It's About Trust, Stupid

Donklephant has created a bit of a stir about a baptist pastor in Texas who is running for state house as a Democrat. Pastor Kerry Horn has posted a comment on the original thread clarifying a few things.

"I choose to be accountable for how I treat the “least of these” and not “giving
the wealthy a seat of honor” while the poor “take a seat on the floor.” "

I will definitely be following the career of Pastor Horn, but the enlightening quote to me is from pipeline inspector Joe Williams in the original article.

“The number one thing people around here want is honesty,” Williams said. “If we
can get a good, honest person in office, we’ll do all right.”

I grew up in the reddest of red parts of the country. I haven't researched it but I guarantee my home county has not voted for a Democrat for President since Carter. Yet, when watching the news with my family, the one thought that is voiced over and over again is trust. "He seems like an honest guy" or "he's a crook" and their variations are common. We don't discuss gay marriage or prayer in school or other non-issues. Even on Iraq, my brother recently said, "Well, he (Bush) sure screwed that up."

Assumptions seem to be the nature of political discourse these days. Those in the blue areas assume that those in the red areas are all gun-toting, bible-thumping theocrats. Those in the red areas assume that those in the blue areas are all tax and spend, atheist city slickers.

When you get down to it though, I will bet you that both blue and red would agree on one thing. Either "he seems like an honest guy" or "he's a crook".

All the people want are honesty, integrity and competence. The rest is just stuff that the people on TV seem to think is important. At least that's the way I see it when I visit the y'alls and the youse guys.