A closer look at Allen West

Last week, SeeDubya and the Other McCain put up posts about Lt. Col. Allen West, who is the Republican challenger to Democrat Ron Klein in Florida’s 22nd Congressional District. That’s not actually my congressional district–I live in the 20th, safely secure for the Democrats, my congresswoman having been most recently seen all over national TV touting for Hillary Clinton in connection to the Florida Non-Primary (could be worse–if I lived about ten minutes east, I’d have Alcee Hastings)–but close enough to attract my attention. And having paid attention, I come away less enthusiastic.
First off, there is the Congressional District itself:

If it looks contorted, that’s Alcee Hastings’s fault–his district immediately adjoins FL22 on the west, and was one of those districts drawn to ensure election of a black congressman. In 2000, incumbent Republican Clay Shaw won re-election by a margin of 599 votes, and redistricting followed this up by taking away from him the heavily Democratic sections of North Miami Beach, Aventura and Sunny Isles, and giving him as replacement a marginally more Republican territory extending north into Palm Beach County. Shaw won re-election in 2002 and 2004 by wide margins (over sixty percent both times), even though the district went for Kerry over Bush by a small margin. (Gore beat Bush in the 2000 version of FL22.) In 2006, he lost to Klein, a well known member of the state legislature, by a relatively small margin. The main stretch of FL22 is centered on the canalfront homes and ocean view condos of Fort Lauderdale, and hence is dominated by the sort of retirees and very well heeled found in those places. (West himself lives in one of the western extensions (more or less under the Interstate 595 symbol on this map) Klein won in 2006 due in large part to an ad campaign that painted Shaw as a politician in bed with the drug companies and aiming to gut Social Security–aimed directly at the district’s core demographic. Less obvious from the map is the fact that it shares with Hastings’s district one of the most substantial (in terms of percentage of the overall population) gay communities in the country (supposedly second only to San Francisco). West makes much of the fact that polling shows less than half of the district’s population think has a favorable view of Klein–but that should be seen in the perspective of the same polling showing a relatively small number of voters have such a low opinion of of him that they are prepared to vote for Klein’s opponent no matter what, and that the “low favorable” rating is actually not much less than the percentage of the vote Klein gained in the 2006 election.
Now for West himself:
First off is the fact that he’s a relative newcomer to Broward County–he came here in 2004 after retiring from the Army, and the biography on his campaign website does not indicate any earlier ties to South Florida. While it’s true that Hillary Clinton lived in New York for much less time than four years when she ran for US Senate, Lt. Col. West does not have the name recognition she did.
Second, there is the incident which caused the end of his career in the Army. However honorably the facts should be viewed in his favor, one knows the campaign ad that is waiting to be sprung on him by Election Day: “Not only does he approve torture, he practiced it himself!”
Then there is his plans for Iraq and immigration, which can be summarized as making the US Army the Border Patrol of Iraq and making the US Border Patrol the Army.
He proposes that the US military take charge of border security for Iraq, and leave security in the main part of the country to the Iraqis themselves; while he wants to put the US Border Patrol under the supervision of the Department of Defense. He criticizes “responsible redployment” aka withdrawal, but his plan for Iraq sounds rather like another form of withdrawal–and there’s some practical questions I would have about how the transition would work.
He’s also somewhat self contradictory. He calls for budget rollbacks across the board and of course the end of earmarks and pork. But he’s apparently not above proposing some pork being sent to South Florida in the name of “Energy Independence”.

The sugar fields of South Florida can provide us with an environmentally safe and sustainable fuel resource. The Brazilians have been producing sugar ethanol for years and we need to do the same. We need to work with the Brazilians to learn the proven methods of producing sugar ethanol, and reduce or eliminate the import tax on Brazilian ethanol. We need leaders in Washington who realize the treasure that we possess in South Florida.

In other words, increased sugar subsidies.
His immigration platform seems to have been written without paying attention to where he is. The illegal immigrants here are generally the type who overstayed visas or came with false documents. The 9-11 hijackers who attended flight school here in Florida were good examples of that. A border fence is nice, but useless here. Our border is the Atlantic Ocean on one side, the Gulf of Mexico on the other, and the Florida Straits between. It’s boatloads of Haitians and Cubans who are the problem here.
As such, his immigration platform has much less appeal than it would have in places like Arizona or Texas.
His statement on Israel was, on the other hand, obviously written to appeal to the many Jews in this area. But it has a bit of unreality–he wants to make Israel a member of NATO.
His education platform is rather confused, too. He was a high school teacher before he became a candidate, and correctly criticizes the rush to standardized testing. But he doesn’t have any actual proposals to help the situation, beyond getting local businessmen to come in as guest teachers. He doesn’t even mention vouchers.
And then, as a final perplexing note, there is his appearance at an anti-CAIR rally. I don’t particularly like CAIR myself, but the reasoning behind that rally is a bit problematic. CAIR was holding a fundraiser/meeting at the Broward County Convention Center, and the rally, along with such websites as FrontPageMag (follow the links from The Other McCain), was pushing Broward County to force a cancellation of the event, and tried to portray the county government as being overfriendly to CAIR. First off, the Broward Convention Center is a public facility that rents out its premises for meetings, banquets, and other events. I’m not sure it could have kept CAIR away in the first place, and I’m fairly certain the County Government does not have the power to interfere with the Center’s management in such situations. It certainly would have allowed CAIR to file a nice lawsuit and wail about being a victim if the County had done so. However, to suggest that the Broward County Commission is somehow a supporter of Hamas and other Arab terrorists is a bit ludicrous: at least three out of nine commissioners are Jewish, and two of the others may be Jewish (but I’m not sure). Yet Lt.Col. West appeared at this rather nonsensical rally; he was in fact the featured speak. Perhaps he still too new to the area to realize the absurdity.
But all these things together leave me with the impression of a man who is not practical enough to mount a successful challenge to an incumbent who is not only well known but relatively well respected.

Tags: politics, Allen West, Florida elections