Republicans “lose” Teresa Sayward to Obama
A couple of days ago, the In Box asked whether socially conservative Republican rhetoric could go far enough in 2012 that it would cost them the women’s vote.
Here’s a big new data point: The GOP has already lost Republican Assemblywoman Teresa Sayward.
I don’t just mean that Sayward has chosen not to seek another term. I mean that in an interview with YNN’s Liz Benjamin this week (video below) Sayward blasted the GOP’s conservative social agenda and tentatively endorsed President Barack Obama.
“If I had to vote today, I’d vote for Obama,” Sayward said, adding, “I really, truly think that the candidates that are out there today for the Republican side would take women back decades.”
Sayward — long an advocate for gay rights and same-sex marriage — also excoriated national Republicans for swerving into culture war battles that pit personal freedom and privacy against religious concerns.
“It’s disheartening to me to see our party move away from what it’s always been about and that is to stay out of people’s lives. Let them live their lives, don’t impose their religion on anybody else. Don’t impose their feelings, let them live and uphold the Constitution. Sadly to say Federally I don’t think that’s happening [with the GOP].”
Sayward has been a popular lawmaker in her district, and in Willsboro, where she also served as town supervisor. Last weekend, the Adirondack Daily Enterprise lauded her as “a tough act to follow.
Tags: election12, politics
Thank you Kathy, for the Dreisbach link. Interesting stuff, and it makes your case pretty well. I’m not convinced that we want to return to an era in which a lack of a specific religious conviction disqualified you from serving in office or on a jury or even voting! The Talliban would approve. The idea that the framers of each state constitution were possessed of vast wisdom that should still rule us today is not something I would subscribe to you. Remember, many of those same state Constitutions enshrined slavery, often invoking God’s name in connection with it.
The constitution was specifically made to be a document that could be amended.
Walker, right, I forgot about that whole Upton Sinclair/Teddy Roosevelt bit. You’re right, conservative meat packers were perfectly happy to sell rotten meat to the government to serve to soldiers. Is that the sort of despicable action Kathy is defending?
Kathy, I thought the government was supposed to protect us from threats both foreign and domestic. And I thought the government was supposed to prosecute criminal actions.
Yes, and JDM is prepared to “Let the market sort it out.” Like the melamine-tainted Chinese infant formula: “By December 2008, nearly 300,000 people had become ill, with more than 50,000 infant hospitalizations and six infant deaths.” (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Melamine#2008_Chinese_outbreak )
Ah, the power of the market! After six children died and hundreds of thousands were sickened, then the market would drive the company out of business. Of course, in China, the greedy businessmen were summarily executed. But melamine-contaminated dairy products were still showing up two years later. Yes, sir, it’s the great Invisible Hand, hard at work.
On the other hand, JDM is right, the gov’t ain’t much better. I just got this email:
The USDA is planning to buy seven million pounds of so-called pink slime for school lunches in the coming months.1
The beef-like product is created by grinding together connective tissue and beef scraps normally used in dog food, and is treated with ammonia hydroxide to kill salmonella and E. coli.
It is “not meat” according to a 35-year veteran USDA microbiologist, and was recently rejected by the likes of McDonalds, Taco Bell and Burger King2 — so it’s pretty disturbing that the USDA continues putting this stuff in school lunches.
Tell the USDA: Stop putting pink slime “Lean Beef Trimmings” in kids’ school lunches. Click here to automatically sign the petition.
In an all too familiar story, despite concerns raised by USDA inspectors and minimal safety inspections, the USDA approval of Beef Products Incorporated’s “Lean Beef Trimmings” was pushed through by USDA undersecretary JoAnne Smith, a George H. W. Bush appointee and former president of the National Cattleman’s Association.
The USDA allows beef products like hamburgers to contain up to 15% of the ammonia-treated, meat-ish stuff, but inadequate labeling requirements prevent parents from knowing if it’s included in the meat being served at their kids’ school.
Aside from the lack of nutritional value, pink slime raises a number of health and safety concerns. The New York Times exposed in 2009 that despite being treated with ammonia, three E. coli contaminations and four dozen salmonella contaminations occurred between 2005 and 2009, during which time school lunch officials three times temporarily banned hamburger makers from using pink slime from one facility in Kansas.
Ammonium hydroxide is itself of course harmful to eat…
For more: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/03/05/pink-slime-for-school-lun_n_1322325.html
Sorry, I meant to edit out that “Tell the USDA: Stop putting pink slime “Lean Beef Trimmings” in kids’ school lunches. Click here …”
On the other hand, if you do want to add your name to the petition, it is at http://www.credoaction.com/campaign/pink_slime/?rc=homepage
Kathy: Walker, the intention was to defer to the states on matters regarding to religion.
So let me get this straight. The states should have the right to decide matters regarding religion, but they shouldn’t have the right to determine whether a possibly dangerous substance can be put in their food (California – Proposition 65). Don’t worry though, Coke and Pepsi aren’t changing the formula for the rest of the country.
As for the “pink slime”….that is the market that JDM loves so much, “sorting things out”. If I was a meat producer, I too would use means to increase the weight of my product using connective tissue. But again, don’t worry. Mom’s are sensible enough to determine whether their children should eat pink slime or drink 4-methylimidazole.
Yes, there certainly are problems with government oversight. Usually those problems are traceable to corporations that have too much influence over the regulators and agencies that are supposed to be keeping an eye on them.
more info makes markets work better
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/07/11/state-education-rankings-_n_894528.html
Brian Mann: Here’s a potential blog entry. One of your favorites themes, esp. of your book, is how snobby liberals and progressives don’t get “homelanders” (to use your word). But how exactly are we supposed to come to understanding with this sort of thing? How do we snobs bridge this gap? Should we just say “Hey, I understand why you think blacks and whites shouldn’t be able to marry each other and that’s okay”?
Sorry… posted the wrong link. The right link is:
http://washington.cbslocal.com/2012/03/13/poll-many-southern-conservatives-feel-interracial-marriage-should-be-illegal/
Brian MOFYC, what, do you get brownie points for reading his book?
Where the hell is Brian M. anyway? Hiking the Appalachian Trail? (And I didn’t mean that like the South Carolina guy)
No you are right, a Left wing vision of this country relies on power and control just as much as a theocracy does or a far right wing version does.
Both are essentially not what America is about in my opinion. None of us have a monopoly on what our country “should” be. By staying out of my life as Ms. Sayward yearns for; I assume she means stay out of what types of guns I own and how many; stay out of how I raise and educate my children, stay out of what kind of health insurance I want or don’t want to buy as well as who I marry and how I choose to have sex or use birth control.