Two years ago, Samm Simpson was a Dunedin grandmother who was so moved by our nation’s mistake in Iraq that she was fighting an insurmountable battle to unseat powerful Republican Congressman C.W. Bill Young, enough so that I thought it was worth telling CL’s readers more about her. After her lopsided loss, she almost immediately began running again for the Democratic nomination.
In July of this year, she was working to bring Democratic longshot Mike Gravel to Pinellas County. But now, she’s backing Republican candidate Ron Paul. In a post she says she removed from her blog, Simpson wrote (as progressive blogger Kenneth Quinnell details):
This is a man who tells the truth. Yes, I’m a Democrat and I’m supporting Ron Paul. This means I change my registration to an Republican by December 31 so I can vote in the Republican Primary on January 29th. I hope you will join me.
This is a time in our nation’s history to focus only on the big pictures: national sovereignty, a return to the rule of law, our liberties, ending the Iraqi occupation and the Constitution of the United States.
Join the Ron Paul Revolution, and let’s take back the country.
To which Quinnell responded with an exhaustive condemnation of Paul’s right-wing beliefs, in contrast to Paul’s appeal to technophiles and anti-war activists because of his isolationist stance. Quinnell wrote:
From comparing Ron Paul to JFK to saying Paul tells the truth to suggesting that Paul’s extreme viewpoints have any connection to the Constitution. Add to that, Simpson is changing her registration? There is nothing progressive about anything in this post and nothing progressive about Ron Paul. Paul doesn’t want to take the country back, he wants to take it back to the 1850s.
It is progressive to oppose the war. It is progressive to support civil liberties and oppose things like the FISA bill and the PATRIOT Act. It is progressive to oppose corporate takeover of our government and our lives. But these things alone don’t make one progressive, particularly if you oppose these things for all the wrong reasons, like Paul does, then these things are most definitely not progressive. To quote phenry at Daily Kos (linked in several places below): “‘But he’s against the war!’ Yes, he is. So is Pat Buchanan. So is David Duke.†Clearly, Paul is a lot closer to Buchanan and Duke than to JFK.
You can still find Samm in the wiki and in the archives and I wish her well on a personal level, but she is no longer on the blogroll and I can’t support her run for Congress in any way.
Simpson writes that she has tried to respond repeatedly on Quinnell’s blog without success, so she posted her response on her campaign blog and removed her pro-Paul post:
Since that original post, which has been removed, I have been advised by everyone, including my dear 80 year-old mother, that it is not “politically correct” to change parties. Indeed, I am learning the strategies of utilitarian compromise. My votes as a Democratic Congressperson will be more significant than one vote in a Primary. Having said that, it does not negate Dr. Paul’s simple message of liberty, sovereignty and solvency.
… There is something happening in the Ron Paul Camp. We would be fools to ignore it, regardless of party, age, race or creed. When he spoke, I saw all ages, all races, all parties joined together. It’s bigger than party. It’s bigger than one person. It’s about “we the people.”
History is replete with wise men and women that are rejected or not fully understood. Whether or not you agree, Dr. Paul has lit a match.
I’m no longer in the political consulting business, but I’m guessing this is not going to help Simpson at the polls in November of next year.
On the day that C.W. Bill Young was pictured on 1A supporting a family as their 23-year-old Marine arrived home in a casket from Iraq, Dunedin Mayor 
