The Distinguished Gentleman from North Carolina

I received an email from my grandfather today that didn't have some kind of religious Chicken-Soup-for-the Soul reference in the subject line so I didn't delete it right away. Instead, the email was a transcript from Rush Limbaugh's radio show. I am still not quite sure how to take the email that was labeled as a Conservative Alert; it has a segment from Republican Congressman hopeful Vernon Robinson.

RUSH LIMBAUGH: You've gotta hear this campaign commercial. There's a man running for office as a Republican, running for Congress in North Carolina. His name is Vernon Robinson. ... I don't even want to characterize it. Just listen to this commercial.

ANNOUNCER: (Twilight Zone theme song) If you're a conservative Republican, watching the news these days can make you feel as though you are in...The Twilight Zone. Americans are under attack from Islamic extremists in every corner of the world. Homosexuals are mocking holy matrimony, and the lesbians and feminists are attacking everything sacred. Liberal judges have completely rewritten the Constitution. You can burn the American flag and kill a million babies a year, but you can't post the Ten Commandments or say "God" in public.

CHILDREN: One nation, under -- Shhh!

ANNOUNCER: Seven out of every ten black children are born out of wedlock, and Jackson and Sharpton claim the answer is racial quotas -- and the aliens are here, but they didn't come in a spaceship. They came across our unguarded Mexican border by the millions.

VERNON ROBINSON: I'm Vernon Robinson. If you send me to Congress, I'll send that back to the Twilight Zone. I approve of this message, and of traditional American values. (Leave It to Beaver theme song).

RUSH LIMBAUGH: Goes out with Leave It To Beaver music. I should point out Vernon Robinson is black, and when he mentions Sharpton and Jackson -- have you seen the spot? When he gets to Jackson, he found a mugshot of Jesse Jackson and that's what he runs and he found a picture of Sharpton with an Afro from years and years ago. (Laughing.) This is a national campaign. I mean, he's talking about national issues. They all have impact locally, but I thought it was the Democrats that were going to nationalize the election this year! I thought Democrats were going to do that. That is Vernon Robinson who is running for Congress ... He's getting grief like you can't believe. This is one of the best political ads in a long, long time, and can I ask you: When you heard that, folks, when you heard that, weren't you going, "Yeah! Okay, yeah, yeah," and, "Why don't more Republicans talk like this? Why don't more of them say the ...

RUSH LIMBAUGH: That is just a great, great ad. ... Vernon Robinson is a target now, they are targeting this guy...This is, I mean pardon the French here, this is off the plantation. He has escaped and wandered off the liberal Democrat plantation. This is not allowed. This is not permitted. If they could, they'd grab this guy and send him to One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest and let Hillary as Nurse Ratchet try to get his mind right. Either that or send him to the warden in Cool Hand Luke and put him in the box. I can't tell you folks. This wouldn't have happened 20 years ago. You wouldn't have had a black congressional candidate in North Carolina running a spot like this. ... But it's a new day out there. Vernon Robinson, Winston-Salem, North Carolina.

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My thoughts on the whole thing.

There were plenty of links to Mr. Robinson's contribution site sprinkled throughout a personal message from him that followed this commentary by Limbaugh. I won't reprint the whole letter but here are some points worthy of mention:

The radical, ultra-liberal organization called "People for the American Way" (PFAW) announced that it put my name at the top of its "2006 hit list" after I won last month's Republican primary election in North Carolina's 13th Congressional District with more than 63% of the votes cast in a three-way race.

Not bad for an opener.

Neas' allies in the liberal media have already begun their vicious attacks. While the Fox News Channel called me "the new face of the Republican Party" and "a rising star," MSNBC host Keith Olbermann told his audience that my ads are so "bigoted" that I am the runner-up in his "the worst person in the world contest."

And Neas' fellow left-wing Democrat politicians have already begun their name-calling and ad hominem insults. While The Wall Street Journal called me "the next black Republican Congressman," the Democrat Party's nominee for Associate Supreme Court Justice called me "a good slave" and "an Uncle Tom."

Mmmkay. A little name calling from both sides is to be expected.

Brad Miller has voted FOR open borders, FOR amnesty for illegal aliens, FOR homosexual marriage, FOR flag burning, FOR higher taxes, FOR extreme gun control, FOR partial birth abortion, and FOR taking"under God" out of the Pledge of Allegiance, and FOR allowing foreign alien child molesters to migrate to the United States.

A little bit of Congressional voting information on Robinson's opponent. Not bad for a campaign commercial.

Needless to say, I didn't amass any personal wealth when I was a military officer or when I was a college business professor at a public university for ten years or when President George H.W. Bush appointed me to a position in his administration or when I served on the Winston-Salem City Council for eight years. As for my wife, she works as a librarian at the public library. We now have three children, two of whom we adopted.

A little statement conveying a modest means of making a living and conveying public trust. Not bad, sticking to the Republican campaign script so far.

But I still don't know how to take this guy. My Spidey senses are going off and it is bothering me that I don't know why.