Renee Ellmers: I Won't Increase Your Taxes. Bob "The Strangler" Etheridge Already Did

So many races... so many within reach.

I met Renee Ellmers, candidate for Representative of NC-2, at BlogCon. She wanted to get her name out there, I guess, and certainly didn't mind mixing it up with silly bloggers to do it.

She doesn't mind mixing with her constituents and the common folk -- you know, like Barney Frank.

She needs money to run an ad defending herself against Bob Etheridge's latest smear.

After graduating from Madison High School, needing to work her way through college, Renee trained as a Medical Assistant. For the next eight years, working full and part-time jobs, she attended Oakland University, graduating with a Bachelor of Science degree in Nursing.

A year later, working as a Surgical Intensive Care Nurse at Beaumont Hospital she met her husband, Brent, a graduate of the University Of Indiana School Of Medicine.

After their son was born, while visiting family in Cary, Renee and her husband decided to move to North Carolina. Today she works with her husband as Clinical Director of the Trinity Wound Care Center in Dunn.

I asked her what she did, mostly, and she said, "Wound care."

Wound care?!, I said. That's kind of a graphic image to drop on a voter. What the hell kind of knife-fighting hillbilly-feud district are you in down there in North Carolina? Say "Special treatment," I advised.

She laughed, or pretended to, which makes her cool in my book.

But what about the substance of the charge? Does she support a "national sales tax"?

Well, it is precisely as I thought, and precisely as you would have guessed: Yes, she supports the so-called "Fair Tax" to replace the income tax, not be piled on top of it.

Do I support that? Hell, I don't know. Maybe. Right now it's hard to say because it hasn't gotten the vetting, the big national scrutiny and analysis, it needs before I think the decision is ripe. But it's definitely a conservative, low-tax idea. It is not, as this unmitigated dickhead suggests, a "new national sales tax."

The idea, of course, is to get rid of the IRS completely in favor of a point-of-sale collection system, taxing expenditures, not income, not wealth, not savings. Quite a few conservative economists think that such a tax could lead to enormous gains in economic growth (and of course -- no more IRS and no more April 15th hell). And that 23% number is not picked at random; it is supposed to be a number which will result in tax revenue remaining equal to the current (Bush) rates, so it in no way raises taxes. (Actually, the main criticism of the plan is that that rate is too low and will not be revenue-neutral-- so, as presented at least, it's arguably a tax-cutting plan.)

So, there you go. This choke-y bastard lied, flat out, and he's doing so in ads, and this good woman needs your help to combat that.

By the way, here's Anderson Cooper attempting to berate her and look foolish. I find his flacking for Etheridge... unpersuasive.

So here Anderson Cooper suggests that it's okay for the Victory Mosque to be built, because "all religions do it," apparently. That is, build triumphal religious centers upon sites of military victories. So we should all be cool and chill out about it being done to us, now, not 1500 years ago.

And then of course he keeps talking over her and over her.

And then tells her, condescendingly, that the Victory Mosque isn't at the WTC, but two blocks away. Score, eh?

Another point: Because Renee Ellmers isn't willing to swear to the good intentions of a provocative, terrorist-coddling Imam she doesn't know, she's the bad guy?

And then more, "You do know, don't you..."'s. Liberals love those.

At the end, Anderson Cooper piously instructs the audience, "I'm not here to take a position against Ms. Ellmers..."

Right, Anderson. Right. And I suppose when liberal mosque-enthusiasts came on you similarly peppered them with...

"You do know, don't you, that Imam Rauf refuses to call Hamas a terrorist organization, right? Right?"

Or:

"You do know -- or were you unaware...? --- that Imam Rauf has called America an 'accomplice' in 9/11?"

No, I don't think that Anderson Cooper, who just wants to correct people's factual misstatements, noted any of those facts for his liberal guests to squirm with.

posted by Ace at 07:04 PM

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