Sorry, couldn't resist...
Posted on 04/05/2002 5:00:32 PM PST by Ligeia
Edited on 07/20/2004 11:46:30 AM PDT by Jim Robinson. [history]
Rep. Eric I. Cantor, R-7th, has named Matt Williams as his campaign manager.
Cantor faces opposition from Rappahannock County Democrat Ben Jones, a former actor who played the character Cooter on the "Dukes of Hazzard" television show.
Williams, a native of Georgia, has worked on political campaigns in Virginia, North Carolina, Georgia, Montana and Florida. He was the political director in Virginia for George W. Bush in the 2000 presidential race.
(Excerpt) Read more at timesdispatch.com ...
Sorry, couldn't resist...
Cantor spending big in first re-election campaign for Congress
April 28, 2002 1:38 am
RICHMOND--If U.S. Rep. Eric Cantor's campaign were a car, it would be a customized Cadillac with all the options.
No other Virginia congressman has spent even close to the $674,000 Cantor's campaign committee and state political action committee have already run through. The closest is Rep. Tom Davis, who represents part of Northern Virginia and heads Republican efforts to elect congressmen nationwide. He spent $488,000 through March 31.
Cantor didn't even have an opponent until early March, the final days of the most recent reporting period. And his district is considered among the safest Republican seats on the East Coast.
Cantor has already spent more money than his challenger, former Georgia Rep. Ben "Cooter" Jones, hopes to raise all year. Jones' goal is about $400,000; he doesn't think he'll need much more.
"The way Eric spends money is not effective," he said. "That's just throwing money away."
Ray Allen Jr., Cantor's top consultant, said the campaign plans to raise at least $1.5 million before Election Day. Nationally, the average cost to run a contested congressional campaign is $840,000, according to the nonpartisan Center for Responsive Politics.
Cantor is halfway there already. State and federal records show he and his political action committee raised $723,000 through March 31.
Cantor's Cadillac campaign shares little with his neighbor to the east, 1st District Rep. Jo Ann Davis. Both are first-year representatives, both are in safe GOP seats, both won their first campaigns easily.
But Davis runs a far leaner operation. She's spent just $121,116 in the 15 months since the 2002 election cycle began.
"She will not raise a ton of money," said Davis' chief of staff, Chris Connelly. "She doesn't need to. She is a grassroots person."
Davis also has no opponent this year.
Cantor, a 39-year-old real-estate lawyer from the Richmond suburbs, has always pulled in plenty of cash. In 1999, he raised $245,000 for a House of Delegates race--and he was unopposed.
Allen, Cantor's consultant, said there's an advantage to running a high-rent operation: It can make potential challengers think twice.
"As a freshman, we presumed from the very beginning we'd have a serious, substantive opponent this year," Allen said.
He is correct. Jones served four years in Congress before losing a primary contest in 1994.
But where has all Cantor's money gone?
One of the most notable expenses is catering--more than $47,000 worth between his two committees.
"Wow, that's a lot of food," said Steve Weiss of the Center for Responsive Politics.
Davis spent less than $5,000 during the same period.
"When you feed everybody in the city of Richmond breakfast, it costs money," Allen said, pointing to two massive fund-raising events at the Richmond Marriott that cost nearly $10,000 apiece.
Some other expenses:
$170,510 in payroll, state and federal withholding taxes. Allen takes home $42,744 in direct salary, which does not include the $81,337 the campaign pays to Allen-controlled companies.
$125,957 in total consulting fees, which includes money paid to Allen's firms.
$25,525 for two polls, one of which was conducted last spring--a full 21 months before Cantor's next election.
$8,525 to the husband of his former congressional press secretary, who developed Cantor's Web site.
$5,162 on plane tickets, including fund-raising trips to Boston and Minneapolis. Cantor also spent $282 for a night at the Minneapolis Hyatt and $380 for two nights at Boston's Logan Hilton.
$51 for a helium tank, used during a Fourth of July event.
$31 a month for a high-speed Internet line; Cantor's is the only campaign in Virginia that employs the new technology.
In contrast, Davis has conducted no polls, flown on no planes, and had no one on her campaign payroll until November 2001--and even now her two employees combined earn less than Allen.
Cantor's fund-raising hums at full campaign speed now that he faces Jones this fall. House Speaker Dennis Hastert will highlight a private buck-raking event for Cantor in Richmond Thursday.
Jones, who raised about $300,000 during his last full campaign in 1994, said he will accept no PAC money from industry, unions or the national Democrat Party.
Cantor has no such qualms, although Jones did help persuade him to return $7,500 from the beleaguered accounting firm Arthur Anderson.
Copyright 2001 The Free Lance-Star Publishing Company.
May 13, 2002
Cantor Begins Bid for Re-Election
Rep. Eric I. Cantor, R-7th, began a bid for re-election today by promising to stress economic and military security and to preserve Social Security.
He began a tour of seven localities throughout the 7th District, which stretches from the suburbs of Richmond west to Page County.
Cantor will be opposed by Democrat Ben Jones, the former "Cooter" on the Dukes of Hazzard television show. Jones lives in Rappahannock County.
Check the RPV events page for opportunities to meet Congressman Cantor.
Jun 02, 2002
Democrat to launch race against Cantor
BY TYLER WHITLEY
TIMES-DISPATCH STAFF WRITER
Ben "Cooter" Jones, a former television actor and Georgia congressman, will kick off his campaign for Virginia's 7th Congressional District seat tonight, offering himself as a fiscally conservative, centrist Democrat.
Jones is seeking to unseat first-term Republican Eric I. Cantor, a lawyer from Henrico County. Jones is to make his formal announcement at a barbecue at a farm near his Rappahannock County home.
Known to many as "Cooter", the garage mechanic on "The Dukes of Hazzard" TV show, Jones brings a down-home style and name recognition to a race that he acknowledges will be difficult to win.
Cantor brings a healthy campaign war chest and the value of incumbency to a district that is considered one of the most Republican-leaning in the country.
But Jones noted that Democrat Timothy M. Kaine won 49.5 percent of the vote in the district last year when he ran for lieutenant governor. On the other hand, George W. Bush carried it with 60 percent in the 2000 presidential race.
The 2001 General Assembly made the district slightly less Republican when it drew up new congressional districts.
"I'm better-known than Cantor is," Jones said in a brief telephone interview.
"I have a centrist voting record," he said. "I think I can do a better job of representing the people of the 7th District."
The district stretches from the West End of Richmond to the west and north, to Page County in the Blue Ridge mountains. The population center is in the Richmond suburbs.
The campaign already has begun. Cantor has tried to link Jones to "Hollywood values." Jones has accused Cantor of raiding the Social Security trust fund.
Jones, who campaigned for Democrat Mark R. Warner in last year's gubernatorial race, said he plans to run "the last old-fashioned campaign," - without consultants, "spin doctors" or television attack ads.
Jones, 60, grew up in Portsmouth and returned to Virginia in 1998. He settled in Rappahannock and opened "Cooter's Place," selling "Dukes of Hazzard" memorabilia, in Sperryville. The TV show ran from 1979 to 1985.
He opened a second store in Gatlinburg, Tenn., this year.
Jones said Cantor is not the fiscal conservative he portrays himself to be. By voting to make President Bush's tax cuts permanent, Cantor has effectively voted to raise the national deficit by $4 trillion over the next 10 years, Jones said.
By supporting the tax cuts, Cantor also has effectively raided the Social Security trust fund by $1.7 trillion, Jones said, because expected budget surpluses were going to be used to put more money into the trust fund.
The Democrat also chided Cantor for voting for "the biggest boondoggle of all," the recent farm bill that increases federal subsidies for some farmers.
Cantor has said he voted for the bill reluctantly, only because he thought it would give Bush more leverage in trade negotiations with foreign nations.
Jones brings a colorful history to the campaign.
After "The Dukes of Hazzard" show, he ran for Congress in a suburban Atlanta district in Georgia. He lost his first race, in 1986, but won the second and served two terms before being defeated in a Democratic primary in 1992.
Two years later he challenged Republican Newt Gingrich and got beat, he said, "like a rented mule."
According to "Politics in America," a publication of Congressional Quarterly, Jones acknowledged during his first race that he was a reformed alcoholic. His alcoholism led to an arrest in 1974 on a simple-battery charge for shoving his second wife, the publication reported.
An opponent also dug up records of a 1967 arrest of Jones in North Carolina for a trespassing incident involving his first wife.
Jones blamed both incidents on drinking and said his successful fourth marriage is proof of his recovery.
"I've been in recovery for 25 years," Jones said. "That's always been a positive in my races."
Cantor, who will turn 39 on Thursday, easily won election in 2000 after surviving a tough primary challenge.
He is campaigning on a theme of security - security against terrorism, protecting Social Security and protecting economic security by voting for tax cuts.
Contact Tyler Whitley at (804) 649-6780 or twhitley@timesdispatch.com
RICHMOND, Va. –– Ben Jones, a former congressman who played grease monkey Cooter on TV's "The Dukes of Hazzard," is working in Virginia to jump start a political career that ran off the road 10 years ago in Georgia.
Jones, 60, is unopposed for the Democratic nomination to challenge freshman Republican Rep. Eric Cantor this fall. Analysts say he has a tough task ahead of him in the GOP-leaning district.
Jones describes himself as "a Harry Truman, Harry Byrd Democrat," uneasy with the more liberal bent of his party nationally. He said he supports a lower capital gains tax, the death penalty and rights of gun ownership. Continue at the WP
========================
Jul 30, 2002
Hey Cooter!: This Good Ol' Boy Never Means No Harm
A. BARTON HINKLE
TIMES-DISPATCH COLUMNIST
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Those dirty sidewinders! If Uncle Jesse gets caught with that 'shine, he, Bo, and Luke are all gonna go to jail! What are we gonna do, Cooter?
- Daisy Duke. Welcome to Hazzard County. Y'all might not know this, but ol' Cooter's gone and given up his garage. You remember how Boss Hogg and his schemin' nephew Hughie tried to foreclose on Cooter in "Dukes of Hazzard" episode 72 so they could put up a "Hoggominium," an' how Boss Hogg tried to throw him out in episode 105? Cooter hung on like a tick on a hound dog. We all thought he'd be there till two weeks after forever.
But he's got a new name these days - Ben Jones, though he puts the "Cooter" in the middle of it on his Website, so we can still call him that - an' a new line of work to go with it. He's runnin' for Congress. So he wears a coat and tie now, an' his fingernails are clean. But he's just as much a character as he ever was. He stopped by the other day for a little get-to-know-you chat.
Cooter's been in Congress before - served the good folks of Georgia for four years before he got redistricted and Newt Gingrich whupped his tail for him. He said he didn't want to go back - When Jonah escaped from the whale's belly, he didn't go back for his hat, is how he puts it - but here he is, goin' back for his hat after all, this time in Virginia, where he grew up an' where lives now.
Reason is, when the Virginia legislature redrew the congressional district lines Cooter's home landed in the district of Republican Eric Cantor, an' the Democrats didn't seem like they was goin' to put no one up to run against him. Ol' Cooter believes in competition. Competition takes exposure, though. If nobody in the news business covers him, then the race is already over before it starts. That ain't right; a healthy democracy needs at least two political parties and lots of good arguments, otherwise everyone sort of falls asleep. Cooter, if you're readin' this just slip the check under the door.
COOTER believes in some other stuff, too. He believes in the core values of the Democratic Party, he says, like an eight-hour work day, Social Security, the G.I. Bill, civil rights - he did some demonstratin' back when he was a younger man - an' FDR an' Harry S. (Truman, that is.) He thinks the Democrats took a wrong turn somewhere, probably around Vietnam, and haven't got straightened out yet. He doesn't much care for the group-identity politics they make such a big deal of, or abortion (sure, keep it legal, he says, but people are havin' too many of 'em), or how some of the Democrats have gone pro-Palestinian, or how they make such a big deal of gay rights. Not that everyone shouldn't be treated with respect, mind you. Still, "I don't care what a man does with his johnson," he says, "but don't make a political movement out of it!"
He also has a right strong passion when it comes to Confederate heritage. (The other day the Editorial Page of this here newspaper had some fun pointin' out how hard the Democrats had been on George Allen on account of his Confederate flag, makin' out like he was some kind of white-hooded racist, whereas they haven't had word one to say about Cooter's Confederate leanings. He phoned shortly thereafter.) He calls it absurd to compare the Confederacy to the Nazis, and he sounds awful proud when he talks about the great valor the Confederates showed on the battlefield, fightin' like the dickens even when they didn't have nothin' but grass to eat.
That much love for the Confederacy won't sit well with Democrats of the more African-American or Yankee persuasion, though it probably don't hurt him none in a lot of the Seventh District. The same goes for his support of capital punishment, an' the fact that he was among the first Democrats to call on President Clinton to resign. (Which also makes him one of the only ones.) Ditto for how proud he sounds of "The Dukes of Hazzard" bein' good clean broadcast fare where the good guys - heroes, really (if you don't count runnin' moonshine) - always won. Somethin' the whole family could enjoy, you understand. (Particularly the teen-age boys, particularly if Catherine Bach was wearing a skimpy pair of Daisy Dukes . . . .) He don't like all the filth on the airways today an' he's right with Tipper Gore in tellin' the entertainment industry it ought to shape up.
In fact, ol' Cooter sounds like a Republican as much as he sounds like a Democrat - or one of them blue-dog Democrats. Seems as if all the Democratic leaders he admires are dead, an' these days you won't find many Republicans bad-mouthin' labor laws or government programs to help the elderly. Least not out loud, anyway. On the other hand, when Cooter was in Congress he got pretty high marks from the left-wing Americans for Democratic Action, an' his score with that group was about twice as high - makin' him about twice as liberal - as the score for Virginia Democrats.
ANOTHER thing Cooter gets passionate about is some of the stuff the other side has said about him. He still gets madder'n a bee-stung badger about a broadside they put out sayin' he supports flag-burnin'. See, when he was in Congress he voted against a constitutional amendment to help make flag-burnin' against the law, on account of the courts say burnin' the flag is political expression and outlawin' it violates the First Amendment.
Cooter's point - and you have to admit it's not a bad one - is, why go messin' with the most sacred document of American government on account of three burnt-out hippies out in California or wherever who want to get on TV? Twistin' that argument around to say he thinks people should burn the flag is plumb dishonest and dirty. Reckon that's so, and reckon maybe he's right that the Cantor folks are a little worried if they'd stoop so low to attack him even before he formally announced his candidacy.
Not too worried, mind. Last time around Cantor kicked his opponent's tail so bad the man probably still walks with a limp and sits down real careful. Cooter won't take PAC money even though Cantor is rakin' it in. An' incumbency is just about the best inoculation against electoral defeat ever devised.
Cooter puts on a brave face and acts mighty optimistic about his prospects. But this is one race maybe even the General Lee couldn't win.
Source
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Beware of the candidate, especially a Democrat, who runs as a conservative and votes like a liberal.
So, from the article I can tell that Cooter is a carpetbagger, but other than the security blanket stuff, what is Cantor all about? I'm in the 4th and I don't know much about him.
If one can get past that silly dialect on the part of the columnist, that is.
Yes, it's hard to get past that dimwitted attempt to write dialect. Reminds me of a "writer" of derivative prose here on FR who tries to pass off fiction as fact. I'll read the article. Thank you, ma'am.
The writer gets this much right. His opponent sounds like one hand clapping. This'll be a snoozer of a race like the governor's race was last fall.
Since it worked for M. Warner, Democrats accross the country and sponsoring NASCAR paint jobs and hiring blue grass bands to write and play feisty little tunes. I don't want to see them get away with it.
Oct 12, 2002
Eric Cantor is indispensable. During his freshman term in Congress he did not have to learn on the job. He arrived in Washington prepared for the crisis that would manifest itself on 9/11.
A longtime student of foreign policy, Cantor understands the terror network. He did not need a crash course in international relations, militant Islam, al-Qaeda, or the Taliban. Others groped for answers. He knew. Cantor long had recognized the terrorist threat.
It is not often that senior Congressmen call on newcomers for advice on national security. When Cantor speaks, they snap to attention. He heads the House Republican Task Force on Terrorism and Unconventional Warfare. He sits on the subcommittee responsible for policy relating to the Middle East and South Asia. Cantor stands at the center.
His approach to domestic issues reflects the common sense of the Seventh District's constituents. He is in tune with a citizenry that (1) supports President Bush and (2) does not want to see Congress controlled by mediocrities, showboats, comedians, and partisan wreckers.
Prior to his 2000 election to Congress, Cantor served in Virginia's House of Delegates. He proved prescient. While others in both parties were stoking the spending furnaces, he warned that the budget would blow. Prudent steps taken earlier might not have eliminated the reckoning, but they would have eased the adjustments. Washington, too, would benefit from Cantor's focus.
The Seventh stretches from Richmond to the Blue Ridge; it includes some of the state's most beautiful scenery as well as some of its most robust suburbs. Although redistricting changes numbers (the Seventh's population base lies in what used to be the Third) and alters shapes, the gentle hills and greenswards of Virginia's heartland have a tradition of expecting - and receiving - excellent representation. Eric Cantor has earned his constituents' respect, their appreciation, and their votes.
On November 5, re-elect Eric Cantor.
RTD Editorial
===
Related threads:
Cooter Runs for Congress as 'RAT Under Confederate Flag, Other 'RATs POed
Cooter defends use of Confederate flag
"John Ashcroft!!"
(To be sung to Waylon Jennings' "Amanda")
I've held it all in, Lord...God knows I've tried...
But it's an awful awakening in a patriot's life...
To know of Left's tyranny and Slick's shameless lies...
We put "OUR GUYS" in Justice, then they IGNORE Clinton's CRIMES...
John Ashcroft, please do what's Right!!
Fate...it SHALL force you to INDICT Left's blight!!
John Ashcroft, put up a Fight!!
Patriots will help you when you do what's Right!!
That's what's special 'bout FReepers, folks, we understand...
The pleasures of fightin' Slick's BigMoneyMan.
T-Mac screwed o'er the Teamsters...his crimes are OBSCENE.
Now Ashcroft's in Power, Fer Justice We FReep!!
John Ashcroft, Pride of the Right...
Left, they may hate you, but they'll learn Right's Might!!
John Ashcroft, Slick we'll INDICT...
Fate shall then make Bill his Cell-Buddy's "wife"!!
Mudboy Slim
Let's boogie!!
Time to pick it up a notch, folks, we've got to get the word out about McAuliffe before the Statute Of Limitations runs out with respect to his TeamsterGate Involvement. For those of you new to FreeRepublic, what we call this is "e-FReepin'", wherein we inundate as many sources as possible with information about an issue we care deeply about. In this case, the issue that many of us care deeply about is "JUSTICE!!" Thank you and I hope you will enjoy your stay on our thread.
FReegards...MUD
1 Posted on 08/27/2001 01:25:35 PDT by Mudboy Slim (Justice@the.Mudcave!!)
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