Letter: One logical choice for Anderson County mayor

To the Editor:

I have learned that a little research on candidates can help us avoid a great deal of frustration later.

Terry Frank is indeed the only logical choice for the position. Mrs. Frank is the only one on the ballot who has stood by conservative principles throughout her public career. She has operated a family business in Anderson County for many years. Terry even went to Washington and testified before Congress on behalf of our area’s small business owners.

When she says she will not raise our taxes, you can believe she means it.

Her opponent, Warren Gooch (a lawyer from Oak Ridge) has done little more in the political arena besides donating to the most liberal politicians our nation has to offer. Between his “bundling” for Al Gore and his donations to Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton, John Edwards, and many others, Mr. Gooch has supported these liberal politicians to the tune of more than $100,000. These donations make it is easy to see where his political ideologies are.

Mr. Gooch now finds himself in quite a predicament because many conservative and moderate Democrats are fleeing his campaign and throwing their support behind Terry Frank for Mayor. Gooch’s team is now doing their best to remake his image into that of a conservative. As we have learned in the past, if it votes like a liberal, and it donates like a liberal, it’s a liberal.

Please do not misunderstand my point; there is nothing wrong with being a liberal if that is what you want to be. There is something very wrong with being one thing and trying to pretend to be something else to win an election. That very practice is what has soured so many voters on our election process.

The question we need to answer in this election is which candidate to believe. As I said before, because of Terry Frank’s history of backing lower taxes and smaller government with less intrusion into your life, we can believe that she is a conservative who will not raise taxes. With Mr. Gooch, however, we are asked to simply take his word that he will not raise taxes and to ignore his donations.

Plainly put, it matters who leads. Once a politician is in office, it is often too late to find out that your trust has been misplaced. We should all have learned a great lesson from the presidential election of 2008 that when a candidate urges the voters to ignore his past and promises that he will govern in a fair manner, we should ask, “Fair to whom?”

Now, I am not trying to tie Mr. Gooch to President Obama. Mr. Gooch tied his own boat to that titanic failure when he threw a party celebrating Barack Obama’s election. With whom you align yourself is very important, even at the local level. If you are trying to hide your alliances, you cannot be trusted.

I would love to say that I will be voting for Terry Frank in August, but I can’t wait that long so I will be taking advantage of early voting.

I urge each and every one of you to go out and vote for the only logical choice for county mayor. Vote for the one who has always been on the side of the citizen. Please vote for Terry Frank.

Alex Moseley

Anderson County Republican Party Chairman