Posted on 10/20/2010 8:52:23 AM PDT by CanadianYankee
Jesse Kelly and Gabrielle Giffords squared off in a debate that Giffords won’t soon forget
I remember a time when politics was fun to watch. When it felt great to be an American. When a leader stood up for what he believed, unashamed. I remember when there was no such thing as political correctness. When common sense and reason flowed like 75 cent gas. When pride in your country meant something and the President didn’t apologize to the world for American exceptionalism. I spent my later teen years in the 80’s and even though I never had the opportunity to vote for the man, Reagan made watching politics fun.
He made politics fun because he would never let anyone get away with putting down America and no one could ever beat him in a debate. He always had a way of repelling an attack, as if he were just brushing a little lint off his jacket, with a one liner smacking of truth, and a smile. You could never get him down and he was never down on America.
Last night I saw the revival of that brand of politics. Unapologetic, straightforward, pro-American, tell it like it is politics. I saw a train of enthusiastic conservatism run over a liberal cow standing mindlessly on the tracks. Last night, Jesse Kelly (R), Gabrielle Giffords (D) and Steven Stoltz (L) squared off in their first of three debates. It was not a pleasant night for Giffords.
Gabrielle Giffords took the first question about immigration and played politics with it trying to co-opt republican support by saying she supported the same plan of illegal immigration enforcement that Senators John McCain and John Kyle support and by mentioning the amnesty plan implemented while Ronald Reagan was President. This was a very calculated move on Giffords’ part, to draw republican leaning independents and possibly some republicans to her side by showing her support for this plan pushed by republican senators and to liken her policies to Reagan’s. No doubt, one of many calculated political answers she intended to make during the evening. However, her plans were soon to be derailed.
In the second question, also about illegal immigration, Jesse Kelly was asked, “How much more money is going to be spent on studies, before we are going to decide if we are going to make the Border Patrol Check points permanent or not?” Kelly’s response, “How many more liberals are we going to elect to Washington?” That response brought down the house. Kelly concluded his statement with an obvious assault on Giffords’ ineffectiveness with respect to getting anything done about illegal immigration by saying, “It’s easy to run election year ads and act like you’re Sheriff Joe Arpaio, it’s another thing entirely to actually build the double layer border fence, which we don’t have in our district.”
Steven Stolz, said this about citizenship for illegal immigration when aksed if he supported the Dream Act, “I don’t think I could support it,” “Rapid path to citizenship I agree with. My rapid path to citizenship is anybody who understands the Constitution should be a citizen if they have a working understanding of English.”
Giffords responded by stating she does support the dream act and then went on to say, “We’re in a state where over 50% of our population under the age of 18 is Hispanic. We have tremendous opportunities with these kids who were brought here when they were one and two years old, all they know is English, all they know is the United States of America. It is not fair to them to not allow the best and brightest to receive an education. It is not fair.” Giffords then went on to give her laundry list of measures she would implement to stop illegal immigration, measures that she, by the way, has not been able to get implemented in her four years in Congress.
Setting aside for a moment the fact that Giffords’ statement about the Dream Act makes little sense, she is wrong or misguided on at least two accounts. One, she cannot back up the fact that these “children” coming into the U.S. illegally know nothing other than English. Two, she misleads the audience by implying this act applies only to small children who were forced to come to the U.S. when they were very young. The Dream Act, as was originally proposed by Sen. Orin Hatch (R) and Sen. Dick Durbin on March 26, 2009, would have allowed those who were 15 years of age and younger when entering the U.S. illegally and those who are not currently older than 35 years of age, to qualify for this path to citizenship.
Kelly responded to Giffords’ diatribe by saying, “Well just to quickly reference what Steve said, if understanding of the Constitution is what’s required to be a United States citizen, if understanding of the Constitution is what’s required to be a United States citizen, then I don’t know how Nancy Pelosi is still the Speaker of the House.” This comment again caused the hundreds who filled the auditorium to erupt in cheers and required the mediation of the moderator to settle the crowd. Kelly went on to say he did not support the Dream Act and that the path to citizenship begins in your country of citizenship. He
concluded by stating, “And I served and bled with men in the United States Marine Corps fighting there to help earn their citizenship. Ask them about these amnesty bills and what they have to say about them. They don’t like it too much at all and nor should they.”
Next Giffords was asked about health care and the fact that more voters opposed it than supported it and that many legislators are now saying it needs to be fixed. Giffords responded with a long list of talking points obviously crafted to dull the edge of the swords wielded by those who would skewer her for her vote on health care and mentioned, “I strongly believe this is a civil rights issue,” “We’re the most prosperous country on the planet, we’re the only industrialized nation, the only one, that does not provide basic coverage for its citizens and that is wrong.”
This statement by Giffords cuts to the core of her belief system. It is not the destiny of the United States to follow other countries in the world. It is our destiny to lead the world by being a shining beacon of freedom. Socializing one sixth of our economy in a misguided attempt to be like all the failed socialistic states in Europe will only lead to the rapid decline of our civilization, a decline that all these so called industrialized European countries have or will soon experience under these socialistic governmental models.
Kelly simply responded to this question by saying, “This legislation stinks, that’s what this legislation does. This legislation needs to be immediately defunded and then repealed in 2012. This legislation ads 16,500 IRS agents to have say so over your life. Cuts $500 Billion from Medicare. It completely guts Medicare advantage. And in fact I find it interesting now, the parade of support of the health care bill from Representative Giffords when she held a town hall and told you to your face that she would not vote for a health care bill that did not have tort reform, and then went back to Washington and voted for a health care bill that did not have tort reform. How about that?”
Giffords was asked a follow up question about what she found insufficient in the Health Care Bill. She responded by talking about a provision to deal with the fiscal strain hospitals had in providing care to illegal immigrants she “fought hard for” that did not get included in the bill. Again, I might point out, this time by Giffords own admission, she is ineffective at getting legislation moved through Congress. What’s interesting though is she openly admits this in the debate.
The next question from Jim Nintzel of the Tucson Weekly was directed at Jesse Kelly. I say at, rather than to, because it seemed as though this question was carefully crafted to throw Kelly a wicked World Series Reliever Bruce Sutter knuckleball (a reference to the 1982 World Champion STL Cardinals and their star reliever). Kelly however, was hitting for the cycle tonight and he ripped a triple down the first base line.
The question from Mr. Nitzel referenced money his family business received from projects funded by the Federal Government and asked why it was not hypocritical of Kelly to condemn earmarks, yet take the money funded by the Federal Government. Kelly stated, “Well what Don Kelly Construction does is put in public works water and sewer line projects, so unless we want raw sewage flowing out in the streets I think we better keep doing what we’re doing.” He went on to say, “We’re a fantastic company, pay good wages, hire people in the private sector, that’s what Don Kelly Construction does. We don’t now or have we ever, controlled, forced, solicited or done anything to seek out the funding source of any project. We go where the work is. If there’s a water line or sewer line to put in that’s where we go and do it.” He closed by saying his business did public and private work and we do, “Dagon good work too, and I’m proud them.”
Giffords could not leave this alone and had to comment by saying, “It’s incredibly hypocritical to complain about the Stimulus and complain about earmarks and then turn around and take the money. I mean if you’re going to be principled, let’s be principled.” She closed, by baiting Kelly when she said, “Again I ask my opponents, if they’re so opposed to any of my requests [earmark requests], name one that you wouldn’t ask for yourself.”
You might recall that we have Kelly standing on third after he ripped Nintzel’s pitch down the first base line for a triple. Now, Giffords, who had come in for relief, failed to hold Kelly close to the bag. Kelly steals home providing the winning run. Kelly flatly stated, “Well I see that we are going to reference private sector families and companies and family businesses so let’s do that. Have you heard about Campo Tires? Probably not, because they don’t exist anymore after Gabrielle Giffords took the reins. After she bankrupted a private and once prosperous company, she then moved on to the state legislature and joined with Janet Napolitano to bankrupt the state. Then moved on to the Federal Government with Obama and Pelosi to bankrupt the country and we’re running out of things for her to bankrupt.”
The Giffords meltdown occurred the moment Kelly crossed the plate. Undoubtedly a tirade of thoughts raced through her mind as she grasped for a life preserver, her ship taking on water. However, she had to wait for Mr. Stoltz to answer a question before she could make her meltdown official. But when it was her turn she let it fly, “Well I can’t let the attack on my family, my father’s here in the front row, Mr. Kelly, go really unresponded to, it’s completely out of question and uncalled for. And all the talk about Pelosi and Obama,
I mean that’s drive time talk radio talk and not appropriate for a substantive conversation talking about the future of southern Arizona and our country.”
Kelly, obviously sensing she was nearly done, did what any good combat veteran would do. He double tapped her. “Well I’m shocked that this came back, you used the word hypocritical. Hypocritical would be calling yourself a fiscal conservative and then voting for $5 trillion in spending in a year and a half. That’s called hypocritical. That’s the very definition of hypocritical.”
Giffords was visibly shaken by Kelly’s jab and in the ensuing exchanges; her cracking voice gave away her insecurity and indicated her confidence was severely damaged. She later tried to mount another attack on Kelly, going back to her prepared talking points on the issue of Social Security. An issue that the Democrat party undoubtedly directed her campaign to use in attacks, to distract voters from the real issue which is her voting record. Giffords said, “When you run for Congress and spend months and months on the stump, people actually pay attention to the things you say. So when Mr. Kelly talks about, that he’d love to privatize, phase out and eliminate Social Security we took notice.”
Kelly wasted no time dropping the hammer on Giffords. You might have thought by this time she would have realized her hopeless attempts to attack Kelly would only be met with more damning facts about her own record, but she apparently didn’t see this coming. Kelly responded quickly by stating, “Well, sadly for Representative Giffords people not only pay attention to what you say they pay attention to what you do. And what you did was borrow another 100 billion dollars from Social Security to pay for Obama Care. That’s what you did. That was in the bill. But you may not have known about that because we haven’t seen a single TV ad from Representative Giffords on her votes to bail out Wall Street, for Obama Care, for Stimulus, for Nancy Pelosi to be Speaker of the House but I’m sure those ads are coming next week.”
The next question touched on the candidates’ stance on abortion. Giffords, who is pro-choice, saw an opportunity to make Kelly out to be an extremist because of his pro-Life stance. She said, “This is a district that supports pro-choice candidates, this is an extreme position that Mr. Kelly has of not allowing a woman to make that decision even in the case of rape, incest and health of the mother. Those are extreme points even for the majority of folks that we know in this district who happen to be pro-life.”
Once again, Giffords should have known by now that she couldn’t go toe to toe with Kelly. Kelly responded, “Well I am 100 percent pro-life and I don’t hide from that fact. What is extreme is funding it with taxpayer dollars like Representative Giffords voted for under Obama Care. What’s extreme is bailing out Wall Street with taxpayer money. That’s what’s extreme. Extreme is bankrupting the next five generations, extreme was voting for a stimulus bill, voting for cap and trade as if the government hasn’t taken over enough, now they want to take over the energy industry. Those were representative Giffords’ votes. That is what’s extreme. Embracing Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness, that’s not extreme, that’s America. That’s what that is.”
The next question broke format and went out to each candidate allowing them 90 seconds to respond and 30 seconds to rebut. The question touched on the vitriol in the campaign ads for this race and asked if it was necessary to run such ads to win elections. Giffords spent the majority of her initial 90 seconds whining about nine supposed undisclosed groups who were pouring millions of dollars into the district in opposition to her candidacy. She went on to reiterate some of the misrepresentations about Kelly depicted in her ads. Much of what she said was lost in a mire of disorganized rambling.
The highlight came when Kelly got his chance to answer. He said, “There is one person on this stage who has run deliberately deceptive ads and that person’s name is not Jesse Kelly,” “there is one campaign that has been deceptive and one that has not. When I talk about unemployment numbers doubling under Gabrielle Giffords’ watch in Congress, unemployment numbers have doubled under Gabrielle Giffords’ watch in Congress because of her votes for liberal programs. That’s the bottom line. When I talk about bailouts of Wall Street, Gabrielle Giffords voted for bailouts of Wall Street. I’m not sure how else I can say that. We talked about the foreclosure problem, for thirty years the government forced and coerced banks to give loans to people who couldn’t afford it, and then when the system collapses the government stands up and says, hey better let us take that over too because the system went bankrupt. And now 97% of the bad debt is owned by quasi government programs Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. If Representative Giffords somewhere along the line has sponsored some legislation to reform those two entities or repeal the community reinvestment act perhaps I’m unaware of it, but I don’t believe that ever happened.”
The evening ended with closing speeches. For Giffords, perhaps, a welcomed end to a parade of reminders about her voting record over the last 18 months. Kelly looked energetic and spent the remainder of the evening speaking with a steady stream of observers who wanted to meet him after the debate. Giffords on the other hand looked worn and beat and mingled among a few supporters who hugged and consoled her. However, there is no rest for the weary. The three will square off again in their second of three debates. Tomorrow’s venue will be in Sierra Vista.
Some say vitriol has no place in politics, we should all be civil to
one another all the time. Some voters around the country complain there is too much bickering and they get tired of the infighting. I say this is the very thing that makes politics alive and vibrant. If we cannot be passionate about ideas like freedom and liberty, what can we be passionate about? I think, those who say they don’t like all the fighting have nothing worth fighting for or they know their ideas won’t stand up to scrutiny. It is refreshing to see a politician who will unashamedly tell you to your face what he believes. You can draw your own conclusions about the debate, but last night for me, politics was fun again.
See the entire debate below:
This appears to be a close race but it also appears that momentum is on Jesse's side.
Find out more about Jesse Kelly here
Arizona. Thanks CanadianYankee.
Kelly is a GREAT candidate. He will beat the pelosi sycophant.
We are trying to go eight for eight here in Arizona. To do so, we have to unseat five Democrats, but Republicans are ahead or virtually tied in every race that has had polling (no polls done for AZ-4, but Janet Contreras is looking strong there).
Is there video?
What a terrific play-by-play, thank you.
Thanks for posting this. It sounds like Jesse Kelly is doing very well against the socialist Giffords. It is good to get encouraging news like this.
Yes, there is a video. Go to the original post and at the bottom there is an embedded video. If you still have trouble, let me know because there is another link I will find for you.
BTTT!!!
bump
Wow! Jesse Kelly tore it up!
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