{"id":42915,"date":"2020-05-28T01:57:29","date_gmt":"2020-05-28T01:57:29","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/?p=42915"},"modified":"2020-05-28T01:57:29","modified_gmt":"2020-05-28T01:57:29","slug":"carpetbagging-is-in-style","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/?p=42915","title":{"rendered":"Carpetbagging is in style"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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We made a quick return this past weekend to the Texas Panhandle to see our son and to, oh, just get away from the house for a bit.<\/p>\n

Along the drive both ways along U.S. Highway 287 I noticed campaign signs for a single congressional candidate, a guy named Ronny Jackson, who’s running for the Republican nomination for the 13th Congressional District.<\/p>\n

It occurred to me on our drive to Amarillo and then back to the house in Princeton: How did this guy Jackson manage to persuade voters that he knows anything about their needs, their desires, their concerns?<\/p>\n

Then it dawned on me: Carpetbagging is in vogue these days.<\/p>\n

Jackson has never lived in the 13th CD. He was born in Levelland<\/em>, which isn’t in the district. He moved away, though, to attend college. He obtained a medical degree. He rose the rank of Navy vice admiral. He served as physician to two presidents: Barack Obama and Donald Trump.<\/p>\n

Then he got nominated to become Department of Veterans Affairs secretary. Oops!<\/em> He got into trouble. He had to back out when it became known that Dr. Jackson drank on the job, over-prescribed certain drugs and didn’t have a lick of administrative experience that qualified him to run a monstrous agency such as the Department of Veterans Affairs.<\/p>\n

What does he do then? He runs for Congress in a district being vacated by a longtime Republican House member, Mac Thornberry of Clarendon, who isn’t running for re-election this year.<\/p>\n

Jackson is a carpetbagger. He is running against an Amarillo resident, Josh Winegarner of Amarillo, who is not<\/em> a carpetbagger.<\/p>\n

Look, being a stranger to a congressional district or a state while running for public office isn’t new. Robert Kennedy sought a U.S. Senate seat in New York in 1964, with only a passing knowledge of the state; so did Hillary Clinton in 2000; this year we have numerous candidates running for Texas congressional seats who have never lived in those districts.<\/p>\n

I don’t have a dog in that fight any longer, as I no longer can vote in the 13th Congressional District. My memory is pretty good, though, and I have trouble understanding how this guy, Ronny Jackson, has positioned himself to possibly be elected this year representing a congressional district about which he knows nothing.<\/p>\n

Is this how we define “representative government” these days?<\/p>\n\n

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We made a quick return this past weekend to the Texas Panhandle to see our son and to, oh, just get away from the house for a bit. Along the drive both ways along U.S. Highway 287 I noticed campaign signs for a single congressional candidate, a guy named Ronny Jackson, who’s running for the … Continue reading Carpetbagging is in style<\/span> →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[27,2849,7719],"class_list":["post-42915","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-local-news","tag-13th-congressional-district","tag-mac-thornberry","tag-ronny-jackson"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/42915","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=42915"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/42915\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":42916,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/42915\/revisions\/42916"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=42915"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=42915"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=42915"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}