Former Senator and 2012 presidential contender Rick Santorum announced his strong endorsement of Diane Black for Governor Tuesday.
“I’ve always known Diane to be a strong conservative leader, a passionate advocate for the unborn and a champion for religious liberty and traditional values,” Santorum said in a statement. “With Diane Black in the Governor’s office, I am confident that the conservative values that make Tennessee great will be protected and preserved.”
Diane Black responded, “Rick Santorum is a champion for conservative principles,” Black said. “He’s a leader who is not afraid to fight for conservative values. Tennessee stood behind Rick in his 2012 race for President, and I’m proud to have him behind me in my race for Governor.”
Throughout Rick Santorum’s career he has enjoyed a high level of popularity in the Volunteer State. During the nine-way Tennessee presidential primary election of 2012, Santorum received an extraordinary 40 percent of the vote.
The Black campaign points out that in addition to Santorum’s endorsement, Representative Black has received endorsements from:
– NRA
– Susan B. Anthony List
– National Right to Life
– Tennessee Right to Life
– Family Research Council
– American Conservative Union
– Nearly 3,000 elected officials and community leaders across the state
Diane Black is in a fiery three-way primary contest for the Republican nomination for Governor. Her rivals include Knoxville-area businessman Randy Boyd and Franklin-area businessman Bill Lee.
A comment to a different article provided this link to a recent interview with DC Diane:
http://www.portlandleader.net/news/black-talks-issues-with-the-portland-leader/article_c6a60f71-17f5-5692-b0bf-4df52437efab.html
Take particular note of her replies – she’s makes the case against herself beautifully, Q.E.D. in fact:
“I have relationships in Washington that help me to be able to, when I have a problem, get to the right people in Washington.”
That one alone should close the argument. Apparently someone needs to remind her that she’s running for Governor of the sovereign state of Tennessee, not be a second-class lackey to make the state more subservient to DC. Hence the moniker, DC Diane. A go along to get along swamp creature through and through – by her own admission.
But it goes on:
“…as an executive, I will not allow sanctuary cities.”
Any support to so-called sanctuary cities has already been outlawed by the Tennessee legislature…it would not be up to her to “allow sanctuary cities” or not – it’s up to the executive to faithfully execute policies pursuant to the law and the state constitution, not make it up as she goes along, subject to whatever whim she feels at the moment. We just got rid of a narcissist who ruled by fiat – we don’t need that mindset here.
” I will put a plan out to talk about what I would do to ensure that we have the infrastructure needed in order to be able to move all these folks that are currently here and all the new people that are coming in around the city and make sure they have a quality of life and they’re not sitting in traffic for hours going to and coming from work.”
Contrast that to the approach of ensuring that the rural areas and even mid-sized towns across the state have a fair opportunity to prosper. That’s not in DC Diane’s playbook, not at all. Her plan, apparently, is to continue the concentration of wealth and power into the major metropolitan areas and let the rural areas and mid-sized cities eat cake, or move to Nashville if they don’t like it. Straight out of the UN Agenda 21 playbook. No thanks.
Hands down, the best part of DC Diane’s campaign is that it gets her out of DC and we can send in a true representative of the people of Tennessee instead. Now let’s do what we can to get her out of politics altogether.
The choice is very clear – DC Diane, LaRaza Randy, or Bill Lee. Better to vote your conscience based on the merit (or lack thereof) of a candidate and some thought as to which one offers the best plan (and personal integrity) to make life better for you, your children, and your grandchildren. Cast your vote on that basis and you can rest assured that you made what you thought was the best choice, rather than fall prey to some mindless fear mongering or groupthink. This isn’t a high school popularity contest – leave that to the swamp creatures to wallow in among themselves.
You omitted mention of one candidate, Terry, and insofar as your comment put a big fat smile on Randy! Boyd’s face I think its only fair to mention him. “You bet,” says Terry, “let those hostile to conservatives unify behind their chosen candidate Randy! by gosh we conservatives are going to stubbornly stay divided among three candidates. Damn past conservative records and the electoral practicalities of this no-runoff state, we should all go into our meditation room and compare plans authored by professional campaign managers based on information from the professional campaign pollster from which we will magically divine the best plan as well as intuit who among the candidates that we don’t know has the most personal integrity that will result in a better life for us and our progeny.”
Come on Terry, level with us, you’re really a Boydinista aren’t you?. If not, you really should be or at the very least a paid functionary of his campaign. What a perfect plan for eight more years of the Haslam administration without Haslam.
Now is the time for conservatives to unify behind ONE candidate and show the centrist Chamber of Commerce financed establishment that we conservatives can unify to elect a candidate to the highest office in this state. Times are a changing and while the Democrats are going left, we Republicans are headed RIGHT!
For conservatives, the primary goal of this gubernatorial race is to end, not extend, the Haslam administration and its indifference, if not outright hostility to conservative policy preferences. Surely we conservatives can agree that the Randy! Boyd candidacy represents a potential extension rather than elimination of the Haslam administration for another eight years so the defeat of Randy! must be our highest priority.
Unfortunately, we only have one opportunity to vote in order to get this done by voting for the candidate most likely to beat Boyd who thanks to the votes of centrists, tepid conservatives, and liberal Democrats will probably finish no less than second in this race. As of today, every poll I have seen indicates Diane Black is that candidate. Certainly, there can be no doubt as between Diane and Randy! she would be by far the most sympathetic to conservative policy preferences. It is the casting of the most strategically useful vote so as to result in ANYBODY BUT BOYD as governor that should be the goal of conservatives given that there is no proven movement conservative in the race. Under theses circumstances, endorsements – whether in state or out, campaign promises that will be forgotten by next January and all of the other distractions of the campaign are irrelevant.
Santorum is a swamp dweller. If we wanted more “establishment” politicians and DC swamp dwellers, we would not have elected Donald Trump! It’s pretty revealing about Black, that she is endorsed by fellow swamp dwellers. It’s equally revealing that she did not step down as the 6th District Congressman. She’s a swamp dweller!
Not sure this helps Ms. Black but I disagree that national figures should butt out of endorsing state-wide candidates. Voters should study the candidates for themselves and vote for their personal choice. Lee and Boyd are not what I consider conservatives by any stretch.
Mae Beavers supports Bill Lee. Zach Wamp supports Bill Lee. The major Chattanooga conservative newspaper supports Bill Lee.
Rick Santorum supports Diane Black. Other present and former DC people support Diane Black. Mike Huckabee supports Randy Boyd.
It looks like the Tennesseans support Bill Lee, and the ‘outsiders’ who don’t know the State support Black and Boyd. I assume (in most instances) that people like Santorum etc. mean well, but they just don’t understand and really should ‘stay out” of endorsing candidates in state-wide races in states other than their own home state. Now if this were a race for Federal office, rather than for State office, I would be more sympathetic with such ‘outsider’ endorsement. Usually (but not always) such ‘outsider’ endorsements do not mean much to me.