Dent Triple-Teamed by Benol, Towne and the Queen of the Tea Party

If you visit blogs like LV Dependent or Just Read It, you're bound to get the impression that at least some Democrats believe Charlie Dent's days as LV Congressman are numbered. Dent is dismissed as an empty suit who serves whatever special interest is unpopular at the moment, while Bethlehem Mayor John Callahan is regarded as their Savior, even though he's avoided every major issue in this campaign.

Since Dent is such an evil conservative, you'd think they'd all be rallying to his banner. But at Friday night's Lehigh Valley Conservative Voice lovefest for April Fools, he was attacked on three fronts by congressional wannabes Mat Benol and Jake Towne, as well as unelected LV Tea Party Queen Kim Schmidtner. Dent was denied the opportunity to respond to these attacks, and there was no time for questions from the little people.

Mat Benol a little short on specifics.

Mat's actually the most likable person who spoke on Friday night. In a soft-spoken voice, he talked about his two daughters, who are obviously his world. He told a story about how the two of them were flicking a TV remote at each other just the other day, which resulted in a call from the wife and a trip home to take one of them to the hospital. Those of us who are parents have been there, and he connected with the crowd right away. He mentioned what it's like to be called into the office and told he has to accept a 10% pay cut to avoid layoffs. Those of us who work know what that's like, too.

Benol also made an other important point, one that escaped Towne and Schmidtner. He stressed it is possible to like your opponent, and flatly admitted he likes Dent. So why is he running? He claims his goal is to bring the Republican party back to the conservative side.

Benol is a LV Tea Party member, and up until his announcement, he was one of their unelected leaders. On his web page, he indicates that they may not be able to endorse him, but he endorses them.

As likable as he may be, his discussion of issues is rather banal. In talking about our debt crisis, he just says we need to "stop spending." OK, where? His foreign policy plank tells us we need to "stop apologizing for America." That's nice, now how about some specific proposals?

A demonstration of Benol's weakness on the issues is illustrated most clearly by the "limited government resolution" that he and other tea party members unanimously approved in March. I've duplicated it here, and it basically contains these provisions.

1) DECREASE taxes, no tax hikes or new taxes.
2) NO operating deficits, government should spend equal to or less than what it brings in.
3) REDUCE public debt.
4) REDUCE government power and authority, stop increasing it every year.

With less than 50 days until the primary, isn't it time to hear some details about how a Congressman Benol would implement this? In FY 2010, the Federal Government will take in $2.2 trillion in revenue and spend $3.7 trillion, leaving a deficit of $1.5 trillion, just for that year. If Benol were in Congress, he would have to cut spending 42% to comply with that limited government resolution. It's completely unworkable. Even if Benol eliminated every single government program other than defense, social security, Medicare, veteran’s benefits, employee retirement and interest, he would still have failed to balance the budget.

So enough of the “we need to spend less than we take in.” It is time for Benol as a Congressional candidate (and Joe Hilliard as his campaign manager) to start giving some specifics.

Independent / Libertarian Jake Towne Needs to Relax.

I have to wonder what the hell happened to Jake Towne in mainland China, where he spent a few years before rushing back here to run for Congress. That's a post for another day. When he started speaking Friday night, he was very angry and had a wild look in his eyes that made me wonder. In addition to his anger, he has absolutely no sense of humor. His only joke - a comparison of the major parties to arsenic and cyanide - has been repeated since the days of Ralph Nader.

Towne would eliminate the US Department of Education, abolish the income tax, eliminate military bases overseas, cut defense spending, bring troops home from Iraq, Afghanistan, Germany and Italy.

He also hates being searched at airports.

To thunderous applause, he railed against the "mob rule by that gang in Washington." Gee, I thought they were our democratically elected officials.

As he shouted and waved his hands wildly, with his hair going in forty different direction, I was tempted to blurt out a few "Seig Heils." But I was afraid others might join me.

Queen of The LV Tea Party, Kim Schmidtner.

As if the two announced candidates were not enough, the unelected Queen of the LV Tea Party had a few shots of her own. She likened incumbent Republicans like Charlie Dent to cancer.

"While I agree that the 2010 mid-term elections are critical, I vehemently disagree that voters must accept yet another compromise. What this says is that we should accept a small does of poison instead of a large one. In the end it will still kill us, it will just take us a little longer to die.

"Returning to the cancer analogy, that's like a surgeon taking out only 85% of a tumor, but leaving the remaining 15% there to continue to metastasize. How many of you would go to that surgeon?

"The definition off insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results. It is time to break out of this insanity and undergo the treatments necessary to rid the nation of the disease of progressivism, or it will kill us. And this year, voters have the first opportunity to do that in the upcoming May primary. The primaries are the constitutional, democratic battleground, where the people can rid the party of progressives and those who compromise with them, and put the best candidates forward to the general election in November.

"It is absolutely critical and is indeed your civic duty to be suspect of the party endorsement process and conduct your own research on all candidates that appear on the ballot, by attending events like this one this evening."

I see. Events that exclude Charlie Dent. The Queen of Mean might want to reconsider her cancer analogy. Congressman Dent's father-in-law died of cancer just a year ago, and it killed his brother-in-law just last month.

It amazes me that Schmidtner, who has a pretty spotty voting record, would lecture others on their civic duty.

Schmidtner also spoke of the completely unworkable limited government resolution.

"We will hold all elected officials, no matter the party affiliation, accountable to these principles, and will measure each and every vote they make or have made against these standards."

Holding them accountable? So much for a nonprofit that engages in no political activity.