by the media and the Democratic Party, you have to not give them any opportunity to label you as such. That means attacking anyone who is a minority should be done with extreme caution if you’re not a minority yourself.
You should have stopped here. Because everything you said after that is not rooted in fact, but in your (mis)understanding of reality.
The NAACP in Norfolk and the NAACP in Norfolk aren’t the same entity. You cannot use the response of the VB NAACP in one situation to justify what the Norfolk NAACP might have done in another. That you are doing so argues in favor of a belief that the black community is monolithic, not against it.
That you couch all of your contentions in racial terms also argues against the very inclusiveness you claim to have. The 90th isn’t 100% black. So when you say “Had we made the race about Algie doing nothing for them, we would not have been welcomed back,” you are ignoring the white constituents in the district.
Bottom line is simply saying that someone is not serving the district is not racist; only when you say a black man is not serving a black district is that the case.
And Republicans will continue to lose the black vote because they don’t understand the distinction between the two statements.
Turbo is wrong: the issue is power not race.
You forget that politics is a game of perception, not reality, and I think you misunderstood my statement about not being welcomed back.
I said we purposefully targeted areas where McCain got less than 25 votes. We would not have been welcomed back in THOSE areas had we made those statements. We knew we couldn’t win without 40% in those areas, so we put all of our energy there. Jason could have easily gotten 40% of the vote if we wrote off those precincts, but he never would have had a chance to win.
Politics is perception, you should know that. Had we said anything about Algie not serving the district, white or black or purple, the perception would immediately have been that we were racist.
Your statement;
“Bottom line is simply saying that someone is not serving the district is not racist; only when you say a black man is not serving a black district is that the case.”
Is absolutely irrelevant and completely wrong and you should know that. Perception is everything. Algie is black, the district is perceived to be black, that’s all that matters in politics. Even though there may be a slight chance that wouldn’t be the case, the odds are that it would and as someone paid to give advice to people I truly believe in, not people I just want a paycheck from, I err on the side off caution.
You honestly are telling me that had we made a credible, potentially damaging attack against Algie that his consultants and the NCDC would not have responded in kind and potentially used race? That goes against everything Paula Miller did in her race against John Amiral and it was the same coordinated campaign staffers handling both, or at least that was what we were told. I know you saw the signs on election day… Which by the way, had he followed my messaging advice from day one, would have backfired and John would be delegate not Paula.
I have never been arguing based on facts of life or really even reality, only about political reality, which you should know is a different matter entirely.
The political fact is that 9/10 a white Republican attacking a black Democrat ends with the white Republican being labeled racist. Do you disagree with that statement? That has been my only point since the beginning.
Again, I am arguing about the political reality. The political reality is that Democrats portray Republicans as racist every chance they get and so to avoid that, we avoid doing anything that can leave us open to that attack. I can use the response of the NAACP in Virginia Beach to predict what Norfolk will do, I have to, what else do you expect me to base my decision of? How different can they be? The VB NAACP uses race as a weapon, why should I expect Norfolk to be different? Personally, I wouldn’t expect it, but being a paid staffer, what else do you expect?
I get paid to give advice and every shred of empirical evidence says that a white Republican attacking a black democrat in a minority district will end up with the Republican being labeled a racist.
As for Turbo, are you seriously trying to say that potentially being eviscerated as a racist doesn’t factor into whistle blowing? Seriously? I couldn’t care less about how powerful someone is, but the thought of being made out to be racist is enough to make me think if it’s worth it. People will do anything to maintain power and playing the race card is one of those things that gets used an awful lot.
There is the way things should be, there is the way things are, and there is the way things are perceived to be in politics. Perception is all that matters in campaigns, you can say all you want about what you think, but your perception is majorly different than what the voters will perceive.
I couch all my intentions in racial terms because I am speaking with my political hack hat on. This isn’t about how I wish things were or how I think things should be, this is about the political reality that says I and any other white or Republican person has to constantly walk on egg-shells in the political world for fear of being labeled a racist.
I’m Jewish, you’re not. Try criticizing Israel sometime and you will see exactly what I mean. It won’t take 5 seconds before the ADL is breathing down your neck.
It would really help if you looked at this whole situation from the viewpoint of someone advising a candidate as opposed to someone who has been a candidate.
If you can honestly say you would advise a white republican running in a heavy democratic/minority district against a black democrat to launch attacks saying the incumbent hasn’t done anything for the district or its people, then I will go back and re-evaluate everything I just said.
I don’t think would advise such a course of action and that’s my point.
I’ve advised a few candidates in my day. And yes, I can honestly and unequivocally say that I would advise a candidate to tell the truth, regardless of what that truth meant.
I’m not into being politically correct. I’m into telling the truth.
Were you paid to advise them? Was yours the only advise they were going to here?
I’m not into taking someones hard earned money to convince them to tell a truth that would destroy their reputation because of how messed up our political system is.
Maybe I should rethink that perspective? By chance do you know Donna Briggs and what happened to her?
You’re looking for justification for your position – and I’m not going to give it to you, because I think it’s wrong. Being paid versus not doesn’t matter if the advice is no good. Just ask the candidates whose high-priced consultants led them to defeat.
Second, I’ve been a candidate – don’t believe you have been – so having been on both sides, I think I have a broader perspective.
Third, no candidate should be listening to just one person, paid or unpaid. That’s a recipe for disaster. A candidate should be able to evaluate more than one position and determine which s/he should take, based on his or her own core principles.
Finally, a candidate should never be afraid to tell the truth. That’s the bottom line. And if they are unwilling to do that, they shouldn’t run.
Don’t know Donna Briggs.
Well then, I follow your advice and next time I talk about the school board to a reporter, I’m going to say they discriminate against African-Americans and people of low-socio-economic status.
Its the truth, the attendance zones are racially and socio-economically gerrymandered worse than any legislative district.
We will see whether or not it ends up well for me.
Oh and Donna Briggs sued Fraim and NPD for perjury and racketeering. Her witnesses were killed or left the state for fear of their life, she got death threats daily, was thrown in jail three times, and was eventually disbarred. Her daughter doesn’t even have the same last name because of it.
The truth can come at an awful cost, even if your life. You shouldn’t fault people for not wanting to pay that price on occasion.