Candidate profile: Dr. James Taylor

Candidates for office have been trickling into Governmental Plaza in Greensboro for the past couple hours for today's Tea Party gathering, and Jodi Riddleberger, Isabella Adkins and other organizers with Conservatives 4 Guilford County have been supervising the setup of the event since noon. The candidates have been told that they will not be able to speak from the stage, and instead they are setting up stations on the upper level to meet voters and answer questions.

The event is underway right now, and the program is scheduled to begin at 5:30 p.m.

I caught up with Dr. James Taylor, an anesthesiologist from Moore County, who is part of a pack of five candidates challenging incumbent Howard Coble in the 6th Congressional District race.

"I am in all intents and purposes the Tea Party candidate," Taylor told me. He acknowledged that 6th District candidate Cathy Brewer Hinson of High Point, whose over-sized trailer was briefly parked on Greene Street within eyesight of plaza, also holds an affinity for the movement.

Taylor won 56 percent of the vote among 6th District candidates in a straw poll after a candidate forum in Moore County last Saturday.

Noting that candidates don't get the spotlight at this evening's event, Taylor said, "It's a little frustrating in a way. We want this movement, but the movement is saying, 'We might not want you.'"

The Tea Party movement signifies change, and Taylor and other challengers are trying to persuade the electorate that change means replacing the reliably conservative Howard Coble, whose attention to personal courtesy and constituent services have taken on nearly legendary proportions.

"I'd say the majority of these people are not going to vote for Howard Coble," Taylor said.

Why? I ask.

"He voted for the $700 million bailout," Taylor said. "He voted for 'cash for clunkers.' The Tea Party is concerned about fiscal conservatism, the idea that you have the right to attempt to succeed, but you also have the right to fail. If you're too big to fail, that must mean you can be too small to succeed."

We talked about the principles of the Constitution and the nation's founders -- notions widely discussed in the Tea Party movement. Taylor said he believes the creation of the Federal Reserve goes against the intentions of the founders. He explained that the Constitution states that "only Congress can coin money and determine its value. In 1913, they abdicated that responsibility and gave it to the Federal Reserve. We've seen the unwinding of the value of the dollar. It used to be backed by gold. Now, it's by fiat; it's backed by hope and a dream."

Taylor likes to say on the campaign trail that "America is at the beginning of a second American revolution. This revolution will be fought not with guns and bullets, but with ideas and votes at the ballot box."

The government has grown too big, he continued, arguing that the tax burden and entitlements have have become too bloated and the national debt threatens the stability of the nation.

"When 47 percent of Americans don't pay taxes and are receiving some kind of benefits, half of the people are producing and half of the people are receiving," Taylor said. "If it moves up to 60 percent [receiving benefits], it's not sustainable."

"Medicare's going to go broke in 2017," he continued. "We have $70 trillion in entitlements coming due." He added that such staggering debt could lead to societal collapse.

"Part of me thinks that's what the elite power behind this country wants," Taylor said. "They want the country to collapse so they can take over the banking system."

I asked Taylor to identify the elites that are running the country. He responded in a couple ways, cautioning that he doesn't want to be branded as someone who believes in conspiracy theories, but that he's read enough to know what's going on in the world.

"These are the people that really don't think of this country as their country; the world is their country," he said. "We don't even know who they are.... There are people up there pulling these strings.... Part of it is the Federal Reserve."

The elites' strategy for seizing power is to divide and conquer, Taylor said, by pitting whites against blacks, rich against poor, Republicans against Democrats. He mentioned the Bilderberg Group and the Council on Foreign Relations.

I wanted to get a photograph of the candidate, and I asked him if he would prefer the plaza with the downtown skyline as a backdrop, or the cluster of Greensboro police officers gathering behind him.

"Are they here to arrest me?" Taylor quipped.

We went with the plaza and the downtown skyline.

Triad Elections '10