[Bunning is better at no-hitters than no-brainers — like his chances for a 3rd term.]
After hurrying his own political demise with a recent prediction that Justice Ruth Bader Ginzburg would be dead in 9 months from cancer, Kentucky Senator Jim Bunning is suddenly reluctant to predict anything else, even his chances for a 3rd term as a US senator. Instead, he’s commissioning depressing polls and threatening to sue his own party if they support anyone else against him. The Hill.com’s Reid Wilson offers a Bunning politcal obituary appraisal here:
Amid the soap opera-like drama that has become Sen. Jim Bunning’s (R-Ky.) political future, the lawmaker has commissioned the first poll of his bid for a third term ” and he’s not releasing the results.
“It’s none of your godd—ed business,” Bunning told reporters on a morning conference call, when asked about the poll’s results. “If you paid the 20 grand for the poll, you can get some information out of it.”
Bunning’s polling during the 2004 race, when he won by just two points, was handled by prominent GOP number-cruncher Jan van Lohuizen, who later handled polling for Mitt Romney’s presidential campaign. That relationship ended poorly, according to sources, and now Bunning’s polling will be conducted by Dave Sackett, a partner at the Alexandria-based Tarrance Group.
A Bunning spokesman would not elaborate on the poll, and Sackett, traveling this week, did not immediately respond to an e-mail message.
Though Bunning has insisted he is running for another term, both his seatmate, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.), and National Republican Senatorial Committee (NRSC) Chairman John Cornyn (Texas) have angered Bunning by professing not to know his future plans. After Bunning called them out publicly, both McConnell and Cornyn backtracked and said they would support Bunning.
Its a shame how Bunning ended up the way he is being that when he was a professional baseball player he well known as a strong advocate of players rights (which was a presumed factor in his trade from Detroit to the Phillies), stood up to the Phillies penurious 60’s-era GM John Quinn in his personal contract negotiations (back before players had agents and negotiated 1 year contracts face-to-face with management), was ready to stage a joint holdout a la Koufax/Drysdale with the Phillies other star pitcher Chris Short ( Short chickened out), was a catalyst and major player in the players union and was directly responsible for bring Marvin Miller in to head it up. Sad to say, Bunning ended up turning into everything he fought against in the 60’s.
was one of the catalysts in the players union
and was
I would tend to agree with this story. We spent several weeks compiling notebooks to show the demise of the real estate appraisal industry. Bunnings office offered nothing more than lip service. We received no followup calls on the story so I would only assume they preferred to cover up the story.
For those who are interested here is the story in a nutshell. Nearly all appraisal orders must now go through a middle man (AMC) which are owned for the most part by large banks. The AMC (appraisal management company) keeps 1/2 or more of the appraisal fee yet they lie to the public about the actual fee. Typical appraisal fees beforehand were around $300-$400. Now AMCs state the appraisal fee is around $400-600 on the borrowers closing statement. The borrower is led to assume that the cost of appraisals has gone up because of the increased requirements on appraisers. The simple fact is that they are bidding your appraisal out to the lowest (and least educated) appraisers. The appraisers is filling out the form (not doing an appraisal) for $150 -$200 and AMC (bank owned) is keeping the remaining $400+ and lying to you.
To make matters worse:
FHA has now doubled the amount of work involved with doing an FHA appraisal. Appraisers were already working for the same fees they were working for in 1995. Now they are doing twice the work on FHA jobs and getting paid 1/2 of the fee they were getting in 1995.
Because of the new government (bank requested) requirements appraisers were also told that they would be required to give up all of their preexisting client lists.
Read between the lines. Why would an appraiser with 10-30+ years of experience choose to continue in the business?
*They were told that they must surrender client lists that they spent a lifetime building.
*Jobs are being bid out to the cheapest, fastest appraiser. (It doesn’t take a genius to figure out the new appraiser on the block will always be the one willing to work for free).
*They are being forced to do twice the work for 1/2 of their old fee.
Oddly enough; no member of Congress (aside from Ms. Dole) and no major news organization is willing to discuss this matter. Could it possibly have something to do with the fact that banks asked for the new regulations and were handed them on a silver platter? Say it isn’t so.