Billboards are up!

Shuler joins six Republicans in fundraising effort

On Tuesday, Heath Shuler linked arms with six Republican congressional reps to raise funds at a pair of Taylor Swift concerts in Washington, DC.

“Six members of Congress will be attending the August 2 performance. Republican senator John Thune of South Dakota will be there along with Republican representatives Jo Bonner, of Alabama, Michael Grimm of New York, Tom Price of Georgia, and Kay Granger of Texas. Democratic rep. Heath Shuler of North Carolina will also be joining the lineup of lawmakers at the show on August 2, and Rep. Paul Broun [R] of Georgia will be the lone Congressman at the August 3 show.” – (Click here for story.)

Birds of a feather …

Randy Molton pegs it again in the Mountain Xpress

(Here’s a link to the original.)

“Cecil Bothwell doesn’t have a snowball’s chance in hell”

When it comes to the race for Congress in the 11th District, there are those who say Cecil Bothwell doesn’t have a snowball’s chance in hell. While that may be the conventional wisdom, let me tell you why he’s going to win not only the primary, but the general election. In short, the major institutions of Western North Carolina are going to vote for Cecil Bothwell, a real Democrat.

Senior Citizens: On Tuesday, July 19 Rep. Heath Shuler joined the Republicans in voting for “Cut, Cap and Balance.” That bill, which would have gradually collapsed Social Security and Medicare, was so bad that the Asheville Citizen-Times wrote:

F to Rep. Shuler for crossing party lines to vote for the ludicrous “Cut, Cap and Balance” legislation in the House. The plan was political theater that wasted valuable time while the clock ticks down toward the debt ceiling deadline. And it’s lousy legislation. Washington Monthly’s Steve Benen described it thusly: “We’re talking about a plan that would immediately take $100 billion out of the U.S. economy, eliminating thousands of jobs in the process. It would make draconian cuts to key public priorities… it would gut Social Security and Medicare, and make it almost impossible for any Congress to ever raise taxes on anyone ever again. It goes out of its way to protect tax cuts for the very wealthy, while targeting the most vulnerable. It doesn’t even do an effective job of reducing the deficit…”

Rep. Shuler has pointed to language in the bill which purports to exempt entitlement programs, but only succeeds in demonstrating that he doesn’t understand what he voted for.

The AFL-CIO: On Tuesday, July 26 MoveOn sponsored a demonstration outside of Rep. Shuler’s Asheville office. Back in 2006, MoveOn and the AFL-CIO played the major role in bringing down Charles Taylor and electing Heath Shuler. The WNC Labor Council told its members to attend the MoveOn protest. Cong. Shuler has no jobs plan; Cecil Bothwell does. By Election Day I believe the labor movement will be lined up behind our campaign.

The Democratic Party: On Wednesday, July 27 the Executive Committee of the Democratic Party held its regular monthly meeting at Lake Junaluska. There, county chairs demanded to know why Rep. Shuler voted for “Cut, Cap and Balance.” Afterward, county leaders gravitated toward Cecil Bothwell. One summed up the mood: “You may not have a snowball’s chance in hell, but I’m supporting you 100 percent.”

The Churches: By the time Election Day rolls around, a whole lot of churches –Baptist, Congregational, Episcopal, Methodist, Mormon, Presbyterian, Unitarian Universalist, not to mention Catholics and Jews – will welcome the wisdom of separation of church and state. We are, after all, electing a member of Congress, not a preacher.

Environmentalists: Cecil Bothwell has a solid track record as an activist, editor and elected official. Forty plus years an organic gardener, 20+ years living on solar power, founding editor of the Warren Wilson College environmental journal, the greenest City Council member in Asheville—it’s a record and a message no other candidate can match.

Women: You have no idea the extent to which Rep. Shuler has alienated women. Aside from voting against Planned Parenthood, he has sponsored a bill to “redefine” rape to cover only violent rape by a total stranger. If you are the victim of incest, statutory rape, or date rape, you must have the baby. What is more, he is so deep into the good ol’ boy network that he does not even know the names of women candidates for local office.

As for me, I am a breast cancer survivor. Mr. Shuler lost me the day he voted against health care reform.

Linda Brown
Campaign coordinator
Bothwell for Congress, 2012
Asheville
828-236-3720

Fixing Congress

Chances are pretty good that I don’t agree with Mickey Edwards on a long list of policy issues. But I agree completely that we need to break the stranglehold of partisanship. Political parties should be a means to channel popular will, not an end in themselves.

***

How to Turn Republicans and Democrats Into Americans

An insider’s six-step plan to fix Congress

By Mickey Edwards

Angry and frustrated, American voters went to the polls in November 2010 to “take back” their country. Just as they had done in 2008. And 2006. And repeatedly for decades, whether it was Republicans or Democrats from whom they were taking the country back. No matter who was put in charge, things didn’t get better. They won’t this time, either; spending levels may go down, taxes may go up, budgets will change, but American government will go on the way it has, not as a collective enterprise but as a battle between warring tribes.

If we are truly a democracy—if voters get to size up candidates for a public office and choose the one they want—why don’t the elections seem to change anything? Because we elect our leaders, and they then govern, in a system that makes cooperation almost impossible and incivility nearly inevitable, a system in which the campaign season never ends and the struggle for party advantage trumps all other considerations. When Democrat Nancy Pelosi became speaker of the House, the leader of the lawmaking branch of government, she said her priority was to … elect more Democrats. After Republican victories in 2010, the Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell said his goal was to … prevent the Democratic president’s reelection. With the country at war and the economy in recession, our government leaders’ first thoughts have been of party advantage.

To read more, click here.

Bothwell says he’s the real Democrat

From the Hendersonville Times-News:

***

Conservative votes push councilman to challenge Shuler

By Gary Glancy
Times-News Staff Writer

Published: Wednesday, July 27, 2011 at 4:30 a.m.

Last Modified: Tuesday, July 26, 2011 at 6:46 p.m.

Last week at the Henderson County Democratic Headquarters, Cecil Bothwell told local Democrats what he tells other audiences across Western North Carolina — that he represents the Democratic wing of the Democratic Party.

“I stole that from Howard Dean,” Bothwell said with a chuckle Tuesday, “but I feel the same way.”

Bothwell, 60, an Asheville city councilman, will challenge U.S. Rep. Heath Shuler in the 11th Congressional District primary next May.

Bothwell said he’s had his differences with Shuler in the past, mainly over what he called Shuler’s conservative leanings. But when Shuler voted in March to de-fund Planned Parenthood and then co-sponsored a bill that would re-define rape as only violent rape, according to Bothwell, it pushed him to run against Shuler in late March.

“Those two choices by the congressman put me over the edge,” Bothwell said. “I had many disagreements with him with his policies over the years, but that’s when it clicked with me that somebody had to run against him.”

To read more, click here.

The moral basis for health care

The ongoing effort by Republicans and their allies to eliminate Medicare and Medicaid is nothing less than appalling, and their success in dragging Blue Dog Democrats over to their side of the debate is frightening. As a man who believes that we have a moral obligation to care for the least of our sisters and brothers, I could never vote to undo the hard won progress we have made toward addressing the common good embodied in the U.S. Constitution. I challenge Heath Shuler to explain his vote to kill Medicare.

In many ways the history of civilization has been one of discovering better and better forms of government that address our common needs while preserving our individual freedom. And short of imprisonment, there is nothing that crushes individual freedom more certainly than serious illness without hope of help.

As guidance in our treatment of others we tend to fall back on the moral teachings of our religious faith. The Golden Rule has rung down through the ages in various forms. “Therefore all things whatsoever ye would that men should do to you, do ye even so to them,” attributed to Jesus of Nazareth, is more commonly phrased in modern English as “Do unto others as you would have them do unto you.” In Judaism, the sage Hillel was asked to summarize the Torah and replied, “That which is hateful to you, do not do to your fellow. That is the whole Torah; the rest is commentary; go and learn.” However it is phrased, the idea is that of reciprocity: “What’s sauce for the goose is sauce for the gander,” is the version we read in Shakespeare.

In my own church, the Unitarian Universalist, our first two principles speak to the same issue. We believe in “The inherent worth and dignity of every person,” and in “Justice, equity and compassion in human relations.” This is the basis for our commitment to work in both the church and the wider community, ministering to the homeless, the disenfranchised, the hungry and the poor. One of our fellow believers, John Adams, second President of the United States and a signer of the Declaration of Independence, put it this way, “If we do not lay out ourselves in the service of mankind whom should we serve?”

When I look at our nation’s history, I see that we have struggled to extend help to the helpless. Before Social Security was introduced in 1935, old age meant abject poverty for many. While it’s a grand idea that everyone should save for the day when their bodies are weary and aches become a daily companion, it isn’t easy in the press of everyday living, when immediate needs and some few pleasures have our full attention. The organized collection of a payroll tax and distribution of benefits created modern retirement, where those who have paid their dues are rewarded with a far kinder and gentler sunset than our ancestors.

Yet still, the extraordinary cost of some medical care meant that even with a government retirement plan, many seniors and many with debilitating illness or injury were sentenced to a life of poverty. So in 1965 we implemented Medicare for all, and Medicaid for the very poorest in our midst. Those plans have worked well, with far lower overhead than private insurance plans, and clear benefit to our society and our economy. The poor and ill cannot offer their gifts to our community, they can’t give full expression to the wisdom gained through experience that makes all of our lives better.

Conservatives bemoan the expense of our social safety net in order to distract us from easy answers. If we would simply eliminate the income cap on payroll withholding, Social Security and Medicare would be solvent far into our future. To those who say that increasing that tax on the rich is unfair, I ask “What would you do if you were in their shoes?”

I would gladly pay.

If I do not lay myself out in service of mankind, whom shall I serve?