More from those in the 19th C.D.
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- February
- 27
Kieran Lalor, a Peekskill Republican who wants to unseat Rep. John Hall, D-Dover Plains, had this to say about the war in Iraq and how it figures into his campaign.
“Most people say we (Republicans) lost the Congress last time because of the war. I put my life on the line there, I lost friends there, and if I didn’t believe American national security was at stake, I would be the first to say so. We as messengers are as important as the message.”
He was speaking in this Associated Press story as the founder of Iraq Veterans for Congress.
Westchester County Legislator George Oros, another Republican, also wants to take on Hall.
This entry was posted
on Wednesday, February 27th, 2008 at 4:37 pm by Mike Risinit.
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Iraq Veterans for Congress is the type of bottom up leadership the Republican Party needs in order to reverse the losses of 2006. I admire veteran’s like Lalor who vounteer to serve and when they return home remain committed to public service. I hope the McCain camp has read this article and is investigating how it can work with these guys during the general election.
Can someone please clearly define “National Security” for me? We hear it all the time and I just can’t figure out what it means.
As an example take the term “middle class”. If you ask a politician it means “hard working Americans” which pretty much covers anyone with a job or looking for one. But ask another politician and they’ll say, “anyone earning between $30-$250,000 which, since it takes in 90% of the working public, the term becomes meaningless. But it’s a damn fine buzzword and it makes people think politicians care for them.
So, National Security. What does it mean?
Lalor is a political neophyte. God bless him and his patriotic service to this nation but he is denying reality to say the Iraq War didn’t play a role in Kelly’s defeat. Both public and private polling showed that was the top issue in the 19th in 2006. John Hall spent all his time talking about the war, and how we needed a phased withdrawal (whatever that means) but it worked in contrast to Kelly and her stalwart support for the war. He would be a great candidate if he talked about something other than Iraq. Republicans cannot win if we talk about the war, that’s a fact. And no matter how many timed Lalor reminds us that he was there, it’s not going to sell people on the idea that the war is good. It will only sell people on the idea that Lalor is a patriot who is wrong in his thinking. Further, as an infantryman, he was no responsible for strategic decisions or key troop movements. Many others war critics will wrongfully dismiss him as a trigger-happy redneck who marched lock-step without knowing what he was fighting for.
The Republicans will not win back Congress with the War as a prominent issue. That’s the reality of the situation.
2 articles (AP and Newsweek) that say Lalor is from Wappingers Falls. I thought he was living in Peekskill? I know he’s from there originally, and he had his Peekskill condo on the market, but no word if he moved.
A couple of points.
I think Sue Kelly lost because of the You Tube run, because she was on the oversight committee for the pages when another Republican was making passes at them (neither the committee nor Kelly properly protected the pages), because the Congress was more corrupt than usual, and because Jon Hall was an intelligent candidate who didn’t run from the press, had no record of being weak on sexual abuse, and had a reputation for financial integrity. I acknowlege that the pre-surge failures in Iraq contributed to Ms. Kelly’s defeat, but in my (unproveable) opinion, an intelligent coherent effective candidate who defended the libertion of Iraq and the defeat of al-queda could have carried the 19th cd.
Similarly, I think such a candidate has the best chance of carrying the 19th cd this year. The candidate, however, should be credible on the full range of issues we face. In my opinion, George Oros has these skills.
Governing 101 means cherchez la loot. Find the money. Our liberal friends who support the libertion of Iraq and the defeat of al-queda (Senator Leiberman, for example) would find the money by taxing. George Oros will find the money by mastering the budget, by fighting earmarks, by searching for a meaningful bi-partisan compromise on entitlements, and by reducing the deficit (and therefore interest expense).
The free open tolerant west is under attack in New York, Madrid, Israel, the Netherlands, Indonesia, Australia, Britain, Lebanon, and everywhere else people agree to disagree. President McCain will need the right people performing the right functions. In Congress President McCain will need allies who can connect the dots from earmarks to entitlements to al queda. When I add it up, for the 19th cd, it comes up Oros.
“National Security” means simply that we Americans may sleep at night, assured that we won’t be offed shortly by violent sociopaths and economically jealous soldiers sent from afar to disturb us.
Our brothers serving in the desert, and on military bases throughout the country and the greater world, continue to ensure this grant to us. That’s one reason thinking Americans salute the flag and pay their taxes.
The comfortable lefties whose aggressive, over-loud voices populate the lower Hudson region these days might have you question that reality, but they never had to fight for either their freedom or existence.
To Tim Hays:
You’re forgetting that Timothy McVeigh was not sent “from afar”. Moreover, you’ve placed the definition in the realm of physical violence where I’m pretty sure industrialists would claim the term to mean, “unfettered ability to use the globe as a colony.”
As for “thinking Americans” I’d have to say that those who do the most thinking are the ones most critical of the call where “national security” is used as a cover statement by an politician who does not want his decisions and policies examined all that carefully. It gives him the ability to claim that those who would stand against him or question him are endangering “national security”.
Personally, I could say that anyone who defends the Constitution and takes our political leaders to task are defending our national security and that it does not require soldiers since national security decisions and policies are made here at home.
LL
Touche, LL. Yes, my statement has its flaws, considering those sociopaths such as McVeigh who rationalized their patriotism by hating others. And yes, our Constitution is the most important element of our citizenship. And yes, there are those “paper tigers” who wrongly use “national security” as a cover for corrupt actions.
My broad strokes in describing National Security were not intended to protect those who abuse its theoretical and practical usefulness.
I like you already LL—you challenge assumptions.
just stop being afraid. national security as defined by our imperial president or people like lalor is just fear mongering. 15 of the 19 were from saudi arabia and we whacked iraq, an easy target with a dirt bag as a leader all on trumped up lies. blithering on about the liberation of iraq is such a mindless posture to take. and oh yes by the way, all of you squabbling and philosophizing about lalor & oros are really out of touch and have failed to notice, read about, listen to or comprehend what a superior congressional representative we already have in Congressman Hall. Congressman Hall’s predecessor was useless from day one and continued to underperform until finally being literally kicked out by the electorate. everyone is tired of bush republican policies that are completely ruining every aspect of the “american way”. it is like a toxic infection. fortunately the 19th CD has already found the antidote in Congressman Hall !
7Curses makes a good point. Those on the right have transformed the idea of ‘national security’ into nothing but rhetorical fear-mongering aimed at grasping onto whatever political clout that they have left.
Sadly for Kooky Kieran Lalor, Iraq is no longer A#1 on the list of issues that Americans find most important. The economy and health care are now as important, if not more important to those in NY’s 19th c.d. Even with that said, Lalor’s stance on the Iraq war is out of touch with at least 60% of the 19th, however, I do look forward to Lalor debating the economy or health care with Oros. He may have to spend some of his time as a night watchman boning up on those issues.
Let us state the obvious here. The reason Iraq
is no longer the number one issue is because
the war is being won. So, it is no longer the
prime issue for the Dems, who were proved wrong
about the surge.
That disappoints the left, which means all of today’s
Democrats, but so it goes. They will never admit it.
The reason Iraq is not the number one issue is that
the economy is tanking and voters have their
own problems…However you can count on the democrat
making Iraq AN issue…and I expect that it will
be an effective one if used by the democrat as Barack
has been doing to illustrate judgment..(of course he
wasn’t in the senate at the time and probably would
have voted for the resolution just as Hillary did)
Ding ding ding, ‘the consultant’ got it right. Ethan, as usual, got it wrong.
The Iraq war would have either never happened, or been over a long time ago if we still had the draft. You can tell me the surge is working when the Sunnis and Shia stop fighting each other and actually run their own country. Until then, anybody who says otherwise is delusional.
I was just taking a look at the FEC filings. Lalor only took in around $31K as of January, and the bulk of it came from only 35 donors, around $24K, the other $7000 must be small donors. (IIRC, only donations of $200 or more are posted by the FEC.) In contrast, John Hall had around $1.4 M, and close to a thousand donors.
Kieran Lalor’s grassroots looks more like a very sparse vacant lot. Don’t expect any fertilizer from the RNC, either, with those kind of numbers.