Tuesday, June 29, 2010
Underdog Rabidoux Stokes the Democratic Base in Challenge to Blackburn
Posted by Jackson Baker on Tue, Jun 29, 2010 at 11:00 AM
- JB
- Rabidoux and fans in Germantown
His slogan (well, one of them, anyhow) is “Vote Greg, not Marsha, Marsha, Marsha,” and he insists that that he’s got a chance to be elected on the basis of what he sees as “an anti-incumbent fever,” along with what he hopes is revulsion in the 7th congressional district against the positions of the well-entrenched incumbent.
That’s Greg Rabidoux, a professor of politics and law at Clarksville’s Austin Peay University and the latest Democrat to hazard the forbidding task of challenging U.S. Representative Marsha Blackburn.
Rabidoux basically spent the weekend in Shelby County, making the rounds of actual and potential supporters and turning up on Saturday at Sidney Chism’s annual picnic on Horn Lake Road.
Speaking to a group of hard-core Democrats on Friday night at the Germantown home of Adrienne Pakis-Gillon, Rabidoux tried to inspire his listeners with examples ranging from Barack Obama (“He started with just a small core of believers”) to last week’s marathon, record-setting Wimbledon match that took parts of three days to complete (“There’s a first time for everything”).
Allegiance to special interests and indifference to Social Security, Medicare, and other staples of contemporary American life are some of the derelictions Rabidoux charges his Republican opponent with.
However long on enthusiasm, Rabidoux is admittedly short on resources, making it prohibitive just now to get mass-media circulation for a crisply edited video spot linking Blackburn to alleged Big Oil sponsors that’s playing right now on the Internet.
But, like underdog challengers before him, Rabidoux is making virtue of necessity. Not for him the “thousand-dollar-a-plate fundraisers or the $2500 ‘spa day’ at a fancy Washington hotel” that he attributes to Blackburn, an assistant GOP whip in the House of Representatives and a fixture on the TV talk circuit.
“She’s more celebrity than public servant,” argues Rabidoux, the author of a highly readable and comprehensive study, published just last year, entitled Hollywood Politicos, Then and Now.
“There’s a disconnect there that they feel now more than ever before,” Rabidoux says regarding the constituents of the sprawling 15-county 7th congressional district, which stretches, literally, from the suburbs of Memphis to those of Nashville.
Whether that’s wishful thinking or not remains to be seen.
Comments (37)
Showing 1-37 of 37
This article made me wonder how Marsha Blackburn has voted on various significant issues. Any idea where I could get that info?
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Bruce, you can go to www.middleclass.org; www.stopmarsha.com; www.whatsupwithmarsha.com; you can also do a google search for her voting record
BV, I like what the Sunlight Foundation has done with OpenCongress.org. The site can lead you to all kinds of information on votes taken by your rep and senators (federal). It is very cool. I get a lot of FACEBOOK updates from the Sunlight Foundation. They are definitely a part of the "transparency in government" movement. Let the sun in. :)
Leigh, Tom: Guess I should have put an "LOL" after that comment. I was summoning our friend Mickey White to do his thing.
I hope the good Lord smiles on us and gets the message about Dr. Rabidoux out. The 7th District has had all of Marsha Blackburn that it can stand. In the past several years, she has not even requested any federal dollars for our district. She is so enthralled about her big GOP conservative image that she has let all the available money go elsewhere. Marsha is so concerned about her multi-millionaire friends having to pay their fair share that she totally neglects the needs of the 7th. She has never had a creative thought and her vocabulary begins and ends with the word "NO". There is a lot of stingy GOP talking points in between. This is the year to finally break the Blackburn stranglehold on our district. We must elect Dr. Rabidoux.
I am trying to get on as Marsha's campaign manager. Imagine a flier with all the representatives from TN on it. With the caption "What's wrong with this picture?". Maybe even use "Just One" as her slogan. I don't know where I come up with this crazy stuff.
And here I was, Bruce, thinking, 'My bad, I shoulda put all that good stuff in.'" Mickey, where you at? Meanwhile, thanks for the URLs, Leigh, Tom, and whosoever else.
Few among the Old Guard GOP have dared to publicly state for the record that they support “policies” which would cripple the Federal Government’s ability to protect anyone without an “Inc.” at the end of their name, Marsha Blackburn is especially one who would cripple Government only because it might help the poor and less fortunate.
http://politics.nashvillepost.com/2010/06/…
That's Rabidoux's "crisply edited" campaign ad. I can see why JB didn't link to it. Aside from the egregious spelling error ("disasterous") it looks like the product of righteous college students with a MySpace page. It's laughable.
Since you dodged my points, J-man, I'll assume you agree with 'em but are loathe to say so. That's understandable.
Dr. Rabidoux is a very serious candidate and one who is seriously capable....more that anyone who has challenged Marsha lately. He is a hard worker, he is smart and he uses his brain along with common sense to make sense to a lot of hard working people in Tennessee. Let's all get together and send Marsha, Marsha, Marsha back to Brentwood and her beauty consultant business....she really needs to be there.
Hardeman County Rabixoux Fan
Mikey, I think the verb is "loathe," The adjective is "loath." Pretty damn egregious, that. Downright disasterous.
That's twice now you've dodged the issue. I win! You agree that Rabidoux's ad is amateurish and you didn't want to link it.
Thanks for playing, Jackson. Please pick up a complimentary copy of our home game to take with you. Coming up next -- the lightning round!
Er...Mikey, I am loath to play word games with someone who doesn't know the difference between a verb and an adjective. Lightning round? You poor dear, you'd fall and hurt yourself!
Or maybe it was a spelling thing. But, uh...wasn't it spelling that you faulted the Rabidoux ad folks for?
:-)
Seriously, what were you so disdainful of? The spelling? Or something more visual and/or narrative? That it's "amateurish" -- or rather "amateur" -- is beside the point. By definition, Rabidoux can't afford the big-time agencies.
Under the circumstances, I thought the editing was rather crisp. You disagree. Okay.
Jackson, buck and shuffle all you want to. My point stands: you didn't give a link to the ad (nor embed it here as you've embedded previous video) and you whitewashed the abysmal quality of the ad. Why? I'd argue you're just trying to give Rabidoux a helping hand, some generosity you would never give to many other candidates in similar straits.
There's a huge difference between language quality in a comment to a post on a newpaper website and language quality in a campaign ad by the Congressional candidate of the TN Democratic Party.
I am here.
Marsha Blackburn Voted FOR:
Omnibus Appropriations, Special Education, Global AIDS Initiative, Job Training, Unemployment Benefits, Labor-HHS-Education Appropriations, Agriculture Appropriations, U.S.-Singapore Trade, U.S.-Chile Trade, Supplemental Spending for Iraq & Afghanistan, Prescription Drug Benefit, Child Nutrition Programs, Surface Transportation, Job Training and Worker Services, Agriculture Appropriations, Foreign Aid, Vocational/Technical Training, Supplemental Appropriations, UN “Reforms.” Patriot Act Reauthorization, CAFTA, Katrina Hurricane-relief Appropriations, Head Start Funding, Line-item Rescission, Oman Trade Agreement, Military Tribunals, Electronic Surveillance, Head Start Funding, COPS Funding, Funding the REAL ID Act (National ID), Foreign Intelligence Surveillance, Thought Crimes “Violent Radicalization and Homegrown Terrorism Prevention Act, Peru Free Trade Agreement, Economic Stimulus, Farm Bill (Veto Override), Warrantless Searches, Employee Verification Program, Body Imaging Screening.
Marsha Blackburn Voted AGAINST:
Ban on UN Contributions, eliminate Millennium Challenge Account, WTO Withdrawal, UN Dues Decrease, Defunding the NAIS, Iran Military Operations defunding Iraq Troop Withdrawal, congress authorization of Iran Military Operations.
Marsha Blackburn is my Congressman.
See her unconstitutional votes at :
http://mickeywhite.blogspot.com/2009/09/tn…
Mickey
Mike, nurse your conspiracy theories all day long if it helps you sleep at night. I probably should have linked to the ad. It just never occurred to me. Probably a dereliction. And I didn't have the URL at hand. Again, I thought the ad was not a bad job (for all the "amateurishness" of it), but readers can decide for themselves, thanks to you.
Your insistence on "winning" something when there's no contest going on reminds me of a vintage put-down line high-school girls used to bestow on over-eager suitors determined to score and not knowing doodley about how to go about it. "Consider yourself screwed," the femmes would say, leaving everything to the poor dudes' imagination. Which is the only place anything happened.
I thought the Rabidoux ad was effective. Hollihan must have thought so too or he would not have spent so much time making disparaging remarks about it. You see, thou doth protest too much. At any rate, the content of the ad was right on.
As far as Marsha's voting record. Here are a couple of things. She voted against the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act, and a few months ago she co-sponsored legislation with Paul Ryan of WI to privatize social security and turn Medicare into a voucher system. She's voted for every free trade agreement that's come up during her tenure and then blames unions for the outsourcing of American jobs.
She got on President Obama for not getting tough enough with BP, and on Thursday co-hosted a $1000 a plate luncheon with BP lobbyists. I guess she loves that oily money, even if it is tainted. She's never been for us. I guess that's why she has lost Hardeman County in the last two election cycles when she's had a Democratic opponent. We've got her number.
The TN State Republican executive committee did not allow Lenny Landers to run against Marsha Blackburn in the 7th district this year. We need to take over the TN State committee and Kick Marsha off of the ticket for Ignoring the Constitution and thus violating her oath.
Oh, and Bring our troops home!
I don't know about running him for Congress, but if I was running against Marsha, I'd put Mickey on my oppo team.
Conspiracy theory? Your leftist sympathies are well known and widely acknowledged. Nothing conspiracist there. "It just never occurred to me," you said. My point exactly.
And comparing me to teenaged girls as a putdown? Duuuuuude. Chauvinism is so not cool.
Relax, Mike, don't feel any more threatened than you are. And here you are name-calling again, thinking nothing of impugning someone else's integrity. which is how this bullshit part of the thread got started. You don't know now, didn't back then, never will know what the hell you're talking about. You're not even in the real world. Enough.
You didn't even get the comparison, which was not of you to the teenaged girl, but to the dope and mauler she had to finesse herself away from.
I would never expect to see a link to a campaign ad in a blogpost unless the ad itself was the subject of the post.
I'd prefer a a college professor who believes strongly in education over a tart like Marsh Aany day - so what if his ad is HOMEMADE- it shows me that he's not a an inside like MARSHA MARSHA - I'VE GOT MINE SO SCREW THE REST OF YOU - MARSHA.
JB, you have an incredible talent for drawing the ire of folks that wish they had your job. Keep up the good work!
Thanks, Scott, but on the whole I'd rather have second prize — two weeks in Philadelphia.
How can I help? I'll do ANYTHING to help unseal Marsha "Use to be a Maverick Before Palin Went Crazy(er)" Blackburn from her seat. And I mean ANYTHING!!!!!
Let's go back to Nashville, as the state senate was really considering an income tax. Marsha Blackburn phoned a pair of radio DJs known to be rabid-right.. they told Nashville to go to the capital to protest and raise a ruckus.. that's what happened, glass was broken, shaky senators backed away.. and we're stuck with regressive taxation. A good prosecutor could get her for inciting to riot.
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