I wanted to address something that Steve Deace of WHO Radio had on his blog this morning. Deace has taken issue with Governor Palin’s endorsements before. He criticized her on his afternoon radio program regarding her Branstad endorsement, though I don’t believe he did in his blog… not that I could find anyway. This morning he posted this:
"Oftentimes I’m looking at the candidate who shares the circumstances in which I’ve been: underfunded, up against the machine, no big endorsements, running a grassroots campaign with the help of volunteer friends and family."
Sarah Palin in TIME Magazine on her criteria for endorsing candidates. For the record, Sarah Palin endorsed big-money establishment candidate Carla Fiorina in California over grassroots favorite Chuck DeVore, big money establishment candidate John McCain over grassroots candidate J.D. Hayworth in Arizona, and big money establishment candidate Terry Branstad over grassroots candidate Bob Vander Plaats in Iowa.
It’s his quote of the week, so I don’t know if the second paragraph are his words or TIME Magazine’s words. He must have read it from the print edition since he didn’t link to it and so I have no way of knowing it that is from TIME or if that is his commentary. I wrote the following email to Steve:
In your blog post I would like to point out the difference of "oftentimes" and "always" – I know it’s easy to nitpick, but really you should look at the totality of her endorsements if for nothing else than to be fair and accurate. Oftentimes Palin did endorse the candidate she described.
You see that in most of her House endorsements, with Nikki Haley in South Carolina, and with Rand Paul in Kentucky.
I disagreed with her endorsement of Branstad (http://caffeinatedthoughts.com/?p=6938), but I also didn’t see it making a difference here since it was so late. By the way, if she endorsed BVP I would have disagreed as well. With John McCain I would have been surprised to see her not endorse, also Hayworth has some issues as well so I wouldn’t make him a poster boy candidate. In California, you overstate how much grassroots support DeVore had – it was just one of the Tea Party groups (among several) who endorsed him. Palin endorsed the conservative who actually had a chance to beat Senator Boxer in the fall. DeVore is a solid conservative, but his campaign was going nowhere he came in third. It was important also to keep the RINO (Tom Campbell) from winning as well. But to insinuate that somebody didn’t have grassroots support when they won just over 56% of the vote is disingenuous.
Again, after I sent him the email I realized the second paragraph may be a quote. He offered it without context. I agree with Steve probably at least 95% of the time (most disagreements are with approach, not positions), and personally I like him. I would like to give him some push back though, and will do so publically since these are public statements that he is making.
I agreed with his dissatisfaction of Governor Terry Branstad’s position on gay marriage (I don’t agree with Bob Vander Plaats’ approach and disagree with Deace). When he attacked Branstad’s fiscal record he rarely brought up the tax cuts (at least when I listened to him). So, yes, while Branstad raised taxes the most in Iowa in my lifetime, it could also be said the was the Governor who cut taxes the most as well.
Also with the accusation Branstad grew the size of state government, should he also tell his listeners and write to his readers most of that was from shifting education dollars from property taxes to the general fund.
Believe me, there is much in Branstad’s 16-year record that can be criticized, but we need do so with the proper context. The same goes with Sarah Palin, and for that matter, Governor Chet Culver.
Steve’s approach to his show is to “Fear God, tell the truth, and make money.” How is leaving out the context of a record telling the truth?