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"I
reject the policies of the past, the policies of
tax and tax, spend and spend, elect and elect."
-–Ronald
Reagan
Political
campaigns are about issues and promises.
Candidates speak about the issues they think will
motivate the voters to the polls in order to cast
a ballot on their behalf. Accordingly, candidates
take great pains in defining the issues of concern
to their constituents, because, as Tip O’Neill
once said, all politics are local.
In
today’s age of online communications, no
politician in his right mind would think of
launching a campaign without setting up a website.
Politicians use their campaign websites to define
themselves, speak out about the issues affecting
their local communities, and convince the voters
that the positions they advocate offer the best
solutions for the future.
Given
these accepted political standards, it is curious
to find a political website that is completely
devoid of any issues or details on the positions
espoused by the candidate. But in the case of
Chuck Caputo, the Democrat candidate vying for a
seat in the Virginia House of Delegates from the
67th District overlapping Fairfax and Loudoun
counties, that is the case.
Is
Chuck Caputo a truly issueless candidate or is he
going out of his way to deceive the voters by
avoiding to take a position on any given issue?
The Caputo campaign's lack
of substance reflects not mere uncertainty but a
deliberate decision to deceive the electorate.
The
67th District has been represented by Gary Reese
(R), a controversial, lightening-rod figure, who
has a knack for infuriating people on both sides
of any given issue. Take for example his John
Kerry-like vote in the 2004 tax increase—he
voted for the increase before voting against it.
By
trying to appease both ends of the political
spectrum, Reese managed to alienate the middle and
infuriated both Democrat and Republican activists.
In the Republican primary last June, Reese got
trounced, barely mustering to gather 34 percent of
the vote—a dismal showing for an incumbent,
especially against a political newcomer like Chris
Craddock.
So,
it is no surprise that Caputo is running as the
consensus candidate. But to build a consensus, one
must first define the issues.
Voters
visiting Caputo’s website are given no clue as
to how he defines himself or what issues he is
campaigning on. And Caputo apparently goes out of
his way to tell voters what they like to hear —
irrespective of the facts.
For
example, in a recent article, “Going door-to-door, It Helps to
Recognize Some Signs,” published Sept. 23, 2005,
the Washington Post quoted Caputo as telling
a voter, who told him that he had previously voted
for Reese, that “…Gary Reese has thrown his
support behind me.”
When
that quote appeared in print, Caputo called Reese
to apologize, given the fact that Reese has not
endorsed him. Parenthetically, Reese sounds still
pretty sore over his loss and is reportedly
staying out of politics.
Caputo
is running as a consensus-building candidate,
while avoiding a definition of the issues upon
which he is striving to build a consensus. That's
a tight-rop walk, and his path leads to some
inevitable misteps along the way.
In
contrast
Republican opponent, Chris Craddock, is running a disciplined campaign. Craddock has clearly
spelled out the issues he is campaigning on and is
not hiding behind doublespeak, deceptions or false
pretences.
Although
Caputo studiously hides his stances from the
general public, he sometimes lets down his guard
in a friendly crowd. Here are some snippets of the
speech Caputo made at his campaign kick-off,
according to a source who attended:
He
described the massive tax surplus in Richmond as
“… unspent revenue.” He supported the Rail-to-Dulles
project, which carries a $4+ billion price tag, as
a solution to transportation gridlock. He called
for additional $1.2 billion in spending for K-12
public education. He thought that we need to spend
more than $300 million in higher education. He
claimed that we are short some $575 million in
healthcare funding for the elderly and disabled.
He said that another $200 million was needed for
public employee retirement insurance and salary
increases. He called for an additional $6 billion
in new spending on transportation. He wanted to
spend $1.2 billion on restoring the Chesapeake Bay
and the environment.
In
other words, Caputo is on record as calling for
increasing state spending by some $9.5 billion in
new programs (excluding Rail-to-Dulles whose
final price tag will be astronomical). In
percentage terms, this translates to Caputo
calling for a 30 percent growth in the state
budget, over and above the unprecedented growth in
state spending that caused the budget to grow by
about 100 percent over the last decade.
That
should give you an idea of where Caputo comes
from. He is nothing short of an out-of-touch,
tax-and-spend liberal who masks under the cloak of
a consensus-building candidate. Yet unmasked,
Chuck Caputo clearly stands out as the $9.5 billion
candidate.
--
October 3, 2005
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