Rexroad Blog As Hate Mail

Reading through Matt Rexroad's blog over the past several days has left me feeling as though I'm reading some pretty mean hate mail. He's furious with someone, although it's hard to tell exactly who, because of the failure of the Bush Administration to provide adequate services to our vets. He's upset at a Marine commander who wouldn't let him be some sort of hero in Iraq (preventing him from recovering the bodies of American soldiers who shouldn't have been put in harm's way in the first place). He's determined to solidify his position on medical marijuana identification cards in Yolo County (sore loser on the sups' vote?), because the appeals court decided against a woman who will die if she cannot use marijuana to keep her alive, a fact he is clearly unable to absorb or analyze. He's obviously irked by this blog itself, because contributors are (allegedly) Democrats and active in their political party. He's mad at "the worst" people in our society (criminals and poor folks), who have the audacity to use public benefits to try to maintain their fragile health and the health of their kids. Folks who post comments on his blog call other bloggers nasty names (i.e., "she is always writing nonsensical letter to the editor," and "more of a mutual admiration socieity of misfits and mal-contents"). Mr. Rexroad's anger seems to encourage this kind of name-calling. It's pretty juvenile, but also typical of the Rove followers who like to demonize those who disagree with them or their leaders.

Why is Mr. Rexroad so mad all the time? Is having two full-time jobs just too much for him? Or is spending so much of his time blogging keeping him from doing the full-time job the voters placed him in?

Frankly, his comment about "the people of Woodland are not going to shape their view of my service as a supervisor based on the Iraq war or my support of Senator John McCain" says a lot about how he perceives those voters. We can connect the dots. The voters do indeed care about Mr. Rexroad's conservative political agenda, and his continuing dedication to far right Republican values. His support of the Bush Administration's war on the Iraqi people, and his support of a candidate who believes that more war, not less, is a good thing, will have a direct impact on his credibility as a supervisor and as a person of integrity. Supervisors are called upon to make important decisions about the provision of social services to the poorest people in Yolo County, services including temporary aid to needy families, food stamps, medical care, job training, educational services, and even the veterans' services (including medical services) he so angrily espouses about in his blog.

Will Mr. Rexroad's perception of poor people (as some of the "worst" among us) affect his decisions as a county supervisor? How will he vote when welfare reform requires more county money, since the federal dollars will continue to shrink? Will he care that many veterans are those same poor people, needing mental health services, and health care, and food stamps? Will Mr. Rexroad put the money where his mouth is? Will he cut "the worst people" off at the knees? Time will tell. And his constituents are watching him now. His behaviors, all of them, tell them who he is, not just who he wants them to believe he is.