"I Will Never Vote for Nancy Pelosi"

America faces a new culture war.
"This is not the culture war of the 1990s. It is not a fight over guns, gays or abortion. Those old battles have been eclipsed by a new struggle between two competing visions of the country’s future. In one, America will continue to be an exceptional nation organized around the principles of free enterprise—limited government, a reliance on entrepreneurship and rewards determined by market forces. In the other, America will move toward European-style statism grounded in expanding bureaucracies, a managed economy and large-scale income redistribution. These visions are not reconcilable. We must choose." Improvedclinch.com

I met with Jeff Miller, Republican candidate for NC 11th District Congress on Saturday evening at a “meet-and-greet” before a Republican fund raiser at the Balsam Mountain Inn in Jackson County. Despite feeling just a little out of place because everyone was wearing semi-formal dress (one candidate for judge was wearing a slinky red dress) everyone was friendly and polite—even one gentleman who asked if I’m a democrat (I’m not).
Miller is in his early fifties and seems to be a sincere human being. “You get what you get with me.” Evidently he’s likable enough as a dad because his son Beck, a first time voter this fall, has said that he’s going to vote for him.
With good initial impressions of Miller I wanted to know where he stood on issues.
On the Second Amendment Miller said that “there was some misinformation going around” about his position on the Second Amendment. He told me that he supports it. He also told me that he is not a hunter but he is a life time member of the National Rifle Association. He believes that “armor piercing ammunition should not be available to the general public.” Miller stated that he has a concealed handgun permit and he “loves to shoot.”
In regards to my question about restoring the constitution Miller said that he’s “for it 100%” and that he carries a copy of it wherever he goes. “To me you take the constitution as it is. I want to go by the constitution, but I also want to go by what’s right and wrong.”
“I’m coming at this from a small business owner—person who’s been giving back to his community for a long time who is just fed up with what is going along.”
I asked him about the secured bond that Dan Eichenbaum posted before the primary guaranteeing that, if elected, he would only serve for three terms in congress. Miller responded that “I do not have any intentions of making it a life-time job. But I do feel that is somewhat self-defeating unless everybody agrees to it a certain standard.” Miller went on to say that the House leadership, in making committee assignments wouldn’t take someone who had made such a pledge seriously. He said “where I think that they ought to have term limits is the chairmanships of committees because if you want to find corruption that’s where you’ll find it. “I think that two years as the chair of a committee is darn long enough.”
In response to my query about the recently passed and signed national health care bill Miller responded “I don’t even believe that Ted Kennedy would have liked that bill. It was a ram job. It was poorly thought out. There were some things in it that obviously made sense for people that couldn’t get coverage, children. My health care that I provide for my employees; I provide fifty percent and they pay the other fifty percent. Health care went up this year for no good reason. We had to renegotiate with the insurance company to get it within 17%. So somebody who says that we don’t need something is full of crap.”
How are you going to differentiate yourself from Heath Shuler? “I’d never vote for Nancy Pelosi.”
With that, Miller’s attention was diverted elsewhere and the interview was effectively ended.
Jeff Miller from Hendersonville seems to be a very likeable candidate. I believe that he can go a long way towards becoming much more familiar with the issues and that he needs to positively differentiate himself and what he stands for from Heath Shuler to win the NC 11th Congressional seat in November.
In the interests of balance I will send this post (and blog address) to Heath Shuler and give him an opportunity to respond with a face-to-face interview on these and any other issues he wants to talk about.