Hello, this is Buck McKeon — The SCV Talk Archive

Republicans had barely finished tearing each other and the faceless illegal immigrants down during a CNN/YouTube Debate when a friendly voice greeted Santa Clarita and 25th District voters on the phone Wednesday night. "Hello, this is Buck McKeon, your Congressman from Washington," the voice on the other end of the line said. "That's funny," I thought. "How did Buck know I was watching the Republican debate? WTF?"

Of course he didn't know, but for some reason, my Newhall phone number is on Buck's teletown hall conference hit list. So for the second time that night, I sat down to listen intently to yet another Republican tell me about the state of the nation, the horrors of "illegals" and the lying Democrats. I guess my journalistic curiosity got the best of me for the second time that night. It was hard to sit through the televised debate, listening to the Republicans try to one-up each other on who was the toughest on the brown people, who had the biggest collection of long, hard cylindrical killing devices, who believed the Bible "literally" and whether pouring water down the throat of a restrained and reclined person is actually torture. But Buck's got this kind, grandfatherly voice that kind of just sucks you in, you see. You almost picture him talking to the callers like he would talk to his grandchildren, by asking them to sit on his knee and visit with him. It's almost irresistible. The litany of questions and complaints from 25th District voters this time wasn't much different than the last two times I've been on a conference call with Godfather McKeon. Lancaster complained about "them illegals" filling the emergency rooms and "being put in front of everyone else." Lancaster sighed audibly when Buck said the current Congress probably wouldn't do anything about the illegal alien problem. But for the first time ever, Buck said he openly disagreed with President Bush about his immigration plan, and he told Lancaster not to worry: the Republicans would block anything the "open border" Democrats tried to do. Small consolation for Lancaster, she sounded near tears. Valencia called Buck and his GOP colleagues on the carpet and asked why Republicans hadn't fought the Democrat's efforts on the SCHIP expansion harder. "You just sit there and take all these Democrat lies," Valencia said. Buck told Valencia that it was common for the Democrats to lie about SCHIP, saying that the perception given by the "liberal media" (Valencia's term, not Buck's) was that the Republicans were out to kill children. Too bad no one asked Buck if he knew how many SCHIP recipients resided in the SCV or the 25th District. That kind of "gotcha" question might not be liked by politicians, but I enjoy them, if only to test their preparation. Next up was a sophomore from Valencia High School. We'll call him Viking. Viking, who couldn't even vote, asked the best question the entire time I was on the phone. Viking asked McKeon to explain why the so-called fiscally conservative Republicans had spent so much money while they were in control of Congress. The 15 year old even attempted to pigeon-hole our eight term congressman on SCHIP and war funding, asking why McKeon kept voting to give Bush more money for the war in Iraq, but wouldn't help over-turn the president's veto on the comparatively cheap SCHIP funding which helps children here in the states. "Hot damn, this kid is sharp!" I thought. Buck didn't fumble though, replying with GOP boilerplate on the war on terror, clash of civilizations and the evils of socialized medicine etc. It wasn't until a few callers later that I discovered the real reason Buck was calling. He asked one caller to "pay attention" to one GOP presidential hopeful's views on illegal aliens specifically, saying that it marked that candidate as soft on the issue. He was, of course, speaking about former NYC Mayor Rudy Giuliani. The comparatively moderate Republican is the biggest challenger to the man Buck has endorsed for president, the slick-looking, smooth-talking, squeeky-clean Mitt Romney. "Aha!" I thought. "This is actually a campaign phone call for the Romney camp." Buck is on Romney's California team, you see. I didn't stay on the line long enough to see if McKeon actually advised listeners to vote for Romney, but I suspect he probably dropped more hints about the handsome Mormon Governor from Massachusetts as the call dragged on. Romney took quite a beating in last night's debate, one wonders just how coordinated this (and possibly other) conference call was. Given that we're now in election season, I was disappointed that none of the callers asked McKeon the really revealing questions like what he thought of the confederate flag, whether he believed in the talking snakes of Genesis or what his views on water boarding were, but I suspect they would have sounded the same as Romney. And if that was to be the case, I had heard enough already.

Comments (1)

IHeartSCVNovember 29 at 6:54 PM PT
I love those calls! I've only gotten two, but each time it's like Christmas. I just wanted to make sure that you didn't forget that a Hillary Clinton operative was part of the "tearing apart" too--how considerate of CNN to give a co-chair of Clinton's "Veterans and Military Retirees for Hillary" group a chance to attack Republicans for a solid minute before he got around to asking them a question. As for the "long, hard cylindrical (where were you going here?) killing devices", you could say they're a problem. Of course, you could also say illegal immigrants (the ones those nasty Repubs were attacking) are playing an unfortunately large role in making those killing devices kill--in our very own LA County, 95% of the outstanding warrants for murder name illegal immigrants (info. from the work of McDonald of the Center for Immigration Studies--she appeared before the House). In any case, I'm glad to see that McKeon has decided to forgo pushing mule museums in favor of influencing the impending presidential primaries. Here's hoping for some good debates for SCV's own City Council.