Club for Growth 'Comrade of the Month' nominations Jan 2009

From the Club for Growth website:

January's 'Comrade of the Month' Finalists

The Club just announced the finalists for our first ever "Comrade of the Month" award. An email was sent to Club members today to let them vote on the overall winner, which will be announced on Monday.

So here are finalists for January:

FLORIDA GOV. CHARLIE CRIST: State Farm Insurance recently announced that it would stop selling property insurance in the Sunshine State due to overly punitive government regulations. In response, Crist was unremorseful. He said, ""Well, they probably charge the highest rates in the state anyway. I think Floridians will be much better off without them." Crist now wants to punish State Farm by kicking their auto insurance business out of Florida as well. Crist tries to pass himself off as a fiscal conservative, but his actions as governor contradict his rhetoric.

REP. BARNEY FRANK (D-MA): As head of the House Financial Services Committee, Frank was instrumental in shepherding the $700 billion TARP plan through Congress. This new program did something that was unthinkable only a few years ago -- government ownership of the nation's largest banks. This has set a dangerous precedent that will have long-lasting negative effects for years to come. What's particularly offensive is that Frank routinely defended Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae when both companies were taking on more and more bad loans, which led to the current economic crisis.

CHICAGO MAYOR RICHARD DALEY: Townhall's Amanda Carpenter recently wrote, "Chicago Mayor Richard Daley has kicked hundreds of families out of their homes and relocated a cemetery full of buried bodies to build a whopping $15 billion airport expansion Chicago residents oppose, airlines don't want and he doesn't have the money to build. The kicker is that Daley stands a solid chance of getting a good chunk of the boondoggle funded in Washington's forthcoming stimulus bill under Barack Obama's pledge to dramatically increase infrastructure spending." It's almost too unbelievable to be true, but it is. Here's the underlying legislation.

REP. BETTY MCCOLLUM (D-MN): From a Club member: "I'd like to nominate Rep. Betty McCollum of Minnesota's 4th District. Fortunately she's not my Congressman, but last week she introduced H.J. Res. 4, which proposes a Constitutional Amendment decreeing health care is a Constitutional right" It's clear that McCollum doesn't understand economic liberty. Nothing can be considered a "right" when obtaining that right strips the rights from someone else. The text of her resolution can be found here.

BOB BECKEL: This nominee actually makes his own case for the award. The liberal pundit (and former manager for the Mondale campaign) asked a conservative pundit on TV, "What's wrong with some form of socialism in certain areas?" You can watch the video here (at 3m50s mark).