Black & White and Cardinal Red All Over

republican governors gearing up for 2012

Mark Sanford, Bobby Jindal, and Sarah Palin are all gearing up for the 2012 election. How do I know that? All of them have announced plans to refuse parts of the stimulus package. Appealing to their NeoCon base voters (who are in an ever shrinking minority of voters in the country as a whole) they see the act of refusing money allocated by Washington to bolster their particular state economy as running contrary to their desire to hold down spending and programs even if it means that the citizens of their states suffer more because of their actions. That’s NeoCon logic for you… in other words, it’s not logical at all.

All three of these rightwingers hail from red states and, as such, do well in the polls if they are seen standing up to Washington. The fact that real people are being hurt by their actions means nothing at all to them. Ideology is more important than the effect that ideology has on their populace. They are counting on voters to remember that they are republicans and not much else come election time. They will spin their refusal to accept some of the stimulus as “state’s rights” and garner the remnant of the racist vote that is crucial for their continued re-elections. But mostly, they are counting on the furor to die down by the time election day rolls around, throw up the boogyman scenario of electing a Democrat, and another trumped up issue or two to escape responsibility for not looking after the needs of the electorate by turning down this money.

I seem to recall Ms Palin remarking during the most recent campaign that if she was elected VP that parents of disadvantaged children would have a friend in the White House. If that’s the case, wouldn’t it logically follow that she would be a friend while still in the statehouse as well? Well, we are not asserting that NeoCons like Palin are ever being logical because it appears that a lot of the money she is turning down would help put additional money into the state’s paltry education budget and some of that is going to help those same disadvantaged children she claims to hold so dear. Since it means that some more people would be employed (and therefore increase the size of government) Palin is refusing to take the money. That’s NeoCon logic for you.

She is also going to refuse millions for other parts of the Alaskan economy and government functions on these same bogus principles. In addition to the $160 million for education that she is tossing back to DC there is $17 million for the Alaska Department of Labor which would help fund additional vocational rehabilitation services and unemployment services among other things, $9 million for Health and Social Services and about $7 million for Public Safety. Only in the convoluted mind of a person running for the presidency who wants to make sure that her conservative NeoCon base understands she will stand up to Washington bureaucrats would turn down money designed to help the people of her state and put her ideology ahead of the needs of the state.

Bobby Jindal uses similar NeoCon logic (meaning no real logic at all) in turning down stimulus money that would have helped the unemployed in his state. Even though the state could phase out the new program when the money runs out in three years, Jindal won’t even start the program up even though his state isn’t paying for it, the feds are. The unemployed in Louisiana suffer thanks to the brilliant NeoCon logic of prospective presidential candidates.

Mark Sanford is willing to let more than 4,000 teachers get the axe in South Carolina rather than take the stimulus money. He wants to pay down South Carolina’s debt or pay off school bonds before he will look to the needs of real people in his bass ackward state: elementary school teachers. That’s some real NeoCon logic for you.

I think that the most sense about all of this crap was made by another republican governor who legally has no ambition to be president. Arnold Schwartenegger said that if those other governors don’t want stimulus money that he would take it to help California. There is the difference between a NeoCon running for president and a republican who understands what it means to look out for his people when it is crunch time. There is no overlap between the two unfortunately.

links: http://community.adn.com/adn/node/139409

http://thinkprogress.org/2009/02/20/jindal-unemployed/

http://www.greenvilleonline.com/article/20090317/NEWS01/

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