Time, Thom, And Toddlers

Meet Thom Tillis, former GOP Speaker of the NC House, who survived his US Senate primary and reached 45%, enough to stave off any runoff nonsense.  He's going after Sen. Kay Hagan's seat, and his first interview after winning the primary Tuesday was with Chuck Todd(ler).  The latest polls had Hagan up by 2 in a prospective race with Tillis.

Didn't go so well for Thom, as Chuck played a clip of Tillis's more ridiculous statements from 2011.



In fact, it went very poorly for him.

The newly-minted Republican contender in what could be one of November’s key Senate races says he regrets using the words “divide and conquer” in a 2011 speech while describing those who are dependent on government assistance.

“Yeah, I do,” North Carolina GOP candidate Thom Tillis said Wednesday on MSNBC’s Daily Rundown when asked by host Chuck Todd if he regrets the use of the word “conquer.”

But Tillis, who secured the GOP nomination in last night’s primary election, also said he was referring to the abuse of public assistance funds by those who do not “desperately need the safety net” – a position he believes is backed by voters in North Carolina.

Tillis's actual words are pretty typical of his Tea Party platform.

The GOP contender is under fire for comments he made in an unearthed 2011 video. “What we have to do is find a way to divide and conquer the people who are on assistance,” he said at the time. “We have to show respect for that woman who has cerebral palsy and had no choice, in her condition, that needs help and that we should help. And we need to get those folks to look down at these people who choose to get into a condition that makes them dependent on the government and say at some point, ‘You’re on your own. We may end up taking care of those babies, but we’re not going to take care of you.’”

Democrats have compared the comments to Mitt Romney’s “47 percent” remarks.

Let them eat cake, he says.  Oh but his pure contempt for the working class got much worse as you can see in the clip when the topic turned to the minimum wage.

On Wednesday, Tillis, who is the state House Speaker of North Carolina, also declined repeatedly to say whether he supports raising the minimum wage in the state.

Asked if he supports a federal hike, he responded that “minimum wage decisions need to be made by the state.”

But he would not say how his home state should address it, calling it “a decision that the legislature needs to make with businesses.”

“We’ve got a president and Kay Hagan that want to create a minimum wage economy,” he said. “What I want to do is create jobs that make minimum wage irrelevant."

That's the most stupid argument against raising the minimum wage I think I've ever heard, mainly because he's choosing to do nothing for the people working minimum wage jobs now.  Wanting to create jobs that pay more than the minimum wage is great, but how does that help the folks earning that today?

Secondly, as speaker of the NC House, Tillis had the ability to introduce and bring up for a vote legislation to create jobs or raise the minimum wage.  He chose instead to implement the most draconian unemployment insurance cuts in the nation, cuts so ridiculous that the state no longer qualifies for any federal unemployment assistance because if you lose your job in the state, your maximum benefit is $350 a week.

Below the poverty line, or about $8.75 a hour.  That'll feed a family, right?

Tillis fumbled for a good two minutes on if raising the minimum wage was something he could support.  And just like that, Tillis is now looking for the bunker to hide in.