Garrett at CPAC

Herb Jackson of the Record has an excerpt from the speech given by Representative Scott Garrett at CPAC last week:

"The first is that we have adopted a mantra in Washington of trying to either delay or prevent pain. Bailing out all Wall Street, homeowners who made bad decisions, and many others are predicated on the belief that with government intervention, we can somehow prevent pain.

"The second is that some politicians in Washington now believe that an elite group of government bureaucrats is somehow smarter than the collective wisdom of the U.S. population.

"So far, we have heard that the new administration has either considered appointing, intends to appoint, or has appointed: a health czar, an energy czar, a chief performance czar, a climate change czar, a technology czar, a drug czar, and an urban affairs czar. This would seem to indicate less of a leap to socialism and more of a leap to Bolshevism."

This is not a new message from Garrett, readers may remember that back in August he began articulating we should let the Housing market free-fall so we reach the bottom and can start recovering.

Garrett actually did a good job of faking out local constituents about whether or not he attended people. His face was splashed on a ton of local news last weekend, to the point that a couple of people said to me that they were glad he hadn't gone this year.

With Rush Limbaugh's continued role of a assuming control of the message of the Republican party, thinking Republicans shouldn't want to be associated with it either. Limbaugh has done more to mislead public debate with lies and misrepresentations of facts than any figure in recent memory.

Limbaugh, the entertainer, weakens our political dialogue by masquerading as informed and thoughtful. After all, let's turn to something Garrett said on the House Floor a couple years back:

When we looked at those expressions, we remember the words of talk radio host Rush Limbaugh , who often does say the expression ``words mean something.'' He is usually expressing it about one of his callers who has just called in and talked about a particular topic or what have you, and he will take a little slight angle on it and say, well, those words mean something that are being said there.

So, Garrett knows those words Limbaugh said at CPAC mean something. He also had the good sense to get out of town so he didn't have to talk about what Limbaugh said on Saturday night.

A Hat Tip to Rep. Garrett

After watching his CPAC presentation(Afternoon session, 22 minutes in), I was ready to rail against Representative Scott Garrett again. In five minutes he managed to show his loathing for New Jersey's Congressional Delegation, show his ignorance of the importance of the Interstate highway system on commerce, and announced his dead before drafted legislation to gut funding for the Department of Education's Title I (poor children) and No Child Left Behind programs. Gathering facts and figures, I listened to the speech again, wanting to add something about how he's relegated one of the Districts that contributes the most in taxes (ours) to the minority of the minority and his actions are costing us influence in any real discussion of the issues. Armed with a full bottle of Diet Coke and my usual over-sized jar of peanuts, I listened to the speech one more time to see if I had missed anything, and thought to myself: Damn this guy is good.

It's not a defense of his positions, it's a political observation showing appreciation for his skill at rallying the base. I had the same thought after he beat Aronsohn in their radio debate. Here Garrett is, standing in front of an audience of the only people who didn't trip over each other to go see Rudy speak (the moderator asked those leaving to keep the noise down), and he had them cheering at points. Anchoring a group railing against earmarks, in a matter of fact manner he attacked the President and the big government conservatives who cost the Republicans the Congress. In front of his audience, it didn't matter how unproductive his legislation would be or how high our District's property taxes would go if they were passed. In front of that crowd, he was the valiant hero.

This isn't an endorsement of what he does or how he thinks, I'd prefer someone who takes pragmatic steps toward lowering taxes by making government more efficient, as opposed to floating "going nowhere" resolutions. The Bergen County Republicans' shellacking last November proves that voters would rather pay more for services due to corruption and inefficiency than have no services at all. I'd hedge a bet that if you showed his speech to the majority of voters in our District, and they have a true conservative alternative, Garrett might actually lose an election. However, I'm a firm believer in giving credit where credit is due. Garrett's a rising star to his base and when given the opportunity to talk just to them, he shines.