Wednesday, November 22, 2017

The Wages of Sin

We all remember Al Franken, the comic from Saturday Night Live, who managed to parlay that celebrity into a seat in the US Senate.  In the current climate of politics and charges of sexual harassment, Hot Air says that the Democratic wagons are starting to circle around Franken.  He is a reliable Democrat at a time when the Democrats are in the minority, so the political establishment is protecting its own.

Contrast this with the case of a Louisiana politician who was elected to the Senate.  A staunch Republican, he ran on a conservative, family values ticket, and shortly after getting to Washington, was involved in a scandal that featured a brothel, and diapers.  There were no allegations of groping, or forcing himself on women, A brothel, after all, is a place where consent is considered a part of doing business.  The fellow's apology was both heartfelt and humiliating, but we in Louisiana felt betrayed.  We started calling him "Diaper Dave."

Several years later, after the brouhaha had died down, Dave made a run for Governor.  He had been a solid conservative for several years, representing the people of Louisiana capably.  Louisiana has a weird election system, where everybody runs in a non-party primary and the top two vote-getters move to the general election.  When the dust settled, and the votes were counted in the primary, Diaper Dave was in a runoff with a Democrat, John Bel Edwards.

Louisiana has a solid Democrat voting bloc, and we knew that if we sat out the election, we'd probably hand the governorship to the Democrat.  Belle and I agonized over the decision, and came to the conclusion that we wouldn't vote for Edwards, and we simply couldn't pull the lever for Diaper Dave.  It was agonizing and frustrating, but we had to face it.

Dave is now in private retirement and we wish him well.  His opponent, Edwards, is the governor, with all the nonsense, higher taxes, and bigger regulatory burden.  He thinks he won, and in a sense he did.  There is a lesson here, but I'm not really sure what to draw from it.

4 comments:

JayNola said...

https://youtu.be/Y-aPp7Kiiyg
The lesson is here. The extra 300k on Medicare as soon as he took his oath of office and soon after the wailing about the budget being shot. Just like the last election. Where we had 2 New York Democrats running for president.

Rivrdog said...

The lesson is, MajorD, give them an inch and they'll take a mile....

Murphy's Law said...

Democrats have no innate morality to keep them from supporting the sleaziest, most obviously corrupt candidates over anyone from another party. That's why they will support Franken and never held Bill Clinton or his co-conspirator wife accountable for his sexual assaults on more than one woman (and those women were Democrats too). To a Dem or Dem supporter, the end justifies acceptance of any wrong, because power is more important than conscience or right. Very sad.

Anonymous said...

The lesson is clear.

One group of people couldn't vote for a candidate that despite his personal flaws, which were embarrassing but not particularly uncommon, dangerous, or terrible, would likely have served them well in office.

They ceded the vote to the other candidate who may not have been caught in a personal scandal, but whose policies will increase their tax burden, squander their money, and damage their culture for decades to come. Likely, that candidate also has some skeletons in the closet, but has installed better locks.