Billy Long: Keeping a Red Seat Red With the Mask of Ordinary People Hiding Big Business Donors

Billy Long is in overdrive the past two days with his cite a donor and keep a red seat red tweets. It’s like watching pledge week on PBS. I sit watching day after day Southwest Missourians, who face tough economic times, send in $250, $500, $1000 with amazement. You have got to start to wonder, especially since most of Billy’s Twitter followers don’t even live in the state of Missouri if this is all staged.

It’s nice to thank people for their contributions, but something always has seemed to stink about these tweets since I began following Long on Twitter. Honestly, they don’t add up to a large amount of donations, but they do successfully mask that Billy Long will be controlled by big business in Southwest Missouri despite his claim. You never hear Billy Tweet about how Ed Pinegar’s family has donated over $10,000. Of course Long says he opposes the bailouts; yet, Pinegar knows the government has the control now to shut his dealership down. Obviously, he looks to Billy to be his player in Congress, screw the little people whose children will receive the large debt the bailouts, TARP, and stimulus continues to add to. Pinegar needs to sell cars, and he needs a friend in government these days (or someone he can buy) to ensure the federal government doesn’t make the decision to close his Chevrolet lots at a later date.

Or what about Gordon Kinne’s contributions, another business man in Southwest Missouri who has a real interest in Obamacare, the same healthcare reform law that Long says he is going to Washington to oppose. Republicans in the right positions often get rich from unpopular Democrat plans. Oh, Billy wants us to forget these donors, because they represent the donors that career politicians attract, and Billy Long isn’t one of those even though he acts like a career politician.

Just keep paying attention to Colleen who sent $50 in to help keep a red seat red. She’s just one of the common people who believes Billy’s rhetoric. Colleen, he’s already been bought. Your $50 does little to get Billy’s ear, but it will get you a tweet.

Earlier this week, Missouri 7^th Congressional District race observers noticed five or six tweets in a row praising Pete Herschend of Silver Dollar City fame. Pull up the Federal Election Commission donor database. Herschend has room to give more, obviously Billy Long is begging these days using Twitter.

So it will be interesting to watch, since we saw Billy beg on Twitter earlier this week, to see if campaign donations tightened up for the Long campaign over the first quarter? I guess we will know since they must file their quarterly statement tonight. My prediction is they have, and as word of Billy Long’s ethics problems spreads more across the district, they will continue to dry up. These ethics problems may be the greatest challenge in keeping a red seat red.