BHB Contributor, Brooklyn Heights Resident TK Small Profiled

By on March 28, 2010 7:25 pm in Brooklyn Heights

BHB contributor and neighborhood resident TK Small is profiled by New Mobility. Among other things, TK reveals his “shocking” political affiliation:

New Mobility: I’m a Republican.

I was a Democrat, but once my father and I were walking down the street when a Democrat operative asked my father if I would like to sign the petition. I spun around and said, “Why can’t you give me the respect to ask me the question directly?” Then I started thinking about liberty and freedom and things like that, and realized the Republican Party talks more about freedom and liberty than the Dems.

The Republicans are almost as miserable as Democrats. They talk about a big tent, but sometimes I don’t think the tent is all that accessible to get into. I’m moderate, not part of the crazy tea bag crowd we see today.

We need to exercise freedom and that is something different for us than for other people. Like, I don’t want a government nurse telling me what I can and can’t do, and that struck me as more in line with the Republican philosophy. Also, I was tired of Dems patting me on the head and then using me to beat up on the other guy.

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  • David G

    I have a similar story:

    I was walking down the street with my father and then someone asked me if I support a petition on insurance reform. Then I spun around and asked “do you realized that Health Insurance is a large portion of my paycheck?”

    I then realized that Republicans prefer invading countries based upon false pretenses rather then deal with reforming an archaic system that is only designed to screw me over and kill me.

  • jorale-man
  • Matthew Parker

    Not too shocking. When I was a grad student, I had a job as the assistant historian at the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) in D.C. and saw first hand how many people with disabilities appreciated the GOP (at least at that time).

    It was right after the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) was passed in 1990. As part of my duties, I worked with and interviewed a lot of disability activists, who gave great credit to the Republican Congress and the Republican President, H.W. Bush who signed that landmark piece of legislation into law, which essentially extends the Civil Rights Act of 1964 to people with disabilities (and also details accessibility requirements).

    Full disclosure: I briefly flirted with neo-conservatism during that era, but soon came to the conclusion that all the “freedom” and “fiscal responsibility” rhetoric espoused by the GOP doesn’t get carried into action. In fact, often the opposite, as witnessed by the past administration.

    Proud to be a Democrat in the Obama Era.

  • Reggie

    Little known fact: not only is TK a Republican, he has been a candidate for public office.

    “Think big; vote Small.”

  • El Super

    He is also Vegan/NPR/GlennBEckfan/

  • anon

    T.K.–Say it aint so!!! All that fine education wasted!!! There is still time to repent and come back to the side of light and good. Help us Obewan.

  • T.K. Small

    Hello everyone!

    I must admit that I feel like a bit of a heel. I did not know that our fearless leader Homer was going to post this, which is why I did not check in sooner.

    Perhaps it would have been more accurate to characterize myself as a “disgruntled Republican” since I have not voted for the GOP in the presidential election since 1996, which would probably make me a RINO. To make matters more complicated, I cohost a radio program on the very left leaning station WBAI two times per month. As for Glenn Beck, I’ve only watched his show twice, and that was because I am trying to figure out these wacky Tea Party people.

    The link provided by jorale-man to the Frank Rich column partly explains my reason for being a Republican. Now more than ever, remaining inside the proverbial “big tent” allows me to complain about certain behaviors from within. I am not sure whether anyone is listening to my criticisms, but I keep writing and posting. There is also a strategic component to being a Republican which I hope benefits the larger disability community. If any subset of society too closely identifies with one party, the vote is taken for granted and the other party doesn’t feel like they have anything to gain by working for my vote.

    To a certain extent this is exactly what occurred with the recent healthcare reform process. The disability community was pushing for a policy change in the Medicaid rules/regulations which would guarantee that people like me can receive attendant services across the entire country. Very clearly, during the campaign, Obama repeatedly pledged that this was going to be part of healthcare reform. Somewhere in the sausage making, the $50 billion nursing home industry that opposed us, got their clutches into the White House/Congress and a very watered down compromise resulted.

    Thank you Reggie for remembering my campaign slogan. Since I’m not running for office, perhaps I should change it to “Think Big, post Small”.