Matt Salmon was the guest speaker at our Mountain View Tea Party tonight. I was very impressed.
My first clue that this is a man I can trust was his sticking to his word when he first served in Congress. He committed to limit himself to three terms, and he kept his word. I watched Jeff Flake try to weasel out of his similar promise – it was very unbecoming. I think most of those Republicans who made that pledge later broke their word. If you are untrustworthy in one thing, you will be untrustworthy in another. That’s a pretty reliable rule of human character.
But Matt kept his word. Furthermore, I learned that he is willing to ruffle the feathers of the establishment and understands the sacrifice it is to not go along with the leadership. I admire that greatly.
We quizzed him on his position on a number of issues. I had a great exchange with him back and forth on what to do about the overreach of the powerful administrative state. While we didn’t agree on the best way to reign that in, his argument was cogent, consistent, and well founded, and I came to think his method may be the most effective, which is to populate the courts with principled constitutionalists.
Interestingly, he had some dust-ups with Newt Gingrich when he served, and he is not a Newt man. I’m not surprised. Newt is a man of weak character, and is my last choice among the three front-runners for the Republican nomination for president.
I signed up to help with Matt Salmon’s campaign. We need him in Congress. He shared with us that he does not enjoy serving in Congress. It’s a “snake pit” – those were his words. But he says that the current crop of freshmen need reinforcements. The moderate, wimpy Republican leadership is pressuring them to bend to “get along,” and they need more members to stand with them. I fully comprehend that.
From the reception he received, he clearly had our Tea Party group on his side. I didn’t sense the presence of anyone there who would support Kirk Adams, and we comprehend that this is a “country class” vs “establishment” contest that is important to win.
And I would add that maybe we can get a critical mass of conservatives in the House to get ourselves a new Speaker. Oh, how we need that, to replace John Boehner!
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Don’t be hoodwinked by Salmon. This is the same man who:
1) Donated money last election cycle to Ed Pastor and Joe Baca. Two of the most liberal members of the house. Both of which had Republican opposition.
2) Lobbyied for anyone who would give him money…Does this sound conservative to you? Some of his clients
– Fire & Police Unions
– Government Motors
– Prudential
3) Bashed Joe Arpiao for years and he called for comprehensive immigration reform.
All the items above are public records, easily searched.
Does this sound like a true conservative to you? The man is a sellout. Ask him now if he’s make the same term limits pledge…HE WON’T! He said he regretted making the pledge last time.
Don’t trust this man.
Comment by David Hall:
CD5,
I’ll tell you who I don’t trust, and that’s YOU. You give me a phony name and a phony e-mail address, and then you give me this comment that makes no sense. I just tested your e-mail address and it bounced back immediately with the error message, “invalid recipient.” I think you’re the same guy who posted comments before trying to tear down Matt Salmon, and identifying himself first as LD7 PC and then LD10 PC with the other phony e-mail address of chair@table.com for both comments. And then LD10 said, “LD7 has got that right.” I feel a little silly for being so gullible and not looking more carefully at the comments and the address.
Yes, Matt was clear last night that he was not making a term limits pledge this time. I looked up on the website opencongress.org about members of Congress who had made term limits pledges since 1992 and either kept them or broke them. As I total it, 46 members during that time frame were elected with a term limits pledge. 26 of them broken the pledge. Salmon was one of the 43% of those members who kept his pledge. Mr. Anonymous, I think that keeping a pledge is integrity. You have a different view. And now because he doesn’t make a pledge, to you that’s a sellout. You make no sense.
And yes, he did lobby, but it was for causes and companies he believed in. I don’t see anything wrong with that. The way you phrased it is a smear.
If you have any followup comments, I’m going to demand some verification of identity like a Facebook page and a real e-mail address with a real name. I don’t like being scammed.
Matt Salmon is being opposed by the establishment. The supporters of Kirk Adams read like a Republican establishment phone book. And Matt is stirring things up by standing against them, and it looks like, in your case, there is some sense that he is a threat. I made a comment before that I have seen a lot of the dark side of human nature in my day, and I have learned that when you strike at the heart of power of evil, you stir up all kinds of turbulence from dark places. You’re kind of confirming that here.
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