Ok, I have to take issue with just one line of Brummett’s recent article, but understand, it’s more a shot at a general notion than anything directed at Brummett:
It takes some doing to make a sympathetic figure of Halter — cold, humorless and imperious opportunist that he be.
Okay, since 2006, a lot of folks have had a fair share of things to say about Bill Halter being aloof, thin skinned and a number of other things. I want to say just two things on that.
First, I met Halter back in 2006, and I was sceptical at first. When I shook his hand and got a cordial comment in he responded and moved on, leaving me feeling a little cheated. Since then though, that scepticism has been entirely dissolved. The Bill Halter we have seen on the stump now is much better at retail politics than he used to be, and I can say from talking to him personally and spending a fair amount of time in the same room with him that he is genuinely a much warmer human being than his reputation leads people to suspect.
Secondly, if you can’t bring yourself to vote for Bill because you didn’t like his demeanor at some meeting or whatever, please do us all a favor and grow up. There are more important things at stake here than what someone’s personality is like or an impression you got from one meeting. That’s all I’ll say.
I have to agree with you here. I have met him and did not one bit get that impression from him. In fact, I think he actually got almost teary eyed when talking about how important he thought the scholarship lottery was for young people trying to make it into college. He came through the room, shook everyone’s hand, introduced himself, asked our name and had a quick and short conversation with everyone. He really wasn’t like what Brummett describes. This happened in December of 2009. I didn’t know much about Halter in 2006, but in 2009 he was engaging and caring.