Sunday, August 8, 2010


If you vote for a democrat, are you voting for the whole party?

Someone told me that he would not vote for a certain democrat because anyone who would associate themselves with those democrats(assuming he meant the liberal, money snatching, babykillers) was not ok to vote for.

Lowe Finney is a democrat. I like Lowe.
He is running against Don McLeary, (who was a democrat until he changed parties in 2006.)

I didn't want to be accused of being a democrat (nor would I want to be accused of being a republican). So I decided to do some research before I dared voice my humble opinion again.

I went to votesmart.com to check out the voting records of each.
They had 36 different motions voted on by Lowe Finney.
They had 6 for Don McLeary.
That wasn't helpful. I needed all of the votes.

So then I went to Tennesseevotes.org. Very easy to do.
Here they had 840 different motions voted on by Finney.
They had 0 for McLeary because he wasn't in office this year.

So I googled every phrase I could think of with McLeary, Tennessee, voting record, general assembly, etc. Nothing.

On McLeary's website he says he voted for a few different things but I want to SEE where that is listed.

But I could at least look at the results that I found on Lowe. I mostly looked at the voting records of the bills where it looked like the democrats and republicans were divided.

1. A bill about separation of church and state.
Lowe voted with the republicans:
* In Favor 2009 House Bill 1598 (Prohibit Government Burden of Freedom of Religion). Passed in the Senate (25 to 7) on June 16, 2009, to prohibit any government entity from "substantially" burdening a person’s free exercise of religion unless the government can show that imposing the burden is essential to furthering a "compelling governmental interest" .

2. A bill about implementing an AIDS/HIV program in TN. At first I thought that he voted for it. But when I sent an email to his wife about him spending my money on something like this, she reminded to look at the bill. This was not a bill to implement the program but to encourage the health department to STUDY doing the program.

Since I couldn't find McLeary's voting record, Lowe's wife sent me the link. http://www.capitol.tn.gov/legislation/archives.html
Then you type in 103rd and 104th assembly. It's hard to look through and since Mcleary was a democrat then, it may not reflect how he would vote in the future.

I sent McLeary an email asking him if he would vote differently then he did 5 years ago. He hasn't written me back.

Lowe's family has been democratic for generations.
This is Lowe's reading list.

"Surprised by Hope" by N.T. Wright
"Christ the Center" by Dietrich Bonhoeffer
He is getting ready to read "The Radical Disciple" by John Stott
And he highly recommends "Basic Christianity" by John Stott
Lately he has been listening to Tim Keller's and David Platt's sermons.

Don McLeary is reading... I have no idea. I've sent two emails, but there has been no response.
I checked out his website and he is starting off his campaign with a God and Country event with gospel music and patriotic songs.

I haven't really found anything bad about either, but I'm more impressed with Lowe Finney.
Don McLeary says on his website that "Lowe Finney voted for and supported President Obama and was high-fiving Joe Biden 2 weeks ago. He supports their policies and I don't – IT'S THAT SIMPLE."

I'm not surprised that Lowe voted for Obama. Would he vote for him now though?
I'm not surprised that he supports our President. So do I. Do I agree with the President? No. But I do support him as the leader of our country. I have no desire to go to war with the President.
I'm not surprised that he was high-fiving Joe Biden. Lowe's a fun guy. High-fiving hardly means anything more than that.

I'm still waiting. Waiting for someone to present some solid evidence to make me choose McLeary over Finney.

If your only argument is that Finney will always vote for the democrats on the things that matter. Look at his voting record and show me where that is true.