Buerkle, Wrench in the Works

Ann Marie Buerkle came out of hiding last night, if only for a short and tightly controlled "town hall meeting". 

She played in Penfield near Rochester to a large crowd. She limited the meeting to an hour of carefully scripted message with no back and forth, keeping to the same story with one notable exception, and interestingly enough, she at least twice referred to "the government" as "they". 

"The government doesn't have any money — it's your money they're spending, and I think they need to do a better job stewarding it," she said....

Her use of this language says everything we need to know about her politics. Her carefully controlled image will not allow that she become part of the very government she must criticize. She will never accept that her election to the House of Representatives gave her the privilege and the enormous responsibility of working, from within, to strengthen our trembling nation. She chooses to remain an outsider and thus abdicates her responsibility. She has no business being there if she cannot honestly seek solutions to very complex problems, compromise and move forward. She is there, and only there, to be a wrench in the works, a placeholder in a governing body she will never join.

This was Buerkle's first public meeting since June. Judging from town hall-style meetings in other tea party-held Congressional districts recently, she had good reason to control access and content. Voters are increasingly holding tea partiers and conservatives responsible for taking the U.S. of A. to the brink of destruction with no change of tactics in sight. 

The only change in her message is that now the "rich" should pay "their fair share" of taxes, whereas earlier she was against separating another penny of hard-earned wealth from the wealthy. Blueskygirl thinks Buerkle's affinity with wealth runs deeper than jobs or any other concerns of a middle American.

She continues the mantra that taxing corporations little or nothing will make us all better off in the long run. If pigs could fly....

Buerkle will hold another town hall meeting tonight at the Clay Town Hall, 6-7 PM. Clay Town Hall is on Route 31 a mile east of Route 481.