When Republicans Like Bruce Poliquin Have No Issues Anyone Likes, They Attack... Tattoos

It was embarrassing for Congressman Bruce Poliquin (R) when Maine's Republican senior Senator, Susan Collins, decided to stand up to DC party leaders who wanted to destroy MaineCare (the local version of Medicaid). Poliquin voted "yes" and Collins voted "no." It failed and Mainers were grateful that Collins had the balls Poliquin lacks.

Poliquin ducked questions on the issue for months until he had no choice but to cast a public vote.

Then he repeated Republican talking points that were instantly exposed as false-- claiming, for example, that the bill would affect only the 7 percent of Mainers who buy insurance on the individual market, and not the tens of thousands of Mainers on Medicaid, including thousands of his constituents, who would be direct losers.

It’s important to remember that what Poliquin and the others support is not just an attack on the Medicaid expansion created by the Affordable Care Act, an aspect of the law in which Maine does not participate. But roughly a fifth of Mainers get their health care through traditional Medicaid-- and tearing that apart is central to both the House and Senate attempts to repeal the ACA.

...When the question was, "Should millions of low and moderate income Americans lose their health insurance to pay for a tax cut for the wealthy?" Collins said "no," and Poliquin said "yes."

Poliquin has voted "yes" every time he had an opportunity to re-instate the ability of insurance companies to bring back the loophole for pre-existing conditions and he has voted "yes" every time he has had the opportunity turn Medicare into a voucher system and he has voted "yes" every time he has had the opportunity to rip healthcare away from working class and middle class Mainers. That's who he is. That's what he is. So how do you run for reelection with a voting record like that?

1- You get your wealthy donors and your corporate donors to fill your campaign coffers with cash. As of the June 30 FEC reporting deadline he had raised $2,998,396 to the $1,174,196 Jared Golden, his progressive Democratic opponent, had raised.

2- You get your right-wing allies to smear your opponent. Paul Ryan's shady corporately-funded SuperPAC has already spent $442,218 on ads lying about Golden.

3- You blanket the district in misleading advertising, trying to redefine an honorable opponent into someone more like... yourself.

Poliquin is desperately trying to confuse voters, claiming Golden is the anti-healthcare candidate. Republicans are pulling this crap all over the country. Mainers generally know better. Golden is running on a platform that includes Medicare-For-All, you know, the program that wants to give every American the same healthcare that people over 65 get. It's popular... even among Republican voters:

Poliquin's misleading ad claims Golden would "end Medicare as we know it." Yeah... by expanding it to all Americans. Poliquin throws in another lie, claiming that Golden wants to impose "over $32 trillion in higher costs [over a ten year period]." What Poliquin neglects to mention is that right now we spend $3.3 trillion a year on healthcare-- $33 trillion, so a trillion less, even before the all the cost savings Medicare-For-All would engender, billions annually.

Those numbers look bad for Poliquin. So the latest Republican maneuver is to do what the GOP in Texas and Nebraska are trying to do to, respectively, Beto O'Rouke and Kara Eastman, by claiming they were in rock bands when they were in high school and college. Problem: Jared wasn't in a rock band. So Poliquin and his allies went for another cheap shot-- Jared has a tattoo. The new ad calls him a "liberal" while zooming in on his "devil dog" tattoo-- which is what front line Marine veterans from his unit who fought in Iraq and Afghanistan generally get. Poliquin's version of fighting in Afghanistan and Iraq was to go get rich "working" and kissing up to big banksters on Wall Street and stealing money from people's pension funds.

The Sun Journal and virtually all the other newspapers in Maine, called Poliquin out for the new deceitful ad.

The ad, which began airing Monday, questions Golden’s opposition to the $1.5 trillion federal tax cut pushed through by Republicans last year and assails him for voting against a 2016 bill in Augusta that limited the use of welfare cash.

“No responsible media outlet should run the spot because it’s bullshit,” Bobby Reynolds, Golden’s communications director, said Monday.

Golden dismissed it Monday as “another false attack by Bruce Poliquin and his boss Paul Ryan,” the Wisconsin Republican who serves as speaker of the U.S. House.

...Golden has made no secret of his opposition to the controversial tax cut approved by Republicans shortly before Christmas. It mostly benefits corporations and the wealthy, but many ordinary families also will see a reduction in their tax bills until their portion of the tax cut expires in 2026. The break for companies is permanent.

“In the Maine Legislature,” Golden said, “I voted to lower the Maine income tax for middle-class families, and that’s a verifiable fact.”

...Golden, one of 33 state House members to vote against [a bill to prohibit food stamps to be used for tattoos], said the restrictions were unnecessary because federal rules already banned the use of the welfare cash for such items.

“I fully oppose any misuse of these funds but, unlike Bruce Poliquin, I don’t want to throw kids off of food stamps,” Golden said.

Poliquin pushed for a change in federal food assistance that would require able-bodied adults to work unless they have children under the age of 6-- a change from existing law that doesn’t include an age limit.

Golden’s [own] ad shows one large tattoo on his right arm. Among the images inked on his skin are a sun, a moon, a tree, a Celtic cross and a “devil dog” that represents his unit in the Marines, where he served combat tours in Iraq and Afghanistan.

There doesn’t seem to be any academic research about politics and tattoos, but a 2016 study of tattoos in the workplace for the Journal of Retail and Consumer Services found that consumers “have a negative reaction to body art.”

Perhaps as a consequence, there aren’t many politicians who have confessed to having a tattoo. The Huffington Post found only a few who would talk about them when it surveyed Capitol Hill in 2012.

Justin Trudeau and Jared Golden have tattoos. So?

But some political leaders have had noticeable tattoos, including Canadian leader Justin Trudeau, who has talked about a raven pictured on his left arm.

Among well-known politicians with tattoos were Teddy Roosevelt, Franklin Roosevelt, Winston Churchill, Andrew Jackson, Barry Goldwater, all men who, unlike Poliquin, served in the military. Tattoos are pretty well-accepted these days... but for conservatives like Paul Ryan and Bruce Poliquin who'd like to turn back the calendar to the 1950s, they're still a scary social taboo. Like Beto O'Rourke skateboarding. Someone should ask Poliquin if it was also a social taboo for Golden and his unit too be fighting in Afghanistan while he was getting rich on Wall Street too.

Last week, Trump's corrupt SuperPAC, America First Action, announced that it plans to pump $1 million into Poliquin's dirty campaign. Almost all of that will go towards smearing Jared Golden. See that thermometer on the right? That's so people can contribute to the campaigns of progressive Democrats who served in the military and who are now running for Congress-- like Jared. (Wisconsin Democrat Randy Bryce never did get a tattoo when he was in the Army, but did play trombone in a band when he was in high school... and skateboarded-- "but not like kids today," he added. Ryan's SuperPAC has attacked him for smoking weed and protesting in the state Capitol against anti-union legislation.)

Nancy Ohanian original caricatures-- Bryce & Golden