Tuesday, 7 October 2008
Northup Hammers Yarmuth! On Bailout
Last week, I was surprised that Yarmuth! changed his mind on the bailout and voted for it the second time around. I thought at the time it was a major blunder and Northup should hammer him on his false populism. Ask and you shall receive. Today Northup sent out the following email.
In case you missed it, your representative, John Yarmuth, decided to give $700,000,000,000 ($2,300 for every man, woman and child) to Wall Street, and only four days after voting against the bill.
On Monday, John said he agreed with the Nobel Prize-winning economists who said the bailout was not the solution. Listen here.
What changed? The Senate added $150 billion in pork: lower taxes on wooden practice arrows and Puerto Rican rum, to name a few. Yarmuth thought the bailout needed to be even bigger!
Economists everywhere where advocating for solutions that would protect taxpayers, rather than just give their money away. I said last week that we should pursue these solutions, but Yarmuth never gave them a chance.
That is the fundamental difference between John and us. He believes that the government should tax more, spend more and give money away. We believe in the virtues of less government spending, lower taxes and accepting responsibility for failures.
As you head to the polls on Election Day, think about what you, your spouse and your kids could have spent your $2,300 on, and think about how much of it you will ever see again, now that it's in the hands of Wall Street fat cats.
I believe this is a brilliant line of attack. The first shot can be found in the following television advertisement.
From an election standpoint, Northup is driving a dagger into Yarmuth!. She gets to hit him on two areas. First he voted for a $700 billion "bailout" of Wall Street. It's hard to be a populist after giving so much money to Wall Street firms. That is a lot of money. The vote makes it difficult for him to claim he is looking out for the little man. Secondly, she gets to hit him on voting for the bailout after it was porked up with lots of government goodies. Yarmuth!'s vote makes him vulnerable to the label of tax and spend liberal.
I thought Yarmuth! had the edge in this election with Obama at the top of the ticket. I think that edge has been wiped out by his vote on the bailout. I think Northup has a real opportunity to do well in the south end of Jefferson County. If she can make significant inroads with the working families there, then she can and will win this race. I will be interested to see new polls on this race in a couple of weeks.
