Questionaires-Gate: Read Beebe's Fine Print
Republican Gubinatorial Candidate Asa Hutchinson is a bit of a policy wonk. He likes talking about the nuts and bolts of issues. Some of his answers displease me. With others I am pleased with his principles, but frustrated that they don't go farther. And a fair number of his answers I agree with 100%. But the point is not whether I agree with him or not, the point is that he is leveling with me. I know what I am getting with Asa and so do you.
Not so Mike Beebe. He has been evasive throughout. A lot of politicians are, and one thing this race will be about is whether it pays for a candidate to run a transparent issues-based campaign or not. If Hutchinson loses the moderate swing vote to a candidate that is farther left than he is right, the lesson to politicos will be to stick with the shuck-and-jive routine that has been the SOP for candidates.
Beebe is as good at shuck-and-jive as Hutchinson is at transparentcy. Witness his response to Asa's challenge on questionaires. Asa said he had answered every candidate questionaire from an Arkansas-based group and he challenged Beebe to do the same and release the results simultaneously (since the Dems in this race have had a tendency to adopt the positions of the Republican candidates in the race when it suited them).
The answer came back thusly, "Democratic gubernatorial nominee Mike Beebe on Monday said he would make public his responses to any group's candidate questionnaires."
Now people are waiting all over the state for Beebe's answer to (for example) the Family Council's questionaire. Those people are about to get a lesson in shuck-and-jive. If you will look closely, Beebe never said he would answer the questionaires of EVERY Arkansas based group like Hutchinson did. He only said that he would release the answers to every questioniare that he DID answer. My conclusion is that answers to questionaires like the Familiy Councils, that will really smoke them out, will not be forth-coming from the Beebe campaign. We will see.
Not so Mike Beebe. He has been evasive throughout. A lot of politicians are, and one thing this race will be about is whether it pays for a candidate to run a transparent issues-based campaign or not. If Hutchinson loses the moderate swing vote to a candidate that is farther left than he is right, the lesson to politicos will be to stick with the shuck-and-jive routine that has been the SOP for candidates.
Beebe is as good at shuck-and-jive as Hutchinson is at transparentcy. Witness his response to Asa's challenge on questionaires. Asa said he had answered every candidate questionaire from an Arkansas-based group and he challenged Beebe to do the same and release the results simultaneously (since the Dems in this race have had a tendency to adopt the positions of the Republican candidates in the race when it suited them).
The answer came back thusly, "Democratic gubernatorial nominee Mike Beebe on Monday said he would make public his responses to any group's candidate questionnaires."
Now people are waiting all over the state for Beebe's answer to (for example) the Family Council's questionaire. Those people are about to get a lesson in shuck-and-jive. If you will look closely, Beebe never said he would answer the questionaires of EVERY Arkansas based group like Hutchinson did. He only said that he would release the answers to every questioniare that he DID answer. My conclusion is that answers to questionaires like the Familiy Councils, that will really smoke them out, will not be forth-coming from the Beebe campaign. We will see.
posted by Mark Moore (Moderator) at Tuesday, September 26, 2006
6 Comments:
Have any of the candidates released their Sierra Club questionnaires?
I wonder if Lendall or Bryan has? Anyone know? I think it would be worth a post. Beebe has a terrible environmental record. If Sierra Club has an Arkansas affiliate that sent one, Hutchinson will have answered it, since he says he answered them all if they were from Arkansas groups.
What about the Stonewall Democrats, the gay activst group? Didn't Beebe have to answer questions from them to get their endorsement? Has he released his answers to them?
As far as I know they failed to get it in writing. That is why when he hosed them they could only point out what Beebe SAID to them, which he disputed, not what he WROTE.
UPDATE: Go to Asa for Governor.org and he will have them all online.
uh.. bookmarked ..
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