Comments from Mike Bayham
I received the following email from Mike Bayham regarding comments that have appeared on my site.
I am publishing the email here for everyone to see, with permission from Mr. Bayham. Hopefully over the Easter weekend I will have a chance to respond to it.
Be good to yourself,
Westley Annis
westley@da-parish.com
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Westley:
Though I do not know if I have met you, some friends
of mine recently sent over a posting you made
regarding me. In it you encouraged people to vote
AGAINST me because I am a "career" politician.
If there is something I did or said as a councilman or
as a public figure that you disagreed with or if you
were friends with one of my opponents, as one could
assume by your flowing praise of Mr. Schneida, I could
respect that. However, to simply deride me as
something I am not is not proper political discourse.
First, I have been a Councilman a mere 2.5 years.
Almost any elected official in St. Bernard Parish has
been in office longer than I have. Using your
standard, Jack Stephens, Joey DiFatta, Lynn Dean, Ken
Odinet, Nita Hutter, etc. are also career politicians.
With such a stringent definition, I am to assume that
all elected officials should be limited to a single
term in office in order to prevent a "power grab" on
their part.
Secondly, serving as committeeman is an unpaid
position. I do not receive a red cent for being on
the RSCC. I ran for another term on the Louisiana
Republican Party's governing board because I had a
proven record of protecting St. Bernard Parish's
interests. For example, when St. Tammany folks tried
to cut our parish's representation from 4 to 2, I was
the lone person from our parish fighting to stop it
from happening. The other members of our delegation
did not even attend the meeting! I have the best
attendance record of St. Bernard's committeemen over
the past 8 years and am quite proud of my record.
Thirdly, with the exception of Mr. Dean, I am the lone
Republican leader in St. Bernard that assists other
Republicans running for office. I worked very hard on
Bobby Jindal's behalf in our parish and even took out
a newspaper advertisement in support of his candidacy.
I can think of numerous other instances where I was
the lone Republican to back other GOP candidates.
Fourthly, when I ran for committeeman, I did so
without the backing of any elected officials here. I
am proud of my political independence and feel that it
is critical for our parish to have leaders that can
think for themselves instead of follow the orders of
richer and more powerful politicians. Senator Boasso
fielded 4 candidates for the committee and three of
them were victorious.
Fifthly, I did not win my election (there is no runoff
for committeeman) because of name recognition but due
to hard work and a proven track record. I did not use
broad ambiguous langugage in describing my philosophy
nor did I need for a millionaire from Houma to
bankroll a slick, cookie cutter mailer, which was sent
across the state with only the names and pictures
changed. The reason why that mailer did not bear my
image and name was because I opposed the plan to
reduce St. Bernard's voice on the committe in half, a
matter that the "country club" wing of the party
wanted to accomplish in order to wrest control of the
state GOP.
If name recognition was so critical in determining the
outcome, then why did I outpoll Councilman Mark Madary
in his own council district? Why did Jack Stephens
come close to losing a spot on the Democratic
committee? Why did Jackie Dean come in third place
for the Republican Parish committee? Furthermore, I
would have won by a bigger margin had one other
candidate not run, the majority of whose votes would
have likely gone to me.
While I commend anyone who tries to make a difference
in the community in their own unqiue way, which
includes sharing opinions about the status quo with
others, I do not feel that it is fair to make blanket
statements about individuals that are far from
accurate.
I was elected to the Parish Council in spite of the
political powers that be in St. Beranrd, not because
of them. I could have easily won their favor while in
office by voting against my conscience and blindly
doing their bidding, but I would rather lose an
election than lose my soul.
If there is a issue in particular that you care to
discuss, please feel free to contact me at your
convenience. However, as someone whose term in office
was of a rather modest length, labeling me a career
politician is an inaccurate description.
Cordially,
Mike Bayham
PS- I wish you would have endorsed Lyndon LaRouche for
the Democratic nomination. On a brighter note, thanks
for endorsing Greg for the PEC. Your one vote put him
over the top!
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posted by Westley at 4/07/2004 07:36:20 AM
