Posted on 02/03/2014 9:43:17 AM PST by mn-bush-man
Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell runs dead even with Democratic challenger Alison Lundergan Grimes in Rasmussen Reports’ first look at the 2014 U.S. Senate race in Kentucky. But McConnell’s GOP primary rival Matt Bevin leads Grimes by six points. (snip)
(Excerpt) Read more at rasmussenreports.com ...
I think we need more Libertatian Republicans in Congress. I’m not saying they should run the show, but they have many good ideas. We also need more Buchananites in Congress, as well.
I don’t mind libertarians, but Paulbots are completely irresponsible when it comes to defense matters and foreign affairs, not to mention immigration. And more Buchananites? Paulbots and Buchananites would cancel each other’s votes out on trade issues (Paulbots are free traders, while Buchananites are protectionists), but they’d vote in unison in serving Israel up in a silver platter to Islamists. No thanks.
So because the program was “sponsored” by the MIT Enterprise Forum (among others) it means that he can claim to have studied at MIT? The David Rockefeller Center for Latin American Studies is affiliated with Harvard University, but if it is one of several “sponsors” of adult-education courses in Boston it doesn’t mean that people who take the courses studied at Harvard.
Bevin claimed to have studied entrepreneurship at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology—that’s the name of a university, not a neighborhood in Cambridge. He added that the courses were “at the MIT Endicott Campus,” which is a business center that is rented out by MIT. He easily could have described his certification in a way that did not imply that he’s an MIT graduate, and used the same second and third paragraphs to describe the program (there’s some puffery in the second paragraph, but no dishonesty), and no one could have called him a liar. But he decided that being honest about the program he attended wouldn’t cut it, and he had to lie about it.
The Entrepreneurial Masters Program (apparently Bevin even misspelled the name) consists of shelling out $4,000 to attend four days of lectures, and then doing it again for two more years, and after having paid $12,000 to attend 12 total days of lectures over 3 years, they give you a nice diploma that you can show pictures of when asking for political donations. See http://events.eonetwork.org/emp/
I’m sure that many people consider that money well spent, and maybe participants leave there as the greatest entrepreneurs in the world, but I have to tell you that, having three first-cousins who graduated with a BS from MIT during the past 20 years, I know for a fact that one cannot get an MIT diploma by attending 12 days of lectures.
Who would pretend that participating in such program was the equivalent of studying at MIT for three years? Not an honest person, I would say. And if Bevin felt the need to pad his résumé in such an outrageous manner, I don’t think he’s very proud of his real accomplishments.
The issue is the representation. It sounds like he was beefing up a slim resume. Let’s not trade one weasel for another. I’m no McConnell fan, but is Bevin really the best conservative Kentucky can field?
“is Bevin really the best conservative Kentucky can field?”
It doesn’t matter, though, because the filing deadline already passed; if conservatives mulling a run weren’t scared off by possible retribution from the McConnell forces, they would have been scared off by Bevin raising so much money and making it obvious that jumping in only would result in McConnell winning handily (since the anti-McConnell vote would be split, and Bevin’s cash meant that he would be in for the long haul and get quite a few votes).
No question, the way the heading was shown was mis-leading. But, the information provided below it was accurate. It shouldn’t have been done the way it was. But, it was a LinkedIn page. Not a “resume” that you send to a prospective employer.
Sounds to me as if, MIT needs to protect their name a little better. If they allow their name to be used as a sponsor, it lends credibility to the training.
I don’t know about this program in particular, but I do know of people who obtained “Executive MBA’s” from LSU who probably didn’t attend much more than 12 actual classroom days. There was a ton of work done “off-line” and “On-line”... but, very little lecture. I don’t know if this course had that or not.
Suffice to say... he DID have this training. The details of it were accurately reflected on his LinedIn page. The headings were clearly mis-leading. I would presume this was intentional. But, I don’t think it rises to the level of dis-qualifying him forever for public office.
The BEST? Probably not. But, he is the ONLY one.
No one else was willing to risk it.
The “course description” sounds like the “courses” they offer on cruise ships. I doubt very much that this program consisted of a few months of studying on your own time and then four days of lectures; it’s a four-day-long series of conferences, which, quite cunningly, they’ve packaged together with two additional four-day-long series of conferences that the person has to pay for in order to earn the “certificate.” It’s like the Yale Travel Society, but without the Yale professors, and no one could claim that they “studied at Yale” because they heard some lectures while on a cruise of the Danube.
IMHO, the fact that Bevin paid $12,000 for the conferences does not speak highly of him, but it’s his money, and perhaps he feels that they were helpful enough in his business that he got his money’s worth. But claiming that he studied (nay, *graduated from*) MIT is more than just disingenuous, it is dishonest (and I don’t see the distinction between putting it on LinkedIn versus your résumé, since prospective employers check out LinkedIn all the time; and in this case, the people of Kentucky are his prospective employers). Honesty is something that I value highly, and this type of gratuitous fibbing (its gratuitous nature is reminiscent of Clinton claiming that he “tried [marijuana] once in England” and that he “didn’t like it and [] didn’t inhale”) makes me think that he’s not trustworthy and just lies when he thinks he can get away with it. Maybe that’s not the case, but after that incident the onus is on him to prove that it’s not the case. He should run for lower office and prove that he’s honest and trustworthy—and actually stands for the policy positions he claims on his campaign page—before attempting a U.S. Senate run.
The CORRECT information about the program attended and yes, "graduated" from, is shown for anyone who wants to follow up on it. He doesn't say "graduated from MIT". Perhaps it's implied.. but, it's not the blatant lie it's been made out to be.
I'm not a believer that the only route to Congress is to work your way up there with a series of lower government jobs. Crap on that. It doesn't hurt to have a few business people in the body politic. They have plenty enough of those "career politician" types to keep the wheels moving.
Is Bevin my IDEAL candidate? No. He's not Ted Cruz. But, he's NOT Mitch McConnell either. I KNOW who and what Mitch is. A fine politician if there ever was one. But, he's not the right man for the fight that is ahead of this country. He and Boehnner are two peas in a pod. We need change. REAL change.
Nothing will shake up the status quo more than, taking out the Leader. To me? That's more important than the man we send there.
That said... I will NOT vote for Bevin if I EVER Think he couldn't beat Grimes. The MOST IMPORTANT thing is, to get control of the Senate. Right now? I think the Kentucky seat will remain Republican, no matter who wins our primary.
That’s why we need a better farm system.
No need to apologize for post length. I appreciate your take on the race.
Right now, I cannot come up with a good reason to keep McConnell in the Senate, let alone as party leader. What has he done to earn the right to serve 36 years ? Have things gotten better on his watch ? No, they have gotten demonstrably worse. When he was first elected in 1984, this was a completely different country - alien to the one we’re in now. Has he valiantly fought to stop the decline ? No. He fights to keep his own power. That’s no demonstrable difference between him and his Democrat seatmates. How do we ever expect to turn this country and government around when we keep sending the same people back time and time again ? It’s like the definition of insanity.
One thing is crystal clear. The entire “Republican” leadership needs to go, in both houses. Things will never change until we get elected officials and leaders truly committed to reform and shrinking the gargantuan and oppressive size of government.
You make some good points, but I’m always astonished about the “record to run on” thing. Most, and I mean most, of the people in Congress are morons, save a few.
Carolyn McCarthy of NY is just one of hundreds that had/have absolutely no record of anything. I’m sorry for the loss of her husband and son at the hands of Colin Ferguson. But just because of that incident she is somehow qualified to write and vote on laws that affect all of us. In an interview with Tucker Carlson she couldn’t answer any questions on the bill that she was introducing:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U32GOlL5Ro4
And then we can just stroll thru the roster of pretty much everyone else in Congress and it isn’t much different. I for one am tired of seeing everyone elected that is either a lawyer or some type of community activist, who have no idea on how the world works. Unfortunately, if I were to start naming the names that immediately come to mind, they are all female and all democrats.
Hell, look at Clinton. What has she done. She should have been disbarred. She could have broken the law during her time working on the Watergate stuff. She rode her husbands coattails while he banged anything that breathed. As a Senator she did absolutely nothing. As SecState she did even less. So, where are her bonafides, as compared to anyone else.
What I’d like to see is getting rid of the 17th Amendment and then the states putting into law, some type of mechanism to toss/recall these fools if they aren’t towing the line the way they campaigned. If the country leans right and the there are more and more state houses that lean right, then the Senate leans right.
Her son was not killed.
.
I thought both of them were. My bad.
I think that letting state legislators, instead of voters, elect U.S. Senators would result in far fewer conservatives being elected. Look at the 2012 Senate election in TX: do you honestly think that Ted Cruz would have had a chance running against Lt. Gov. David Dewhurst if the election was held in the state legislature? And we wouldn’t have been able to elect almost any Republicans in 2010 when the Democrats still controlled almost all of the state legislatures—Obama would have had 60* Democrats in the Senate until at least 2013.
We need voters to take their vetting of candidates more seriously, not having them abrogating their responsibility and having politicians decide for them.
There is a very large state-wide poll being released tonight at 6:00 tonight.
We’re going to get a very good measure of whether or not Bevin is getting any traction. In the last poll, he’d cut McConnell’s lead to about 20 points. IMO, he need to get that down to 10-12 points tonight.
McConnell has really ramped up the advertising in the past two weeks. I wasn’t sure why. This might be the reason.
Good point
The American people and Loveable Lindsey and John McPain disagree with this statement.
I was reading an article on National Review about how MS Senator Thad Cochran is one of the biggest porkers in the Senate and is likely to be given the heave-ho by Chris McDaniel in the primary (which I think will be the only great “Tea Party victory” in Senate races this year, although many other fine conservatives will be elected as well), and ran across this interesting paragraph:
“When Republicans won the House in 2010, they helped bring about an end to the long-cherished practice of congressional earmarking. During the lame-duck session in December 2010, Senate minority leader Mitch McConnell (R., Ky.) rallied Republicans to kill a proposed omnibus spending bill that was loaded with earmarks, including more than $500 million that Cochran had requested.”
http://www.nationalreview.com/article/371266/pulling-pork-andrew-stiles
Yeah, no difference between Mitch McConnell and a Democrat.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.