On an Orlando radio station Tuesday morning, a caller asked the host why he wasn’t bringing on Florida Republican gubernatorial candidate Mike McCalister for any interviews. The caller asked the host why we don’t hear of any candidates other than republican gubernatorial hopefuls Rick Scott and Bill McCollum. A good question.

McCalister’s name will be on Florida’s GOP primary ballot on Aug. 24th. He is a retired U. S. Army Colonel who worked at CentCom; holds a PhD and MBA and taught in several colleges, and operates a business growing palm trees in Plant City.  Judging from his resume, he is eminently qualified to lead a growing state of more than 15 million residents.

The morning show host answered that he wasn’t going to waste his time on someone who was only drawing 1% in the polls. End of phone call. End of subject. He didn’t explain how he knew McCalister was drawing 1%, or the polling source from which he was getting his information.  Or why he was limiting the candidates he’d bring on the air for his listeners’ review, edification, and inspection.  The host hung up and went on to something else.

Typical.

McCalister also was ovelooked when a gubernatorial debate was hosted by a local Fox News affiliate.  When McCalister’s campaign manager sought explanation, she was ignored and “given the runaround”.  The debate went on without McCalister’s participation.  According to a report in the Naples (Fl) News titled “Third Wheel? GOP’s Mike McCalister is on ballot with Rick Scott, Bill McCollum”:

“On Thursday, while McCollum and Scott debate issues and policies on a FOX station in Tampa, McCalister will have to sit at home and watch.

“I was told I wasn’t important enough to debate,” he said.

He also wasn’t invited to participate in the Univision debate, which was taped Monday in Miami.

[ snip ]

Neither Univision nor the FOX affiliate could provide a comment on why McCalister wasn’t allowed into the debate. But it’s customary for debate hosts to use polling data to choose which candidates to invite. McCalister isn’t charting on any of the major polls.

“There were three candidates who actually qualified to be on the ballot, but only two will be on TV,” McCalister said.

Then he comes back with another rhetorical question: “Why not let the voters make the decision?”

I repeat:  A good question.

In the 2008 presidential campaign, many believe we were force-fed a campaign diet of Mitt, Rudy, Huckabee, Edwards, Fred Thompson, and McCain,  to the virtual exclusion of Duncan Hunter, Tom Tancredo,  and earlier on, Sam Brownback, Tommy Thompson, and Jim Gilmore.

The sole exception was Rep. Ron Paul who got some TV play on the 24-hour news channels, due in large part to a devoted base that was relentless in its demands for media coverage of their candidate.  Nevertheless, much of the resulting coverage portrayed Cong. Paul as a nutjob.

So how did it turn out?   We got McCain, a media-made candidate who fought a lackluster campaign and who few Republican voters wanted.

So after hearing about Orlando’s morning show host’s comment, I called Col. McCalister directly to get his reaction.

A late-comer to the gubernatorial race, McCalister said the media’s been ignoring him since he began his campaign.  This, despite the fact that he’s won several straw polls including one taken at The Villages (“Florida’s friendliest home town”) following speeches given by Scott, McCollum, and McCalister, where he said the poll showed him out ahead of the two others.

McCalister added he has won the support and endorsement of several Florida Tea Parties and is encouraged by the grassroots support he’s getting, despite the fact that the influential and popularly understood to be  “Republican” media is giving him little to no time to air his views and answer voters’ questions.

This is troublesome. The media — once again by its selective censorship — is cheating the voter of his right to know ALL the candidates and their stand on the issues. How is it that the media categorically omit candidates because they aren’t polling high enough?  Seems to be a self-fulfilling prophecy: no exposure, no voter recognition, no votes on election day.

I saw first hand how the media manipulates its candidates into the spotlight.

I attended the October 2007 Republican Presidential “Debate” in Orlando, hosted by Fox News and the Florida Republican Party.  I witnessed how debate organizers favored certain candidates by their position on stage, how much time was devoted to them, and the questions they were asked.

The two-hour Orlando event took place the same evening as the 2007 World Series third playoff game,  scheduled to air from Coors Field in Denver on another channel, cutting into the debate broadcast some 35 minutes in.  Thus the debate’s first half hour was critical, as it could be expected that many viewers would switch over to the ballgame.

Here’s what happened: During the first 30 minutes, the Fox News moderator (Chris Wallace) directed questions to candidates Giuliani, Romney, Fred Thompson, and John McCain, who stood center and front, best positioned for the TV cameras.  Tom Tancredo and Duncan Hunter served as bookends.  They weren’t asked a question until at 25 minutes Tom Tancredo was asked a question by political reporter Carl Cameron.

This is not an endorsement of Col. Mike McCalister. But in an effort to provide a forum for the lesser known, media-ignored candidate, I have invited him to join me on my radio program for a special edition of The ANDREA SHEA KING SHOW on Wednesday, Aug 18th at 3p ET. It will be replayed Wednesday night on my regularly scheduled show at 9p ET.

Please take advantage of this opportunity. It’s for sure you won’t be getting it on the Republican-controlled talk radio shows or the supposedly “fair and balanced” 24-hour news channel and its local affiliates.

We are the new media and we are making end-runs around the establishment media as we become more relevant every day. Keeping it honest and open — fair and balanced no longer belongs to the Fox. The claim that “We report, you decide”?  Not anymore.  I’m going with Michael Savage who says:  “I decide.  YOU report.”

In the fight to retain his Congressional House seat, North Carolina U.S. Rep. Bob Etheridge (NC-2) emailed and mailed letters and newsletters from his House account last week. Observant voters noted that Etheridge used taxpayers dollars to underwrite the mailings, sending the pieces just ahead of the franking 90-day deadline before the election. Etheridge is the politician who pushed a student journalist when he was queried by the young man on a D.C. street.

Challenger Renee Ellmers, clinical director of a wound care center in Dunn, NC, is calling him on it. In an August 10th letter sent to Etheridge, Ellmers wrote:

“In every way these mailings resembled typical campaign ads, except they were paid for by taxpayers and not by your campaign.

In the text of one pamphlet you mailed you told voters you are “reducing the deficit and restoring budget discipline” in Washington. How much did this mailing (and your emailings) cost taxpayers? How many people received the mailings and emails? How can you explain writing taxpayers that you are “reducing the deficit” when you are wasting thousands of dollars of their money on political mailings to help you get reelected?”

Rep. Etheridge has more than a million dollars in his campaign account.

According to a poll of Second District voters done in June by Survey USA , 55% to 38% voting in Etheridge’s district disapprove of the job Barack Obama is doing as president. Yet Etheridge voted with Nancy Pelosi and Barack Obama 97% of the time, voting for every major item of the Obama agenda, including ObamaCare.

A majority of voters – 53% — in his district disapprove of the Healthcare reform legislation. Etheridge also voted for the Wall Street bailout, despite voter disapproval of 61%.

Etheridge supported Obama’s so called “stimulus” bill and trillion dollar deficit. The result: North Carolina’s employment figures are some of the bleakest in the country. Last February North Carolina’s unemployment hit a record high 11.2%, ranking 10th among States in unemployment.

Ellmers wrote at her website:

“Just like the taxpayer money Bob Etheridge voted to spend on highway signs praising the Obama stimulus plan, and the $700,000 he just defended spending on television ads defending Obamacare, Bob Etheridge has no problem spending tax dollars to try to justify his support of failed policies and record deficit spending. But the facts are not on his side and no matter how many taxpayer funded letters he sends to district voters, he will not be able to run away from his record.”

When the Christmas Day panty bomber was arrested for trying to blow up himself and the plane he rode in on, he was questioned for approximately 50 minutes before an attorney was brought in to advise him.  What happened next?  Mister Burning Briefs clammed up.

Contrast that with James O’Keefe, American citizen, who was denied an attorney for 28 hours after he was arrested and accused of trying to tamper with the phones of Louisiana Sen. Mary Landrieu.  During that time, the FBI issued a press release on the arrest and leaked the criminal complaint.  The mainstream media salivated, while ACORN’s Bertha Lewis scambled to appear before TV cameras.

The Christmas Day bomber was given Constitutional rights and Miranda’d within an hour of his arrest but a U.S. citizen was not given a lawyer until more than a day had passed?

How — and why — did a terror suspect get kid glove legal treatment?  And as another conservative journalist asked, “Where was the ‘don’t rush to judgment’ media when someone killed innocents while shouting Allah Akbar?  But at the first hint of a scandal, they crucify O’Keefe?”

On Monday night, O’Keefe appeared on the Sean Hannity TV program, his first public appearance since the arrest.  When asked by Hannity about the incident, O’Keefe declined to say too much.  “I just can’t comment any further.  There’s an investigation ongoing, and I’m just going to have to leave it at that.”

Hannity asked if he recorded the entire incident.  O’Keefe said he did.

Hannity: “If we were to show this video tonight, what would people conclude?”

O’Keefe: “That this is a huge misunderstanding, I think… you know, like in all my videos, like in my ACORN videos, I’m trying to get to the bottom of something. I’m trying to expose the truth. I’m trying to get to the true intent about what these people think about their constituents.  I’m trying to show the American people what, are they concerned about their constituents.  And that’s what I was trying to do.”

Hannity pressed him about what was on the videotapes now in the possession of the government.

O’Keefe: “Our entire visit to the Senator’s office… actually there’s two different cameras.  One was on the helmet, and one was on the cellphone.  So there’s tapes, the government has them in possession and I want them to be released because they refute a lot of these claims being made by the media.”

O’Keefe says the media jumped the gun and tried to destroy his reputation.

Don Surber at the Dailymail asks if James O’Keefe was framed.

“That’s the rumor swirling after the U.S. attorney recused himself from the criminal case in which O’Keefe and 3 others were arrested at Democratic Senator Mary Landrieu’s office in New Orleans. However, the U.S. attorney was a Bush appointee who was championed by Landrieu to keep his job under Obama. I am willing to bet this is the reason for his recusal, and if so, that is an honorable thing to do.”

Surber suggests that the Republicans on the House and Senate Judiciary committees might want to demand an investigation of this case.

Andrew Breitbart, publisher of BigGovernment.com said in a Fox News interview on Monday that O’Keefe was ‘framed’ by the media and the U.S. attorney’s office. Hours after that interview, Jim Letten, U.S. attorney for the Eastern District of Louisiana recused himself from the case,” according to a Fox News report.

“James O’Keefe sat in jail for 28 hours without access to an attorney, while the U.S. attorney leaked the information about his arrest, helping the media frame it as ‘Watergate Junior,’” Breitbart said.

Blogger Patterico wrote:

“Breitbart said he though the U.S. attorney’s effort was part of a payback scheme against O’Keefe, who posed as a pimp and prostitute with another citizen journalist to enter ACORN offices around the country and get advice on how to apply for federal housing grants for a brothel.

“It’s tied to the Justice Department. And we’ve been very aggressive in asking (Attorney General) Eric Holder to investigate what’s seen on these ACORN tapes and he’s ignored it,” Breitbart said of the media ploy.”

FWIW, I don’t think Letten’s recusal has anything to do with Breitbart, his claims, or even O’Keefe. Letten recused himself, not his office, and the first assistant Jan Maselli Mann will take over the prosecution. My guess is Letten’s recusal is related to the fact that one of the suspects is the son of the U.S. Attorney in Shreveport, who is likely a Letten acquaintance and the basis for his recusal.”

O’Keefe is accusing members of the mainstream media of journalism malpractice over its coverage of his arrest and the circumstances surrounding it.

Obviously a media malfunction.

At the Thanksgiving dinner table we sat back, sated with turkey and all the fixins’. And as is our custom, we began reminiscing of times gone by, family members who have passed on, and others we’ve not seen for a time.

The discussion around the dinner table this year was no different. Over coffee and pie, we talked of old times, fond memories, laughter, wistfulness, future prospects, and hope mingled with thanks for our blessings, past, present and future.

The conversation turned to news of an elderly relative, a self-made man whose manner and behavior had changed markedly over the past few years. Now well into his years, this man had always been a rugged sort, a man of the earth who made a living by the sweat of his brow and the brawn of his muscle, tending his large farm and considerable holdings. His thriftiness is legendary among relatives and friends who joke that he still has his first dollar. He worked long hours from sun-up to sundown, so his financial conservatism was understandable and in many ways laudable.

He remains on the farm and today still maintains his independence, managing his land as well as the fruit of his lifelong labors — a sizeable portfolio accrued from decades of hard work, savings, and sensible investments.

Yet in the past few years, family members closest to him have noticed a change in him, something uncharacteristic of a man who was loathe to part with a dime unless it was for a necessary and sensible purpose. He had survived through many hard times — the Great Depression, WWII, Korea, Vietnam, the gas crisis and recession of the Carter years, and was especially careful with every dollar earned. So when it came to their attention that he was spending huge sums to pay off loans for some folks, buying automobiles for others, as well as other extraordinary expenditures, the family became concerned. They agreed that giving unto others was an admirable quality and that he had every right to disperse his fortune in whatever way he saw fit. But what concerned them were the sums he was spending. They grew alarmed that he might squander his hard-earned nest egg on frivolities and folks who didn’t deserve or warrant the benefit of his charity. And they were distressed that his spending of an exorbitant amount of money would lead him into bankruptcy.

Some family members who had worked the farm with our great-uncle, helping him grow it and tend it, also worried there might be little to be passed on to succeeding generations, especially those seated at the children’s table this Thanksgiving. So they convened a family meeting where it was suggested that our dear great-uncle, though still healthy and strong despite his advanced age, might be growing senile and incompetent in the conduct of his affairs. They decided to have him evaluated, understanding that if a judge rules him no longer competent to manage his affairs, steps will be taken through appropriate means to safeguard his assets and oversee his spending.

The competency hearing is scheduled for election day, November 2nd, 2010. Because you see, our uncle is your uncle too. His name is Sam. Uncle Sam. And not only our family, but millions more like ours across the country are concerned that Uncle Sam is no longer competent to conduct the affairs of this great nation. And the voters — the American family — will take charge of Uncle Sam and oversee his financial dealings because he is squandering our nation’s treasure to such an extent there soon will no longer be the American spirit, a legacy of the American dream to pass on from our founding fathers to posterity — our children and grandchildren.

We will be vigilant. We will conduct a follow-up evaluation of Uncle Sam in 2012.

To us lies the responsibility to safeguard the fortune of freedom for which “Uncle Sam” and so many Americans fought and died. To us has been given the duty to keep alive the promise of liberty given to us by previous generations for those who follow.

Ronald Reagan reminded us that freedom is a fragile thing and is never more than one generation away from extinction. It is not ours by inheritance; it must be fought for and defended constantly by each generation, for it comes only once to a people. Those who have known freedom and then lost it have never known it again.

As a family protects and safeguards its heritage for posterity so shall we, beginning on November 2, 2010. Our founders gave it all — their lives, their treasure, their sacred honor. We can do no less.