OK, then, how about rasslin'?Earlier this morning, I attended the inaugural Long Business Tour at Trailliner Truck Lines terminal here in Springfield.
In a continuation of the conversation between Long and I, here is our exchange about candidate debates:
Jim Lee (JL): Well, you need to debate Eckersley. You need to do that.
Billy Long (BL): We’re trying to get it set up.
JL: You know,
BL: We’re trying, we’re working on it. Give us a little time.
JL: And, uh, uh, uh, just, uh, because that, that would, it’s like, it’s like, it’s like –I equate your debate and Eckersley with the school district fighting this, um, audit.
BL: I like it when KOLR10 says Long won’t debate Eckersley and they put a picture of me and him up there at their televised debate six weeks ago.
JL: Um
BL: On KOLR10.
JL: That wasn’t a debate. It, it, when you debate Eckersley you shut all the naysayers up, you know, you’re right up there.
BL: I’m not afraid to debate anyone. I did seventeen, I did more than anybody, you can call them debates or forums…
JL: They’re, they’re, those weren’t debates, Billy. Debater is where you have questions and you take answers (unintelligible).
BL: Whatever I do won’t satisfy you because if I do one you’ll say that wasn’t really a debate, so…
JL: Ok, all right.
BL: We can agree to disagree.
Long Aide: We’re working the details out.
JL: Well, I’d, I’d like to see them happen and the sooner the better.
BL: We’re trying to make them happen and you know..
Man: We need some more entertainment besides pro football.
This morning, I had the opportunity to attend the inaugural stop on the Billy Long Business tour. It was at the Trailliner truck lines terminal on East Blaine here in Springfield.
According to the article that was in yesterday's paper, Long encouraged members of the community to turn out for discussion of business issues.
So, at 9:30 this morning I showed up at Trailliner. As did two other people. One was there because she was concerned about Social Security and the environment. The other guy, a known Democrat, was there because, as Myron Cohen said, "Everybody got to be someplace." It was just the six of us: The owner of Trailliner; A Long campaign aide; Long; the woman; the man; and me. No other members of the community showed up. No Republicans showed up either.
We had a very nice tour of the Trailliner facitities. The owner was very friendly as he showed us his operation, of which he was justifiably proud.
After the tour ended, the members of the community present (all three of us) had some questions for Billy Long.
I specifically wanted to ask Long about that thousand dollar donation he gave to Roy Blunt's PAC, Friends of Roy Blunt, in November of last year. Here is an exchange I had with Long: (The donation can be followed on Opensecrets.org)
Jim Lee (JL): Billy, I wanna ask you, I do wanna ask you a serious question because you campaigned against career politicians.
Billy Long (BL): Right.
JL: And, and on November 23, you gave a thousand dollar donation to, to Roy Blunt’s Friends of Roy Blunt. And yet you campaigned against career politicians. Is that, how is that in keeping with you’re against career politicians by giving a thousand dollars to a career politician?
BL: He’s got a lot more conservative voting record than people that he’s going to be running against on the Democrat side. At that time, I mean we didn’t know who his opponent was gonna be, for sure, we figured it’d probably be and he’s got a lot more conservative voting record.
Female: I don’t think he’s conservative at all.
JL: But I, you ran against career politicians and you’re giving money to help keep a career politician in Washington.
BL: Carnahans are not career politicians?
JL: I’m not, I’m talking about your donation to Roy Blunt for a thousand dollars.
BL: Right.
JL: When you campaigned against career politicians and you gave money to help keep a career politician , specifically Roy Blunt, in Washington, which seems to be the antithesis of what you campaigned for in the primary. You were “Fed Up” with career politicians.
BL: I’m “Fed Up” with everything that’s going on in D.C.
JL: What, then why are you giving money to keep Roy Blunt up there?
BL: I think that he’s more conservative and a better choice than Robin Carnahan.
JL: So then you’re really not “Fed Up” with career politicians.
BL: You’re putting words in my mouth.
JL: No. no. I. I’m trying to, I’m trying to follow this train of thought. If, if, if, if a tea party guy in Branson, Missouri’s against career politicians and he’s got your sign in the dairy queen building down there and I know where that building is, it’s next to where O’Reilly’s used to be and he’s voting for you because he’s “Fed Up” with career politicians and then you’re giving money to career politicians. It, it, it, it doesn’t, there’s a disconnect. Why didn’t you give the money to Purgason? I mean, Purgason was a tea party guy.
BL: silence.
Male: Chuck got real, he took off his toupee.
(minor discussion about Chuck Purgason and his toupee)
JL: But those are the kind of questions I have and those are the kind of questions when I’ve got to hold your feet to the fire.
At this point the conversation drifted into other areas.
I was going to capture a tweet put up by Billy Long around 4:10 PM this afternoon, in which he says, "Yes we'll go if you have seats."
I was hoping this was in reference to a debate with Scott Eckersley.
I immediately retweeted Billy's tweet and replied to him @Auctnr1 that I would personally guarantee Billy a seat at the debate.
But Billy deleted his tweet.
Not to worry, it's up on Long is Wrong and I captured it from him.
BTW, when Billy deleted his tweet, he deleted my re-tweet too. Busplunge @auctnr1 what about debates? will you go to debates? I will save you a seat, fer sure! less than 5 seconds ago via web in reply to auctnr1
4. auctnr1 Yes - we'll go if you have seats 28 minutes ago via txt Retweeted by you
From Eckersley's facebook page:
Note to William H Long II- the rest of us regular folks want debates. I heard it again today. Not sure if that message is making it through the gates of the country club community or Vegas casinos. I suggest you tell your out-of-town handlers that these times call for a rep who is willing to fight for the issues, not hide from them.
Governor Jan Brewer (R) has put the kibosh on all future debates with her Arizona gubernatorial opponent Terry Goddard (D), after her rather embarrassing display at Wednesday's debate. "I don't believe that things come out in proper context in an adversarial atmosphere," she defended herself.
Will this be Billy's excuse to kibosh the debates with Eckersley also?
The last part of the youtube video, where Brewer doesn't answer the reporters' questions about the headless body: remember how Billy Long refused to answer and totally ignored Eli Yokely, author of "The Fuse" during the media availability at MSSU in Joplin last week. The link to the audio and a transcript here.
Billy Long at MSSU, September 1, 2010 (Blake James photo)
Billy Long and two unidentified reporters, MSSU campus, Joplin, MO,September 1, 2010, transcript of audio.
Reporter 1 (R1): I was kinda curious, first of all, why come to, uh, Joplin and speak to, to uh, a group of college kids?
Billy Long (BL): Well, I’d like to get the youth involved, I ws very disturbed on the day of the election when I worked the polls and very few people under fifty years old and this isn’t my first time to speak to students here in Joplin. I was here before the primary and so
R1: How do you…
BL: glad to be back and we were in Joplin all day, we were in Joplin all day last Friday. So, there’s a lot of concern in the Joplin area when you have a representative who’s gonna to be out of the Springfield area that they not, you know, remember the folks in the western end and I worked very hard last year and I think this is something that helped me because I think we had pretty good vote totals down here.
R1: How do you think you identify with the, uh, young kids these days?
BL: Oh, I think I’ve always been a kid at heart. I’ve got two daughters, 21 and 24, so, uh, I, uh, you know, think that I can identify with them pretty well. I kinda know, you know, what they’re going through and what my daughters have gone through, so…
R1: Now the last presidential election the young vote was very important, uh, how much more important do you think it is today?
BL: I think it’s gonna be very important. I think that, uh, the thing that we need to realized is that we need to turn out the vote because there is a lot of things in people’s mindset, a lot of state rep races have been settled, a lot of courthouse races have been settled, and there’s not a Proposition C in November, so you know, we’re just trying to let people know that this race is not over, my race is not over, Roy Blunt’s race is not over, we’re gonna run like we’re ten points down.
R1: Are you impressed with, uh, maybe how these young people might be informed these days?
BL: Oh, sure, yeah, I, uh, this was a large crowd here today, probably twice as big as the one I spoke to last time I was hear so it’s good to see them engaged. We want to keep them engaged and something I was real impressed with in the primary: the volunteers we had, we had a lot of high school kids come in, but they’re younger than of course, than the college kids. And, uh, when we had them come in and they’d start their first day or two, they were a little nervous. They’d, you know, wouldn’t want to make the calls, then the third day, they were ‘rockin and rollin’ and they couldn’t wait to get on those phones and they got engaged in the process and that’s great to see.
R1: What do you think, maybe, is the top issue they do discuss with you?
BL: The what?
R1: What topic, what’s the main one?
BL: Well, I think the debt is the main thing people are concerned about, you know, they hear their parents talking about, used to be we said, you know, we’re spending our grandchildren’s future and then they said we’re spending our children’s future and now, I mean the reality of life is we’re spending our future. Uh, we need to get things turned around in a hurry. We need to repeal and replace Obamacare. That’s number one. People are not workin’ in this country and they say why can’t we get jobs. How’s a small business person, or even a mid-sized or large business gonna hire people when they don’t know what it’s gonna cost them to provide healthcare? Also taxes are unsettled in this country. You don’t know what the tax structure’s gonna be, you don’t know if they’re gonna continue the Bush tax cuts or do away with them. The death tax, at the end of the year, people still gonna have to borrow a million dollars when dad dies to save the family farm? So, uh, we’ve got a lot of issues that need to be dealt with by people that don’t care about re-election. And I’m one of those guys. I’m 55 years old, I don’t have a long political future. I’m gonna go up there to do the right thing for the right reasons.
Reporter 2 (R2): Kinda on that, Billy, uh, Social Security, uh, would you be interested in raising the retirement age? Uh
Yesterday, Billy Long was in Joplin, speaking to a group at MSSU, encouraging them to be engaged in politics. Between 20 - 30 people attended the meet and greet.
He even tweeted about it: Then, as this audio tape records, Billy completely ignores them as he is asked a serious question.
Once again Billy Long shows us he truly is "FED UP" with any attempt at serious conversation that goes beyond a 30 second sound bite.
Why didn't Billy Long answer that question about social security?
Read Eli Yokely's account on his blog, the fuse joplin. He was there:
Afterwords in the media availability, Long took questions from a reporter asking general questions on why he was speaking to the group and youth involvement, but when asked about social security reform, something incredibly relevant to college age students, Long ended the interview, and proceded to leave the building.
The Long Is Wrong blog raises some interesting questions also:
Billy Long continues to appear to be fed up with this whole election thing. After running from debates for the last month, Billy Long is puzzled why more young people aren't getting involved in politics. Perhaps, they have lost respect for the system because of dishonest people who choose to enter politics and not engage in debates and serious political discussion like Slick Billy himself. Once again, we are learning, Billy Long is avoiding the tough questions on the campaign trail.
Earlier this morning, I attended the inaugural Long Business Tour at Trailliner Truck Lines terminal here in Springfield.
