Al Cardenas joins former ACU chairman and NRA president David Keene; calls Alexander "ultimate conservative problem solver"
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Al Cardenas |
NASHVILLE
– U.S. Senator Lamar Alexander’s campaign today announced that Al Cardenas, the most recent former chairman of the American Conservative
Union, has joined former chairman David Keene in endorsing Alexander for
re-election to the U.S. Senate.
In a statement, Cardenas said, "Lamar Alexander is the ultimate conservative problem solver. He not only relies on conservative principles, but also on a proven ability to find solutions — a combination that is all too rare in our country today."
The American Conservative Union is the country's largest and longest-running conservative organization, and serves as the umbrella for numerous other conservative grassroots organizations. David Keene, who served as chairman of the ACU from 1984-2001 and is a former president of the National Rifle Association, previously endorsed Alexander and appeared in Nashville on Alexander's behalf.
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David Keene |
Alexander said, "Al Cardenas and David Keene are two of our country's greatest champions of conservative values. I am grateful for their endorsements, along with the support I have received from grassroots Tennesseans and other national conservative leaders. As senator, I will fight to bring to Washington the principles of low taxes, balanced budgets and job growth that I helped to establish in Tennessee.”
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You know, it is very disappointing that two Chairmen of the American Conservative Union don't even cite Alexander's ACU rating. It speaks more to an obvious attempt to hide Alexander's voting record. Keene says he would start with Alexander's 100's with the NRA and the Right to Life. Cardenas, seeks to dodge ratings altogether, since he heads the ACU. The American Conservative Union has been rating Congress for YEARS. Readers should go to http://www.conservative.org/legislative-ratings/2013-congress to see the ratings. There we can see that Alexander's conservative lifetime conservative voting record is a 76. That's a "C". 2012? Sixty-eight. Last year, the most recent year they have ratings for? A SIXTY. That's what we called a D MINUS.
ReplyDeleteThe fact that the ACU Chairmen would endorse Alexander when their very own organization shows such dismal numbers says far more about Cardenas and Keene than it does about Alexander. I know this: given a choice between calling myself a Tea Partier and an ACU supporter I'll go with the real conservatives. Give me some tea!
My note to the ACU:
ReplyDeleteI am very diappointed in Chairman Cardenas' recent endorsement of Tennessee's incumbent Senator, Lamar Alexander. The endorsement says far more about Cardenas' lack of core principles than it does about Alexander. The ACU does a fantastic job rating Congress on its voting record and Cardenas didn't even cite Alexander's ACU rating; nor did David Keene, your former Chairman, in his endorsement of Alexander. And with good reason. Alexander's lifetime ACU is a very weak 76. 2012 was a 68. Last year? A SIXTY! That's a D minus in anybody else's grading system.
And I haven't really had a dog in this fight. I'm not a fan of Joe Carr, whose record includes support of some nutty nullificationist proposals. But he is a no-doubt conservative. ACU would have been far better off keeping out of it as the Senate Conservatives Fund has wisely done. While I am not much of a Sarah Palin fan (I agree with her on probably everything, I just don't think she's Presidential caliber) she at least has her finger on the pulse of conservatism--and a big favorite at CPAC, by the way. The ACU, in the face of your own rating system, seems to instead opt to support moderates.
In a country in which the stakes are growing higher and higher for conservatives, where the two-thirds of the political branches are controlled by liberals, pushing a Leftist agenda, you chose to endorse not someone who is a conservative leader, someone like a Jim Demint or a Jeff Sessions. You chose a RINO. What you have thereby made yourselves, I guess, is CINO's.
Gene Wisdom