Matt Salmon was the guest speaker at our Mountain View Tea Party tonight. I was very impressed.<\/p>\n
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.<\/p>\n
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.<\/p>\n
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.<\/p>\n
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.<\/p>\n
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.<\/p>\n
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.<\/p>\n
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!<\/p>\n