This is one of my favorite audio “drops”…
Yes, politics is weird and creepy. And I absolutely hate it. I hate everything about American politics, and we have another year to go before we vote in 2016.
On Thursday morning of last week, I read an article that alleged that Alan Grayson had endorsed Hillary Clinton. My initial response was “no way!”. But I followed the link from that disreputable blog to Politico, where Marc Caputo wrote about the list of 150 Florida politicos who had signed on to Hillary’s “Florida Leadership Council.”
The Politico piece claims that all on the list have endorsed Clinton, as if inclusion on the list automatically includes an endorsement.
After my initial shock at seeing Congressman Alan Grayson’s name on that list of 152, I still wasn’t sure that meant he had endorsed her. After all, in our many interviews on my show, he always seemed to stake out neutral territory, which I thought was the correct stance for him. As much as I would have liked for him to endorse Bernie Sanders, I understand the ugly underbelly of politics and believed that the Clinton camp would bury him if he did. But the last thing I expected was for him to endorse her candidacy.
I send email after email to Grayson’s campaign, asking for clarification. I finally got a response from the campaign’s press secretary. The entirety of the email read:
Yes, it is an endorsement.
I expressed my dismay here on the show, and asked if the congressman would come on the air with me the next day to explain his reasoning, the response read
Sorry, his schedule is booked for that block of time.
It was after I asked if there was a reason for the terse responses to my questions that my cell phone rang. It was Alan Grayson calling to talk with me off the air. We had a good, lively conversation, after which I asked him to come back on the show to explain his reasoning, noting that I thought it was the wrong move and that I believed he’d be alienating the voters most pre-disposed to support him.
So, he joined in this morning. Our interview is included in the full podcast of the show (click the player at the top of this post to listen), but I thought I’d pull out the interview as a standalone for anyone who wants to cut right to the chase. Please share liberally!
Audio only:
BTW, this is the Huffington Post article we discussed.
Today’s Tuesday, so GottaLaff joined me in hour two!
Does this mean Alan Grayson is a corporatist after all?
As someone who interviewed Alan for my YouTube channel, who hosted and cooked a fundraising dinner for him at my home, and who has supported him all along, I am extrememly disappointed in this. Not only did he do it, but the self-described Congressman with Guts doesn’t even have the courage to come out and call this an endorsement. He says “You can draw your own conclusions.” Finally, his reason that he did is very self centered. In essence, he says, “Hillary reached out to me and courted me and Bernie didn’t.” Very disapoointed.