or it’s equivalent is a question that will be asked in the future about where candidates and elected officials stood during this November 8, 2016 election. ?
Did you take a moral stand or did you take a calculated, compromised, “safe” stand?
from Shawn Vestal's column in today's Spokesman Review:
But every day, in every way, Trump is putting a sales price on the GOP’s soul, a price that is measured one elected official at a time and which will continue to be paid long after Trump is gone. Crapo, Simpson and other Republicans of conscience are refusing to pay, but McMorris Rodgers keeps writing checks, covering sunk costs. How bad – how offensive, how unprepared, how ignorant, how racist, how dishonest – would Trump have to be for McMorris Rodgers and others who are still clinging to the mast to jump ship?
(my emphasis)
He points to Mike Crapo of Idaho as drawing a line between those that reject Trump and the others like McMorris Rodgers. Crapo had this to say:
“I have spent more than two decades working on domestic violence prevention,” he said in a statement. “Trump’s most recent excuse of ‘locker room talk’ is completely unacceptable and is inconsistent with protecting women from abusive, disparaging treatment.”
What did McMorris Rodgers, mother of two little girls and a young boy with Down Syndrome, have to say?
“I absolutely disagree with with some of Donald Trump’s statements- especially the video...”
“I have said all along that I absolutely disagree with some of Donald Trump’s statements – especially the video released on Friday. I will be voting for Mr. Trump because I believe that we must defeat Hillary Clinton who has a record of deliberately misleading the American people. She lacks transparency and accountability.”
This was from her very brief statement released yesterday. The only boldness in that statement is mine.
Her Democratic opponent Joe Pakootas unequivocally said:
“As a coach, I know this is not ‘locker room banter.’ This is language that encourages rape and sexual assault and it must not be tolerated,” Pakootas said in an email to his supporters released by the campaign. “I am horrified and disgusted. As a father, grandfather, brother, and husband, I cannot imagine if someone spoke like this to the women in my life.”
Actually sounds like he and Mr. Crapo agree, even though they are definitely on opposing sides politically. Funny how there can be a meeting of minds on this most fundamental issue in spite of that.
Mr. Vestal concludes his article with this:
Trump is a disaster of historic proportions – a Hindenburg, a Titanic. Unless we are a worse country than I think we are, he will not win. But the residue of his candidacy will remain, uglying up the political culture, and the dynamic that allowed it to happen – a raging far-right base and the cynical grandees trying to harness them – will continue to churn through American conservatism.
Make no mistake: As much as those of us who despise Trump are paying attention to the Crapo Line, so are those who love him. That’s why you see the rhetorical limbos of Ryan and McMorris Rodgers and others. Long after he’s gone, the question will remain for GOP politicians: Where did you stand?
McMorris Rodgers has made it abundantly clear where she stands as far as her constituents are concerned. I got the memo...thanks. And the main reason why I wrote this today- I did get that memo.
Wonder if one day her children will ask her any questions about where she stood.
One more profile in cowardice.
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