The following is a guest post by Eunice Logan, creator of SeeBenSpend.com.
Posted on my fridge is a photo of Hank Williams, Jr., the Rowdy Friend himself, alongside my favorite one-liner from an Al Sharpton fortune cookie: “Resist we much!” Put those two together, and you’ve got one big bunch of resistance… with attitude! Around here, that means www.SeeBenSpend.com!
See Ben Spend is an examination of my now former congressman, one Albert Benjamin Chandler,III, or as I call him, “Our Little Ben”, of Kentucky’s 6th District. An unfortunate redistricting altercation last week rendered him my official “ex”. Guess that means I’m supposed to shut up and go away. Not gonna happen.
This whole thing started the day I recognized Ben Chandler as an outrageous serial liar, even by Washington standards. He had built a whole persona around being a fiscal conservative. Blah, blah, blah. All false. He was never seriously opposed, so I never paid attention. Besides, watching the proverbial paint dry was more exciting than watching this guy. Until he pushed my button.
In October 2008, Chandler voted against the TARP bailout. Thrilled, I speed-dialed his office to say “THANK YOU!” The eager young phone answerer explained that the bill spent too much money and had been thrown together too quickly. That sounded good to me, so I went on my way humming a happy little tune.
Fast forward to the Stimulus Bill, Feb. 2009. I foolishly thought the TARP logic would apply. Not a chance! Ben voted for that sucker! The next day he boarded a military jet with Nancy Pelosi and her entourage of The Beautiful People and flew off for a fab tour of Europe! Not only did we regular people NOT get to go on a European vacay, we had a huge new debt to pay off. Work in the gulag couldn’t wait for Roman holidays!
Call me a sore loser if you will, but this got under my skin. Researching Chandler’s record would tell me just who this guy really was. My jaw hit the floor time and again as the discrepancies between his mouth and his actions piled up. Other people needed to know what I was discovering. Maybe they already knew, and I was the last idiot in the district. Didn’t matter. My mission was born: to rat out the real Ben Chandler. I headed to the bookstore to purchase a stack of “How-To” website manuals, and set to work. That was nearly 3 years ago.
During those 3 years, the importance of tracking the legislative activities of one’s representative has hit home time and again. A congressman is our most immediate link to Washington and all that happens there, yet congressional races seem to be the ones most taken for granted! We carefully research presidential and senatorial candidates, but a congressman? Too much trouble.
Enter www.See Ben Spend.com! Congressional research designed to entertain and inform in one handy dandy place! Having fun with the process was an important factor in choosing the personality of the site. If I smiled during production, perhaps viewers would smile as they visited! Hours of research were yielding mountains of information which needed to be presented briefly and concisely. Pictures helped meet that need, becoming a form of editorial cartooning, giving a chuckle while making a point If visitors spend even 30 seconds viewing See Ben Spend, hopefully a picture will give them something informative to carry away. 
When See Ben Spend went live, there was no opposition candidate. Not even rumors of one. That didn’t matter. What the site said needed to be said, even if it turned out no one was listening. If I started putting information out there, hopefully people would find and start circulating it. My purpose was never to promote a Chandler opponent, but to expose Our Little Ben’s behavior patterns. If people knew what he was all about, it stood to reason they would be looking elsewhere for a congressman.
Ben was challenged in 2010 by Andy Barr, a young conservative. Chandler squeaked out a victory of only 647 votes. Barr is running again this cycle. Hence the reason for the recent redistricting smackdown. Counties that went too solidly against Ben were thrown out and replaced with new compliant ones. Fresh turf featuring a good bit of generational dependence and cemeteries in which the first headstone reads “He Never Voted the Republican Ticket” and the rest simply say “Ditto”.
Please take some time off from tracking presidential candidates and look down-ticket. These positions are the workhorses of our government. Please use See Ben Spend as a resource for ideas to use in your own district. Check out your problem child’s money trail, flip-flops, pandering, etc. and let people know. Maybe you’ll find your guy is a lot like mine… predictable. He’s been saying the same stuff for years. “GOP starving senior citizens. We need jobs. Debt too big.” Same old same old. Boring as heck, but oh so much fun to lampoon! Find a way to dissent with a laugh, then dance over that finish line in November! We can do it, or go down trying!
Grand Finale…Drum Roll…..Get your smelling salts ready! Here is a chance for you to meet Ben Chandler at his finest. Back in 2003, he thoroughly expressed contempt for Americans for Tax Reform and their Taxpayer Protection Pledge. Yet, as soon as he filed to run for Congress, he signed the pledge. Ben used that pledge to help get elected, and now is trying to extricate himself to stay in office. Remember, this guy affects your life every day. Sorry! BTW: about halfway through… was that a 2 or 3 martini lunch day? Not accusin’… Just askin’…
Official Zilla of the Resistance Troll Policy
Blog feed here: MareZilla.com/feed
Shop at my Amazon Department Store
Old Zilla Blog with searchable archives
Email Me: zillaoftheresistance at gmail dot com