Duncan Hunter was never charged with any wrongdoing. His good friend Randy “Duke” Cunningham was convicted of influence peddling, but Hunter is not guilty by association. The Dems would like to taint Hunter for his friendship with Cunningham, much as some Hunter supporters have tried to taint Fred Thompson for his friendship with McCain.
The House of Representatives is a good ol’ boys club, just like the Senate. Nothing wrong with that. In the old days, pre-Clinton, members in both houses commonly developed friendships even with members of the opposing political parties. They put aside their differences at the end of each days’ session and were civil to each other.
So let’s confine our criticism of Hunter to the issues, and let’s not fall for the liberals’ leftist lies about Duncan Hunter. The Dems would try to fabricate something based on Hunter’s association with Cunningham and tell the lie over and over again if Hunter was the GOP nominee - no doubt about that.
There’s enough in the issues to make me prefer Thompson, but I’m primarily a small-government conservative to whom spending issues are high on my list of importance.
Like I said, Hunter’s a good man. I don’t have any ethical problems with him at all. I trust his honesty and consider him to be of good character until proven otherwise, and nobody has proven otherwise because there’s nothing there.
...Duncan Hunter admitted, in an USA story 11/30/05, that he teamed with Rep. Cunningham and other lawmakers to allocate $190 million for automated data conversion projects from 1993 to 2001— programs the Defense Department neither wanted nor requested. Rep. Hunter also sought out tens of millions of dollars in earmarks for Audre and ADCS, and pushed the Pentagon to purchase their products. In return, Mr. Wilkes steered at least $39,200 in campaign contributions to Rep. Hunter.
That’s not leftist, it’s fact. BTW, the investigation is stalled, not closed. Duncan still has not produced requested documents.
I respect you a great deal. I’m curious as to why you are referring to the Randy Cunningham issue, when I didn’t. I referred to the earmarks issue and the funding of the DP-2.
If you have to decide on a vote partly based on the character of the candidate, then ethics issues deserve an answer from the candidate and I’m not aware of any answers being given. If he has made statements I’d love to know about it.
The way a person acts and votes is more evidence than the words of other people.
I did not say Hunter did any influence peddling, and haven’t considered him guilty. It encourages negative impressions to have things like this happen and no statement from the candidate. I’m not willing to give him a pass based on silence.
I didn’t hear anything like this from any liberal leftist, I did my own research and stumbled upon it.
And I’m leaning toward what papasmurf said in #10. It is an uneven playing field if others can criticize Fred Thompson for everything [energy level, the way his wife looks, to infinity] but Hunter does not give an answer to issues that are a problem. Has he given explanations for the voting record issues that I believe you mentioned? Or has he been silent? If he says he is for limited government but hasn’t got a sterling record with regard to limited government, why doesn’t Hunter give us an answer? Those are all issues.
Ethics is an issue, earmarks are an issue and it is time something was done about it. Whatever happened in the past [good old boys] doesn’t need to continue in the future. As far as I know, there are members of Congress who are starting to do something about earmarks, and I’ve heard nothing from Hunter about it. It is time he took a stand on that.
I also have concerns on some issues with his voting record, as you said.
I didn’t say anything about Cunningham and don’t wish to now.