Will McVay vs. Ellis Parrott in Delaware's 32d District GOP Primary

I know that a lot of folks in Delaware are not in love with Will McVay.  He's a young smartass who refuses to play the game by the established rules, like the way he hops back and forth between the Libertarian and Republican party lines for tactical advantage.  Even some of my friends among national Libertarian Party leadership cadres don't like the fact that he is a Republican candidate endorsed by Libertarian Presidential nominee Gary Johnson.

So Will running for 32d District State Representative is driving what's left of the State GOP so nuts that they trotted out Ellis Parrott to try and hold him off with a primary.

You just gotta love Ellis--the candidate who's going to run for elected office based on no issues except for the ones where he either makes the numbers up, or says statistics don't matter.

Here, allow me to illustrate, with a little "Debate" between the Parrott and McVay positions on the issues from their campaign websites [McVay; Parrott]:

Hi, I'm Ellis Parrott, and yes, this is
the actual campaign photo I use on
my website when I am misstating
Delaware public education funding
by $6,756 per year.

First, Ellis Parrott on Education:

It isn't necessary for a village (school) to raise our children. It is up to concerned parents to take the initiative. But they need the schools to stop trying to force the liberal agenda on our young children whose minds are still being molded and teach what is important. Teach our children a well rounded education and let us teach our children the moral issues we feel are important. We spend $18,000 a year on each student and only 75% of our children are graduating from high school. These numbers are disgraceful. We need to give parents a choice where to send their children by means of letting parents set aside tax dollars that would allow their children to attend the best schools.

First off, yes, this is the whole comment--I didn't edit anything.  And, Ellis, if you are going to use numbers, try to get them right.  We spend $11,244 per pupil per year in Delaware, not $18,000, and our graduation rate is 78.1%.

Will McVay: yes, I know the
American flag is cheesy, but at
least I kept my head in human
proportion.

Now here's Will McVay on Education:

The Race To The Top has become the Race To The Bottom.  The federal government provides a miniscule amount of our state's education budget, yet they attach so many strings to that funding and require so much paperwork as to cost more than we get in compliance costs.  Imagine if asking for $5 required you to spend $10.  You're being robbed.

What we need to do is stand up for teachers in the classroom.  We need less administrators in charge of regulatory compliance and more teachers in charge of educational brilliance.  We need to give teachers the freedom to teach and the accountability to recognize their success.  We need to expand the network of charter schools as experiments in education to help develop techniques to better serve those our public education system is leaving behind.  We need to accept and recognize the value of homeschooling and private schools to further expand the educational array available to the people of Delaware.

Ellis here again:  who needs to
use statistics and specifics to
prove his point.  Just trust me,
like you trust Kowalko and Jaques.

Ellis on taxes:

It isn't necessary to quote a bunch of statistics; anyone who earns a middle to upper middle income knows how terrible the tax burden is by just looking at their paychecks. It's not even that we think we should pay no taxes; it's that the waste in local, state, and federal governments is going unchecked. Statewide it is going unchecked because the democrats hold a super majority in both the House and Senate that they can spend as they wish with no one to question spending. By ending the super majority, the democrats will at least have to compromise with us. That's a foundation we can build on.

How do you make the case, Ellis, that taxes are too high and that there is wasteful spending if you don't actually talk about numbers and programs?  This is sort of the equivalent on the GOP side of John Kowalko and Earl Jaques saying, "Trust us, we've got the numbers but we're just not going to tell you what they are."

Look, if you mention taxes to me
I will actually start talking you to
death because I've been researching
this for a long time.

Will on taxes is way too long to quote here in toto, because he is quite specific, but here's a representative sample:

Libertarians are most simplistically described as fiscally conservative, but socially liberal. This means that Libertarian politicians can appeal to both Republicans AND Democrats. We are against big government. We are against increased taxes. We are against heavy-handed regulations. We are ALSO anti-war, anti-discrimination, against corporate welfare, and against subsidizing the tyranny of the many foreign governments the US Government props up with your tax dollars. We have a genuine "bipartisan" appeal.

Here's the other big difference. We MEAN it. Republicans campaign on smaller government and lower taxes. Some taxes are reduced, many of which benefit the super-rich more than the average taxpayer. Government, however, is ALWAYS expanded. Even Ronald Reagan, the exemplar of conservative values, grew government and the federal deficit while he was president. A Republican president, George W. Bush, passed TARP and began the auto bailouts. A Republican congress passed Medicare Part D. Republicans say one thing...and do another.

I know there's a buncha crap out
there we could cut, and after you
elect me I'll get right to work on
figuring out what it is.

Here's Ellis again, this time on government regulations:

In the past decade the citizens of Delaware have been burdened with over 6,000 new state and county laws and regulations. Are all of them absolutely necessary? I doubt it! In Delaware, as across the nation, it's not the big businesses that produce job growth; it's the small businesses that are a source of 70% that produce the growth. We need to stream line the state and local government by taking a look at the laws and regulations to see how many of them are really necessary. We need to cut government agencies that are only there to provide more unnecessary regulations.

OK, Ellis, which agencies?  Can you give us a single example?

I bet you didn't know that the
Dover area is the only part of
the state where unemployment
is still climbing.  I bet Ellis doesn't
know, either.

Now Will:

Jobs.  Of course.  Unemployment is STILL a problem.  We have not gotten the jobs we were supposed to be getting from those elected in 2010 or in 2008.  We've gotten band-aids.  We've even gotten steps in the wrong direction.  The biggest tragedy of our current approach to creating jobs is that it presumes that government better knows what we need than we do.  Rather than leaving entrepreneurs, small businessmen, and young people to find a role for themselves, and a place for them to earn a living and contribute to our community, our government at both the federal and state levels has been taking our money away from us and using it to give loan guarantees, tax write offs, and outright subsidy checks to well connected businesses in politically popular industries.  It is Karma when these misadventures fail.  Politicians can never have perfect information.  No one can.  All too often their decision making is influenced by the interests surrounding them rather than the communities in need of real, economically productive work.

Not only do these interests dominate the spending decisions and economic development policies of our state, but they also influence the tax and regulatory policies affecting everyone who lives in Delaware as well as the businesses hiring them.  Legislation passed by incumbents from both parties created additional regulatory hurdles to young workers just starting out in a new career.  Legislation passed by incumbents from both parties has worked to create a tax environment where businesses spend so much time on red tape and tax preparation, they can't stay in business.  These are additional regulations being created every year.

I will work to repeal these onerous and arcane tax and regulatory policies.  I will level the playing field between the big companies with in house lawyers and accountants and small businesses without the overhead budget to fund these departments full time and comply with politically motivated regulatory nonsense.  We need real jobs that create real wealth for the people of Delaware, not make-work jobs circumventing red tape.  We need a regulatory environment that encourages hiring, not firing.  Most importantly, we need to STOP MAKING THINGS WORSE!

Truth in advertising?  I'd like some specifics on this issue from Will, too.

I'd like to give you Ellis Parrott's positions on health care, open government, increasing employment, or specific legislation he'd support or oppose like you find on Will's campaign site, but . . .

They aren't there.

Believe it or not, 32d District, Ellis Parrott wants your vote based on his wildly incorrect estimates of Delaware education spending, his refusal to cite statistical evidence of wasteful spending or to name the government agencies he'd try to do away with.

Will McVay wants to tell you exactly what he thinks about all these issues, and while you may not agree with him every time, you have to admit that it's pretty easy to tell which candidate has done his homework and which one simply believes (with an emphasis on the "simply" here) that by showing up the Republicans in the 32d will vote for him even when he doesn't know what he's talking about.

Besides, who would actually vote for a candidate who allowed himself to get Rick-rolled, but where you can watch a Parrott sing the SpongeBob Squarepants theme song: