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Good news, Dean Scontras. Former Bangor Daily News political reporter John Day thinks you can win the 1st Congressional District race. That brings the number of alleged experts predicting a victory by Republican Scontras over incumbent Democratic U.S. Rep. Chellie Pingree to:
One.
Day, who doesn’t live in the 1st District (or, for much of the year, in Maine), arrived at his assessment by observing the fervor with which Tea Party members crowded streets to wave flags last winter.
In Florida.
“Based on the huge GOP primary turnout,” he wrote in an e-mail, “[and] the move by non-enrolled voters two-one signing up as GOP voters, why wouldn’t the first district be in play? Pingree has put her name on $2 trillion of Obama deficit spending bills. She hasn’t been there as long as [2nd District Congressman Mike] Michaud, who at least tries to act like a Blue Dog once in a while.”
Good to learn that retirement hasn’t dulled Day’s trademark flair for being wrong.
Under his scenario, Tea Party forces that helped boost Republican Paul LePage to the Republican gubernatorial nomination will do the same for Scontras in the general election. If they can wave flags in the Sunshine State, they can sway the outcome in Maine.
Trouble is, almost nobody, including a lot of Tea Partiers, believes this. The TP turnout in the June primary wasn’t so much motivated by any candidate as by opposition to the tax reform measure passed by the Legislature. A lot of LePage’s votes were an afterthought by people who may not even know there’s another election in November.
That’s not to say everyone disagrees with Day about the Tea Party’s potential impact on the congressional race. There’s at least one person who thinks he got it right.
Unfortunately, it’s Dean Scontras.
For those who came in late, Scontras appeared on the state’s political scene in 2008, when he ran unsuccessfully for Congress. He supported replacing the federal income tax with a value-added tax on consumption (whoops, I wonder if the Tea Partiers who killed a lower state income tax and a broader sales tax know that). He wanted to increase oil drilling. He was for less government regulation, unless that meant gay people getting married or women having abortions, in which cases he was for all the regulation he could get, including constitutional amendments.
Scontras said he was reviving “the spirit of Ronald Reagan” and called his platform “Republican 2.0.”
After he lost the primary to a more moderate opponent, Scontras formed a political action committee called the Republican Project in an effort to “keep the party focused on traditional core Republican principles.”
As you may have noticed, he said the word “Republican” a lot back then. Today, not so much.
In a June 14 speech in Portland to kick off his campaign, Scontras mentioned the party he’s registered in exactly once. He said his candidacy symbolized “a spirit shared by Democrats, Republicans and Independents alike. This is a greater movement, fueled and united by the belief in greater constitutional axioms of limited government and greater freedoms.”
I wonder who that was aimed at.
Scontras evoked Reagan again, but this time, he dredged up another icon to accompany the Great Communicator. He said he wanted to return to the governing philosophy “practiced by presidents like John F. Kennedy and Ronald Reagan.”
Wait, wasn’t Kennedy a socialized-medicine leftie?
Scontras – the guy who told the GOP state convention in 2008, “I will not compromise. I will not moderate. And I will not appease” – now doesn’t want to be labeled as a member of the Republican Party. In his Portland speech, he said it was time to take back the majority in the U.S. House, but then added that would be a majority “not necessarily of party, but of a spirit embodied by all those who embrace the greater and timeless American notion – greater liberty and less government.”
I don’t think that was aimed at attracting support from anarchists.
Scontras is by trade a sales and marketing guy. He recognized that his previous product, the aforementioned Republican 2.0, wasn’t what was needed to close the deal. So, he gave himself a makeover, but the upgrade wasn’t to GOP 3.0. Without mentioning the Tea Party by name, he proclaimed himself the personification of its agenda. In his words, he’s “like Paul Revere sounding the alarm.”
Or more accurately, like Toyota, trying to damp down the alarm. Wouldn’t want all those moderate 1st District voters to think he’s that same scary right-winger from ’08, with his accelerator pedal still stuck on overdrive.
Scontras has stayed true to his no-compromise, no-moderation, no-appeasement pledge. But he never said anything about no pandering. So, he’s tinkered with his image to make himself appear less partisan and more Tea Party-ish.
John Day’s bought the new model. Anybody else?
I hate tea parties. In fact, I hate any party that doesn’t serve beer. Keep that in mind if you e-mail aldiamon@herniahill.net and invite me to something.
the first sign that a columnist or opinion writer (or what ever Al thinks he is), has no ground to stand on when he/she talks about candidates for elected office, is when the can only demonize the opponent and not point out one quality trait the other individual has!
So district one, if you like the vote for however Nancy Pelosi, and Obama tell me how to vote approach of Pingree, because she can not put together a rational thought of her own, and does not want to listen to her constituents. then by all means keep her.
But if you want someone who is listening to what the people of Maine are standing up and saying then Dean should be your choice this fall!
Al you can continue to demonize the Tea Party all you want, but it is only growing stronger because people are tired of stories like:
Mohegan Sun Casino Owners Received $54 Million In Stimulus Money.
The government’s decision to seize Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac in September 2008 that is likely to cost taxpayers the most money. So far the tab stands at $145.9 billion and the Congressional Budget Office has predicted that the final bill could reach $389 billion.
and bought journalist like Mika Brzezinski on Morning Joe!
“Do you want to know why I have a file that I’ve been working on with the White House—and I’ll be very transparent about that?”
we all know why, because you’re not a journalist, you’re part of the white house propaganda machine!
that’s twice in recent months she has been busted reading from a white house script!
Do you get one Al?
hutch, i don’t think i’ve ever seen you point out one quality trait about anybody here, let alone one of your opponents. and reading from white house scripts bothers you, really? were you complaining for the eight years that fox news was reading from a white house script? if by saying that the tea party is growing stronger, you mean it’s merely growing more irrational, vitriolic and mob-like, then that might be the truest thing you’ve ever said.
And jonboy proves that the only news he gets about the Tea Party is from the MSM. jonboy, I think you missed the article where fewer police were showing up at tea party rallies, because they’re more peaceful than the lefty anti-war protests.
http://newsbusters.org/blogs/candance-moore/2010/04/21/shocking-report-police-find-tea-parties-more-peaceful-anti-war-prote
Sounds like an irrational, vitriolic mob to me.
Jonboy,
please show me one piece of evidence that FOX news was given talking points by the Bush administration.
Pleas show me one piece of evidence that the Tea Party movement is becoming vitriolic and mob-like!
you bring nothing to the table, does it really bother you that post facts and evidence to backup my arguments but you can only post lies!
you failed, just like your messiah (Barrack Hussein Obama)!
Ah,,,,thats ok Hutch. Most people in politics think it a badge of honor to dragged through the mud by Al. It all washes off. jonboy, dont be such a jonboy. I have met plenty of tea party people and seen some of their gatherings and have never seen any thing considered ” irrational, vitriolic and mob-like”. Your just making this up.I have seen people blocking the streets with ketchup poured over their heads wearing plastic ,disfigured face masks, protesting the launching of a warship.People living in trees protesting logging,spiking trees they dont own,putting hard working woodsmens lives in danger. Burning out an auto dealership because they sell a vehicle they dont think should be sold to the public,because the gas mileage might not be up to their standards.Women walking around in public topless.I have seen men and women by the hundreds ,standing in front of a manufacturing facility, screeming,spitting,swearing,throwing things at people entering such facility to find work, provide a service,or simply driving by, while holding a young childs hand,teaching them to do the same.(mob)?? This sounds more “irrational, vitriolic and mob-like”, if you ask me.But hey, I’m just a poor, downtrodden, blue collar,father of 4,stumbling through life. What would I know about the real world?
Jonboy,
Please show one example of FOX news admitting to using Bush administration talking points.
Please show one example of how the Tea Party is become more vitriolic and “mob-like”.
in order to win a debate you must break the argument with facts, not just disagree!
if this becomes a double post its because i may have been censored again by the daily bulldog!
ok, pay attention boys!
white house spoon-fed fox news for eight years. don’t remember that? here it is from the horse’s mouth, the white house press secretary: http://thinkprogress.org/2008/07/26/mcclellan-fox-talking-points/
racial slurs, throwing bricks, death threats, suggesting we “bomb” or “target” political candidates, and attempted murder are just a few gems here: http://gawker.com/5501717/tea-party-vigilantes-out-for-liberal-blood
http://trueslant.com/saralibby/2010/03/21/tea-partys-racist-antics-are-anything-but-isolated/
woman yells “heil hitler” at jewish man at tea party rally: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GVS4Zgjm8HE&feature=channel
tea partiers mocking man with parkinson’s disease: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f3xj2A_1quo&feature=related
signs with inflammatory, inciting or racist statements, depictions of obama as a monkey or a minstrel performer, effigies and violent dialog with interviewers are all staples of any good tea party event.
steve, there you go playing the “i’m a poor working class oaf” card. i’m sure you know plenty about the real world, but it still wouldn’t hurt to read a book. and hutch, if you’re going to accuse me of worshiping obama, a man i do not support, would it be fair of me to accuse you of worshiping george bush? your messiah george bush? i know those rallies are exhilarating, but can you tone down the hyperbole a little?
What a bunch of inane blather from all of you experts in nothing but (perhaps) vitriol.
jonboy, you’re too funny. Of course, any crazy action by a right-wing nutjob automatically makes him or her a “tea partier.”
Tea party racist antics are anything but isolated? So 100,000’s of thousands of people show up to protest the healthcare bill, and the democrats BEG them to be violent by marching straight through the crowd, and 1 or 2 people yell a bad name. Scary.
Woman yells heil hitler at a jewish man? Yes. At a tea party rally? Too bad someone actually watched the video.
Were what those people doing in the 4th link despicable? Of course. Almost as despicable as SEIU bussing 100’s of protestors to the Bank of America exec’s home and protesting on his front lawn while the only person home was a terrified 15-yr-old who locked himself in the bathroom. Unfortunately, this behavior by the left is quite commonplace.
You should also know that some lefties started a “crash the tea party” movement to go to rallies and paint them as racists, because apparently they weren’t racist enough. Seems like if they were an irrational, vitriolic mob, these guys wouldn’t have to work so hard.
Jonboy, i will use a line that i have heard often from you liberals, “at least when i watch FOX news i understand that there is a bias, and the people that watch all the other networks don’t know recognize the bias!”
i just switched FOX and the other networks.
funny how that works.
and Will is right, can you imagine if conservative went around labeling all Obama supporters as anti semitic like Obamas friends Rev. Wright and Louis Farrakhan.
So using your philosophy all democrats are anti-semitic, right?
WELCOME TO THE TEA PARTY
Nearly 1,300 prison inmates wrongly received more than $9 million in tax credits for homebuyers despite being locked up when they claimed they bought a home, a government investigator reported Wednesday.
The investigator said 241 of the inmates were serving life sentences.
In all, more than 14,100 taxpayers wrongly received at least $26.7 million in tax credits that were meant to boost the nation’s slumping housing markets, said the report by J. Russell George, the Treasury Department’s inspector general for tax administration.
http://www.cnbc.com/id/37870056
hutch, how is that different from implying that anybody who recognizes the tea party as ridiculous and ill-informed is automatically an obama worshiper? and obviously i’m not saying that everybody who supports the tea party is a racist, but nobody seems to think that it’s disturbing that the so-called “leaders” of the tea parties have generally failed or refused to denounce the more racist or radical fringes of their ranks. were someone to show up to a anti-war rally making similar statements or waving similar signs you can guarantee that they would be asked to leave. when fringes of the democrat or republican party make absurd remarks or radical actions, it’s usually denounced outright. the tea partiers stand by and laugh, and then try to defend it.
Jon, this is where i think you’re not getting information from the correct sources, i.e. MSNBC.
I bet you are unaware of stuff like South Carolina Republicans nominated a tea party-backed Indian-American woman to run for governor and a conservative African-american man to run for Congress.
Please look at these Tea Party Leaders, GOP candidates that want the the support of the Tea Party and judge for yourself there statements and ideals.
Angela McGlowan
Timothy F. Johnson
David Webb
Nate Whigham
Lloyd Marcus
and two people i hope run for president in 2012
Allen West and
Michael Williams (the only person that i have every to turn down a raise from his government job)
ps here are some upcoming Tea Party events in Maine http://mainepatriots.ning.com/events, please attend Jonboy and let me know if you hear just one thing you find racially insensitive.
I don’t know why people still think they can sway “big government”. The only way to get this country back to its previous pride and glory (which it hasn’t seen or earned in many years) is to get rid of everyone who is now in office. How american is it for a congressman or congresswoman, to vote themselves a pay raise when they won’t even give a disabled person a measly $13 to $20 dollar cost of living increase? How about our disabled Vietnam Vets? All you seem to hear about is the middle east or WWII. It is shameful that all we think about is the next governor or the next congress or senate person. How about the ones who died for our country? What about the orphans and widows left behind? Every 20 years, if not sooner, we’ve got another damned war. It kills people. Why? Because of money and power. Our government is always at war, it seems, when tax dollars could go toward helping veterans who fought in those wars. Veterans are dispensable. So are soldiers, in their view. Why are these turkey government workers working for us? The answer: they aren’t. Fire all of them, including anyone who’s held a government post. They are NOT representing us. This is not the America I grew up to be proud of. We’ve got to do something to change the way things are going. The only weapon we have is at the voting booth, unless that’s corrupted, too. Even if it may be corrupted, we still need to vote these lazy, greedy jerks out of office and find some good replacements — democrats, republicans, green party — as long they are OUR people, and work for US, it doesn’t really matter what name they go by.
Well said………….
“Trouble is, almost nobody, including a lot of Tea Partiers, believes this. The TP turnout in the June primary wasn’t so much motivated by any candidate as by opposition to the tax reform measure passed by the Legislature. A lot of LePage’s votes were an afterthought by people who may not even know there’s another election in November.” Al Diamon. ..
This is Al’s excuse for not having a clue that the Tea Party gubernatorial candidate who was nearly invisible on TV, was hugely outspent, defeated a guy who pissed away $2 million; and two other establishment GOP moderates widely predicted as the obvious choice, endorsed by all the newspapers, etc.
For Christ’s sake! LePage lapped the entire field, beating everybody by two-to-one, or better. That’s one helluva bunch of confused voters who punched LePage’s name as an “afterthought” and are so confused about the state of the world they “may not even know there’s an election in November.” The voters didn’t have a clue about LePage? it was the tax increase referendum? I guess the people of Maine are pretty stupid, kinda like those elderly Jewish liberal voters in Palm Beach County who accidentally marked their ballots for Pat Buchanan.
As Al said, I spent the winter in Florida, and I don’t know anything about the guy running against Pingree except he has a photogenic family judging from his website,
Which is irrelevant. There are elections when voters get pissed off and they vote out the incumbents come hell and high water. After Watergate, for example, Jim Longley shocked the Portland newspapers, which had endorsed George Mitchell and predicted he would win by 7 percentage points. And Peter Kyros, who told me just a few months before the 1974 election he had a poll that showed him to be more popular than Ed Muskie, woke up the morning after to find he had been unhorsed by somebody named David Emery.
Of course, what do I know. National polls all year have been showing independent voters breaking two-one in favor of the GOP. Thirty-seven percent of Maine voters are independents. Which means Pingree could lose in a landslide even if she keeps 90 percent of the Democratic base. Ditto for any Republican candidate.
Sixty-two percent of Americans say the country is on the wrong track. By a two-to-one margin, voters “strongly disapprove” of Obama vs. “strongly approve” of Obama. There’s a good chance we’re sliding into a double-dip recession .
I just don’t see much of an upside for Pingree. Does anybody think things are going to feel like “Happy Days are here again” by November. My prediction, a lot of money (independent expenditure) will flood the state in the final few weeks of the campaign nailing Pingree as an automatic vote for more trillion dollar debt. Nobody will care much about who is running against her. She’s the Obama debt princess. Get rid of her. The Greek guy can’t be as bad as her. This is what happened in Virginia, an Obama state; New Jersey, a very strong Obama state; and Massachusetts, where Ted Kennedy’s old Senate seat went to a no-name named Scott Brown.
Of course, this is all bullshit punditry. I just think the pundits who completely whiffed on LePaqe should may step back, think a little harder.
Al has agreed to paint my deck in Coplin Plantaton should pigs fly and Pingree finds herself in a competitive race. It’s a really big deck.
I’ll send Al a case of his favorite ale if Pingree wins by more than 3 percentage points.
In fact, Al has not yet agreed to paint my deck if Congresswoman Pingree fails to win reelection by more than 3 percentage points. I just assumed he would leap at the chance to extract a case of ale from me.
For the record. On June 26 at around 3 PM I sent a rather long comment regarding Al Diamon’s column which poked fun at me for predicting Congressman Pingree will have a close race in November. The comment ran 11 paragraphs, ended with a challenge to Al — if Pingree wins by more than 3 percentage points, I’ll send him a case of his favorite ale. If Pingree fails to win by more than 3 percentage points, Al will paint my rather large deck in Coplin Plantation, which is just down the road from his residence.
Curiously, you printed the reference to the bet, but withheld publication of my rebuttal to Al’s poking fun at me. What’s going on? I am pretty sure Al can milk this for another column or two, but if he’s going to keep mentioning me you have an obligation to be “fair and balanced” about the discourse and to inform your readers as to what’s going on.
Can I get on this deck painting thing, as I have a large deck also?? Pingree, the socialist, needs to go, as well as many others. The dems are gonna get slammed this year. I just hope whoever takes those seats does’nt drop the ball, which could happen. Dont forget, Bush lost his veto pen the day he took office and spend money like a drunken sailor. LePage is going to slam Mitchell so hard in the polls this fall she is going to think she was run over by Al’s boat. He does have a boat right? Where else would he drink his ale? Go LePage!
i’m not one to bet, but i’ll paint anyone’s deck for a case of beer.