Is Billy Long the new consensus builder?

In the November 16 SN-L story, New class takes on capitol, two pictures with the credit line "submitted photo" were attached to the story.

One was the photo below with the actual SN-L caption: Billy and Barbara Long with House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (right) Monday. (Submitted Photo)

The other photo and caption:
Billy Long with the bust of Champ Clark, of Missouri, Speaker of the House from 1911-1919. (Submitted Photo)

I left the following comment on that story:
I also posted a blog piece on the photo.

At the time I wrote that comment and posted the blog piece I didn't know who submitted those two photos. I knew that they were not professional photos and that they were apparently taken with a cell phone camera.

Then, this comment appeared in reply to my question:
Billy Long submitted that photo to the SN-L!

WTF? It seemed like every other word out of Long's mouth during the campaign was how he wasn't going to let Obama, Pelosi and Reed cram stuff down his throat, how he was fighting to protect us from Nancy Pelosi, how she was a symbol of everything that is wrong with Washington. He even used her photo in his campaign commercial he called "Doing the right thing".

Then, when the paper asks Long to submit some photos for the paper, of all the photos Long took, he submits a photo of him with Nancy Pelosi!

What is he trying to tell us? Or maybe he took Stoeffler's comments made in a Sunday column to heart :

It would help if people started by accepting each other at face value: Instead of questioning the motives of every politician, let's start from the assumption people are doing and saying things that actually reflect their beliefs.

Then, let's reward the consensus-builders, the people willing to reach out and work with the other side

And that in submitting this photograph of him with Nancy Pelosi as a sign that Long will be at the front of the line of consensus-builders.

And, if that is the case, Congressman-elect "Call me Billy" is indeed, a changed man!

Will you let me follow you on Twitter now?

Hold your horses, I say Hold your horses!

This just in, Billy's sent more photos to the newspaper! Why the guy's becoming a regular photo-journalist. When will he get his union card?

Billy's latest photo include this picture of him and John Boehner:
Billy's newest hideout: the double secret reading room for members only(think they got a big couch?):And, knowing that being "FED UP" is a big part of Billy's world, Billy sent this photo of a DC hamburger:
How long do you think it will be before Billy has new dish named after him at the Metro?:

Billy Long -- he's a changed man since he got elected. but is he still "FED UP"?

That was then:
November 9, 2009: 7th Congressional Hopeful Billy Long appeared on the Morning News Watch as he continues a successful campaign to take Roy Blunt's old seat. This is the part where he responds to Josh Marsh who says, "I don't trust you."



This is now:
November 7, 2010, Springfield News Leader, New representative wants everyone to 'call me Billy':

This is coming from the man who owns Billy Long Auctions and has a one-third share in one of Springfield's largest real estate companies -- two businesses that House ethics rules dictate he might have to sell or liquidate.

"I see their point, but it's very unfortunate because it discourages that many more businesspeople from running for Congress," Long said, admitting that when he learned he would have to sever ties with his auction company, he had second thoughts.

"I had about a 10-day period of remorse," he said. "Do I really want to do this? Do I really want to sell what I've worked for 30 years?"

In the end, Long decided to push on.

"As a practical matter, you can't run a business like an auction company while you're in Washington. So whether they force me to or not, I'm going to have to liquidate," he said, acknowledging that the $174,000 annual salary for House members may end up being a pay cut.

November 16, 2009 Springfield News-Leader, New class takes on Capitol:

Long said he got information on how to liquidate his businesses -- an auction house and a one-third ownership in a real estate company. He plans to talk with the House ethics staff to get more specifics. Under House rules, House members can't own businesses that buy or sell products or services.

November 16, 2010 Springfield Business Journal,

"I'm not saying I agree with the rules, but I will abide by them." —U.S. Rep. Billy Long, on having to sell his auction company before taking office.

Long knew that he would have to sell or put in a blind trust (as Mel Hancock did with his business--say, how'd that work out for you, Mel?) prior to November, 2009. For him to act like this is new to him is disingenuous. Quit your whining Billy, it's not becoming of you.

That was then:
August 26, 2010: Billy Long to Nick Reed, KSGF radio transcript:

I don’t run to a microphone every time one’s offered and I don’t jump in front of a camera every time one’s offered and I’m not gonna try this thing in the media. I’m not gonna, you know, if they want to build their, I would like to get what we’re doing right now, I have become the story.

October 3, 2010, Springfield News-Leader,Long touts his success to turn out November vote:

"I don't run to a microphone every time it's offered, I don't run to a TV camera every time it's offered," said Long.

Some commentators have alleged Long is missing in action --or even hiding --because he hasn't posted much of a campaign schedule on his website, and he has sent out few news releases about his appearances. But he has been making regular appearances, which he reports on his Twitter account.

The News-Leader asked Long staff to be informed when Long would be making radio appearances or other general appearances open to the public, but received no notifications from the campaign other than one press release about Long's business tour.

This is now:
November 17, 2010, Billy Long's Auctnr1 twitter feed:

To schedule Media interviews call 417.88FEDUP & ask for Nick to schedule about 3 hours ago via Mobile Web

I am unable to get a screen shot of this tweet because my representative has blocked me from following his tweets. So much for constituent service.
That was then: Billy Long campaign commercial, August, 2010, Doing the right thing:

We can’t expect to change Washington D.C. unless we’re willing to change the type of people we’re willing to send to Washington.

I’m not going to Washington to scratch other people’s backs. You have my word on that.

I’ll go to Washington and fight to get this country back on track.

I may not look the part, but I’ll do the right thing for the right reasons everyday I’m there.

I’m Billy Long and I approve this message and if you’re fed up with politicians in Washington and their cronies I would truly appreciate your vote.

This is now:
Billy Long's Twitter entries, November 15-17, 2010:

Eating John Boehner's Birthday cake on the day we elected him Speaker of the House for 112th Congress. about 5 hours ago via Mobile Web

Getting ready to vote for Speaker of the House. John Boehner - nominated & seconded about 7 hours ago via Mobile Web

Mike Pence said 'I was Tea Party before the Tea Party was cool' - where have I heard that before? : ) about 9 hours ago via Mobile Web

Pence wasn't afraid of Media when he hit town due to background on air - me neither. I was on CNN w/ Dana Bash, The Hill & Wa-Po first day about 9 hours ago via Mobile Web

Leader Boehner & his Wife Debbie have have been delightful to Barbara and me. Library of Congress has Barnes & Noble beat by a notch or two! 6:34 PM Nov 16th via Mobile Web

Now at a fabulous dinner hosted by Eric Cantor at Library of Congress - our newly elected class seems to be gelling well - results oriented 5:17 PM Nov 16th via Mobile Web

Good thing @kevinomccarty made me sit on the front row yesterday- Photo & quote on Page C-9 in today's Washington Post (Wa-Po to U DC Types) 5:53 AM Nov 16th via Mobile Web

Due to inclement weather our Class Photo has been postponed- all dressed up & no where to go- oh well 2 more days to decide hat/no hat 4 pic 4:47 AM Nov 16th via Mobile Web

Yes, important issues, hat/no hat. But is he still "FED UP"?

I lied. I got your vote. I will do what I want. Burn on you.

The St. Louis Tea Party issued the following press release this morning:

Senator-Elect Roy Blunt Faces First Test of His Term

(November 16, 2010) Just two weeks after defeating Robin Carnahan in the Missouri Senatorial race by a whopping 13 point blowout, Senator-Elect Roy Blunt is now posed with but one question: Will he hold true to his word?

On October 4, 2010, then-Candidate Blunt signed onto the Tea Party Treaty, thereby conveying the message that he understands the concerns of his constituents, as well as his duty to them. That being said, it is now time to put his ink-mark where his mouth is. Sen. Jim DeMint, R-South Carolina has pushed forth a challenge to the GOP for a 2 year moratorium on Earmarks. The ban, which looks to be voted on next Tuesday, is co-sponsored by 15 other Senators and Senator Elects. Blunt is not on that list.

With a fired-up base, burdened by a flailing economy amidst pork-barrel spending, Blunt will have to choose between the will of the people versus business as usual. Stakes are particularly high in this vote, as accountability has now entered into the formula. . .accountability Blunt chose to enter into.

St Louis Tea Party Coalition, along with Jefferson County Tea Party, Franklin County Tea Party and K & N Patriots (St Charles, MO), call Senator-Elect Blunt to task. These four groups are among the most active Tea Party Organizations in the St Louis area, with collectively, thousands of active members, and are signed to the same Treaty Blunt signed onto weeks ago.

Multipe calls made to the Senator-Elect’s office were not returned for comment. Interestingly, his Twitter account, which was highly active during his campaign, has seemingly gone inactive since his election. Despite the hundreds of queries and comments of outrage directed at @RoyBlunt, the message this blatant silence speaks to the constituents: “I lied. I got your vote. I will do what I want. Burn on you.”

Jen Ennenbach
Media Liaison
St. Louis Tea Party Coalition
jen.ennenbach@stlouisteaparty.com

I don't run to a microphone everytime one's offered and I don't jump in front of a camera everytime one's offered. Part 2

Rep.-elect Billy Long (R-MO) at orientation for newly elected members of Congress. Alex Brandon/AP Photo

From the NPR political blog, It's all politics, comes this post by Frank James:

GOP Freshmen Get Orientated and Warned

House freshmen are in Washington this week getting an early dose of what life will be like, at least for the next two years.

As NPR's Andrea Seabrook reported on Morning Edition Tuesday, there's a lot of complicated new information they must take in, and that's even before they get presented with their first monstrous omnibus spending bill.

An excerpt:

ANDREA: Come January, Republican Billy Long will represent Missouri's 7th Congressional District. But before then he's got work to do.

LONG: Gotta liquidate my auction company, liquidate my third interest in the largest real estate company in town, so there's a lot of things you gotta get up to school on, up to speed.

ANDREA: This is what the freshmen are learning in orientation this week. Exactly how to comply with the rules and guidelines of the United States Congress.

Arkansas Republican Steve Womack said they need the help — the rules are complicated.

WOMACK: Financial disclosure, ethics, travel, gifts, those kinds of things — because we're all being swarmed by a whole lot of outside interests and I think all of us recognize the great potential there is for a misstep along the way.

ANDREA: And while the politics at home is over for the moment, it's only just begun here in Washington. There's that swarm of outside interests buzzing around, lobbyists of every stripe, are coming to call and, especially for this huge class of Republicans, the Tea Party would like to have a word...

Meanwhile, the new Republican freshmen know what happened to that earlier group of legislative GOP firebrands who took power in 1994 as part of Newt Gingrich's revolution.

Many in the 1994 were co-opted. Some got into legal trouble. The members of the 2010 wave told Politico that they intend not to repeat those mistakes.

An excerpt:

“They came in, and they had the great Contract With America, and, of course, by 2006 you saw what happened,” said Rep-elect and tea party hero Allen West of Florida, alluding to the GOP’s loss of congressional control four years ago. “I think the difference for the class of 2010 is that we’re not going to get 10 years. We have got to turn this thing around in two years or at least start showing the indicators that we’re going on the right track. I think the first 90 to 120 days are going to be very important, and it’s going to set the tone. The American people are not patient right now.”

As if to prove that point, the Washington Post reported that groups associated with the Tea Party movement have held sessions in Washington to underscore for the new lawmakers the groups will be monitoring every vote and more.

As the WaPo reported:

At least three right-leaning organizations staged orientation sessions for incoming members of Congress over the weekend to urge them to stick to the low-tax, small-government principles on which they ran. On Monday, one of the groups, Americans for Prosperity, held a rally on Capitol Hill to remind lawmakers of the signal voters sent on Election Day. If the new members don't vote the way they promised they would, the group's leaders vowed, they will work just as hard to get them out of Congress as they did to get them in. At one point, the crowd broke into a chant: "We're watching!"

Billy's new BFF -- Chula and Little Bear have been replaced

(photo courtesy Billy Long)

The SN-L has a story (New class takes on Capitol) this morning on Congressman-Elect "Call me Billy" Long and his first day in the capital as a congressman-elect (he'd been there a lot of times prior to this week for fundraisers, etc) and his first time ever, he says, to set foot on the capitol.

Remember when Congressman-elect Long --excuse me, I mean, Billy said, ""I’m not gonna let Obama, Pelosi and Reid cram things down my throat. I do.

I find it humorous that one of the two submitted photos chosen for this story is a photo of Billy with Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi.

Billy also said, "I don't run to a microphone everytime one's offered, I don't jump in front of a camera everytime one's offered."

Hah! Billy was all over the airwaves yesterday. He even gave an interview to NPR! NPR, that bastion of liberalism!

Didn't take him long to forget about fed up, did it?

NPR, Pelosi, next thing you know he'll be telling us that there's a lot of good things in Obamacare.

Oh wait, he already did that.

Ah jeez, it's going to be a long two years.

Here's a link to the Washington Post profile of Billy Long.

You remember the story from the Washington Post, where the reporter described Billy as a "smack-talking auctioneer", donch ya?

Billy took umbrage with that statement, saying, "I'm not a 'smack-talker,' I'm more of a colloquial talker. I've got a lot of Ozark sayings. I use a lot of Billyisms, as I call them. But I'm sure not a smack-talker."

"Billyisms"? "As I call them"?

Try this one, hell, I'll give it to you, I stole it from Vance Randolph who stole it from a real Ozarkian gentleman from Pineville back in the 1930s: "Don't piss on my leg and tell me it's raining, Billy."

Topic A: Why earmark reform won’t be enough | Politerati

Topic A: Why earmark reform won’t be enough | Politerati

“You would see spending come down dramatically if you took out all the self-interest that earmarks represent,” DeMint reiterated on Fox News Sunday.

Let’s rewind the tape a little bit.

Earmarks are what Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) railed against throughout campaign 2008, when the financial crisis was still its acute phase and the economy was formally in a recession. And the fact-based reaction to him then is the same as should be obvious now: Earmarks are not the main spending problem, and gutting them will have only a small impact on the budget.

More importantly, gutting earmarks will not have a direct, tangible and positive impact on a broad sector of the beleaguered middle class.

And that’s what election 2012 was about. Not symbolic action on the margins of the budget.

Getting rid of earmarks does not even mean cutting spending, per se. It just means shifting authority for deciding where funds will go to the executive branch agencies. That is to say, getting rid of earmarks will shift power from seemingly unaccountable political actors to unelected government bureaucrats, to use a favorite Republican catch phrase.

Even if the funding for all the earmarks could be eliminated, the impact on the budget would be minimal — on this Obama and McConnell agree.

I don’t run to a microphone every time one’s offered and I don’t jump in front of a camera every time one’s offered.

Rep.-elect Billy Long (R-MO) speaks to the media prior to a new member orientation November 15, 2010 on Capitol Hill in Washington, DC. (Getty Images)

Before the election, Billy told Nick Reed on KSFG radio "I don’t run to a microphone every time one’s offered and I don’t jump in front of a camera every time one’s offered.." He said that shortly before he said, "I’m not gonna let Obama, Pelosi and Reid cram things down my throat."

In an interview with the SN-L's Corey deVera, Long said, "I don't run to a microphone every time it's offered, I don't run to a TV camera every time it's offered."

So this evening, as I was driving down Kearney Street, listening to All Things Considered on NPR, I dang near spit out my buck double from Burger King!

Billy Long on NPR! Rehashing the same tale he told earlier to C-SPAN, the Daily Caller, Fox News and gosh dang it, who knows who else.
He said this to the Philadelphia Inquirer:

"There are a lot of things you have to go to school on," said Rep.-elect Billy Long, Republican of Missouri, who is an auctioneer and real-estate broker. Conflict of interest rules, he said, will require him to liquidate his auction firm.

But he has "spent the last 55 years learning" how to be a congressman, Long said. He said he'll work to starve President Obama's health-care overhaul of funding and then repeal it, and wants to slash spending.

"You remember that old Barbara Mandrell song 'I was country before country was cool?'" Long said. "We've been tea partying in the seventh district of Missouri before the tea party was cool. We believe in smaller government, lower taxes and sticking to the constitution."

No surprise about his auction firm, he knew that last December, according to what he told the SBJ--

They make you liquidate your business once you get elected, if it's a fiduciary business. Real estate auctions are considered a fiduciary business.

I've just got good people here who have been with me a long time, and they're carrying the water on running the business.

How will your experience translate to politics?

I'm a salesman. I think that's what you need - somebody who has a little sales ability and can negotiate and talk to people and explain to them that we don't have a printing press that can just keep cranking out money that our kids are going to have to pay for. "

Rep.-elect Billy Long, R-Mo., talks with the media on Capitol Hill in Washington, Monday, Nov. 15, 2010, during Congressional freshmen orientation. AP Photo 11.15.2010 (Look at this photo of our congressman,you know he's loving it! And I ain't talking about the McDonald's he had for breakfast)

Listen to Billy on NPR at about 1:35. From the transcript:

SEABROOK: Congressman-elect Billy Long says his district in Missouri was Tea Party before Tea Party was cool, and it's great that the rest of the country is catching up with them.

Mr. BILLY LONG (Representative-elect, Republican, Missouri): And if you always do what you've always done, you'll always get what you've always got. And if we keep doing the way things have been done in Washington, you know, how can we expect anything different?

So, does this mean that Billy ain't gonna vote for Boehner for Speaker?