Posted on 08/08/2010 10:03:00 AM PDT by Brugmansian
Its a tradition stretching back 130 years: Local and national candidates meet annually in Fancy Farm, Kentucky to deliver their best and most colorful one-liners against opponents and scream fiery speeches full of partisan red meat to a raucous crowd hungry to hear rhetorical arrows flung across the aisle.
Unfortunately for Republican Kentucky Senate candidate Rand Paul, he seemed completely unaware of this . . .
Instead of delivering the kind of biting jabs and comebacks that have made the Fancy Farm picnic famous for more than a century, Paul started his speech with a mundane discussion of U.S. tax policy . . .
Boring! Boring! Boring! a group in the audience chanted in unison.
But Paul was not finished . . .
(Excerpt) Read more at dailycaller.com ...
It’s not a good sign that Paul is not clued in to a state tradition like Fancy Farm . . . or that no one on his staff is either. Woe is us.
Have you been to it? First I’ve read of the Fancy Farm. Sounds like pure Americana. If it were in my state, I can’t imagine a candidate not knowing. One trouble with many of the libertarian inclined is they are so darn earnest. Yeah...yeah...we know the spiel. Have some fun for a change. A religion or politics without humor, especially without self-mocking humor, is.....dangerous.
How about “Borat! Borat! Borat!”
The U.S. tax code is so large and out of control, like the rest of Washington, I couldnt carry it on stage, Paul began, referring to a group near the back of the event holding giant red boxes that said Tax Code on the front. The U.S. tax code is 16,000 pages long, he added.
Paul continued by reciting a string of numbers that appeared to give the crowd little to scream about.
It costs nearly $260 billion to comply with the tax code, he said. It costs over 6 billion working hours to comply with the tax code.
Then the kill shot: He brought up a think tank study relating to the IRS handling of tax returns
Few were moved, but despite the slow start, Paul suddenly showed a small sign of hope.
Washington is broken, he declared. Government needs reform from top to bottom.
As if they had been waiting patiently to hear something anything that could put them on their feet, members of the crowd finally burst out in a cheer. But with the next thing out of Pauls mouth, he immediately lost them again.
Its not just the tax code. The regulatory code is 79,000 pages long, he said. Weve added 10,000 regulations in the last decade. To comply with these regulations costs us over a trillion dollars.
Boring! Boring! Boring! a group in the audience chanted in unison.
So what they’re looking to be is a bunch of braindead cheerleaders. Where substance matters little and style is everything. This quite frankly borderline retarded mentality is what brought us Obama. It’s what has us 14-trillion dollars in the hole.
Not that I even buy into the thought that this was the electorate and not shipped in from Conway’s camp. Who knew how much it costs to uphold our tax system? Or how long the codes were? I find that infinitely more interesting than the typical political slander and empty nothingness and emotionally-charged nonsense that goes on at a majority of these political rallies
But I’m sure they can all go home and watch The Office when they get home and forget they were ever there.
And for those who were bored, I’m sure they’ll go back home and watch yet another episode of “The Office” or some other such meaningful enterprise and forget they were ever there.
Its not a good sign that Paul is not clued in to a state tradition like Fancy Farm . . .
Interesting, and we do agree.
At the Suntrade Institute we are virtually always serious, but no question there needs to be wit, humor, and certain degrees of irreverence to engage the audience. Witness the dreadful presidential debates of recent years. To me the wittiest presence of mind was Fred Thompson telling the female journalist to shove it with such silliness as her misdirected phony questions. Or Donald Rumsfeld, as absolutely one of the best on handling the Media: "there are things we know we know, things we know we don't know, and things we don't know we don't know."
Which brings up the exposure as the Media as really the ugly dreadful presence in the national political scene; just stomach the airheads on CNN, or CBS, for a few minutes. And incidentally it is the treatment of the Media as the irresponsible pompous airheads that they are, which is partly responsible for their organized hate of the conservative intelligence. (also e.g. Rush Limbaugh).
We, and/or the politicians we elect, have totally lost the perspective of a free, intelligent, and self-initiated society.
But then maybe that's too serious:
Johnny Suntrade
I don’t live in Kentucky, but the article seemed to indicate that Fancy Farm’s traditions were well known in that state.
Repeating from another thread:
Everywhere Obama or any democrat goes, FReepers should be there.
Start saying quietly, You lie. You lie. You lie.
Over and over.
Louder and louder.
That haunting chant should follow them wherever they show their faces.
Thanks for the redux on Rumsfeld’s comment about not knowing the things we don’t know. I think this is such a wise comment on Rumsfeld’s part. The media went nuts when he said it. The current administration never allows for all the things it doesn’t know . . . which are legion.
The "borderline retarded mentality" like to be told what they already know and nothing else. It makes them comfortable.
Those of normal ability, sure, they like the red meat and standard fare but also want to have some fun. Especially at an event which has been held for 130 years as the place to do exactly that: to poke fun and chow down. Rand Paul dissed an American tradition by agreeing to speak but not having a clue what the event is all about. That is not braindead but isn't very smart.
Had something similar happen in my town at a Tea Party in May of 09. Ladies in the RTC organized it. A nonpartisan event. Two libertarians showed up from out of town. One was given 20 minutes to speak and ragged on Bush and the GOP. The other trolled the small town crowd pitching drug legalization, his bumper stickers and Ayn Rand. He was asking people who read Atlas Shrugged before he was born if they had ever heard of it. Booth oozed sophomoric, snotty intellectual arrogance.
They didn't have a clue. Everyone else had funny or pointed signs; there were paper mache puppets of Geithner and pirates. The RTC ladies, all retired, were trying to make it fun for their Democrat and Independent neighbors (half the town is Indy), to make people they have political differences with feel comfortable. Those two ideologues spoiled it. The ladies were embarsassed and that was and will be the last Tea Party my town sees (because libertarians can't organize one and Democrats won't).
Now that I got that out, I want Rand Paul to win. I want him to clobber the Democrat. I want a landslide in his favor. But lighten up, stop the cold blooded rationalist crap. We get enough of that from Marxists. Have some fun.
That’s libertarians for you - they can never resist the temptation to be the smartest person in the room.
That's all you need to know.
Yeah...lets eschew all political humor and satire. Rewrite history to purge all of it out from Jonathan Swift to Mark Twain to Ann Coulter. Sheesh...the reason humor is used is because it works. The reason the left has been dominate the last 70 years is because it captured the culture, it runs the entertainment industry, it was able (especially in the 60s) to depict itself as the place to have fun.
Right, right, he failed to follow thru with the time honored tradition of lying to the people, focusing upon trivialities like Michelle Obama’s dress makers, and blaming the other side for everything.
He’s out of touch.
1). Please quit posting everything to Frontpage
2). And keep the blog material in the bloggers forum.
Thanks,
Sorry. Saw it at the front page of Daily Caller, second from the top, and figured it went there. Won’t do it again.
Maybe because Paul realizes that crushing debt and massive taxes are not a joking matter?
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