GOP Doublespeak

by: deciminyan

Fri Oct 14, 2011 at 10:15:00 AM EDT

“People, Not Politics.” That’s the tag line on the yard signs for the GOP candidates in the 7^th Legislative District. And it’s about as misleading as Fox’s tag line, “Fair and Balanced.”

I’ve written before about how the head of the ticket, Senator Diane Allen, puts politics before people. Her silence during the Senate debate on women’s health care and her failure to vote to override the governor’s veto were clearly political and not in the best interests of the people of Burlington County. This course of action flies in the face of her past record of independence from the party hacks, but it seems that she has transformed into just another Republican who votes lock step with their Tea Party leaders. Putting politics ahead of people was also her choice in supporting the governor’s paean to the Koch brothers by promoting increases in respiratory diseases with the withdrawal from the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative.

As bad as that is, her running mates are even more anti-people and pro-politics. Mount Laurel Mayor Jim Keenan, who flip-flopped on his position on the 2% property tax cap (perhaps under the influence of Trenton politicians?) is not in favor of allowing two people who are in love to marry. He and his running mate, businessman Chris Halgas, are strongly committed to marriage discrimination. Both subscribe to the failed premise that tax cuts promote jobs, thus putting corporations in front of people on their priority list. And I suppose their slogan is accurate if you consider the subset of people who are millionaires. All three support tax breaks for the wealthy while cutting services to the other 99%.

Allen, Keenan, and Halgas are certainly entitled to campaign on whatever platform their political masters gin up for them. But don’t give the voters Orwellian Doublespeak when you frame this pro-wealthy anti-middle class agenda as “People, Not Politics.”