Gov. Mike Huckabee and Sen. Sam Brownback are engaged in a multiround spat over sub-rosa attacks. Both camps have questioned the other's Christian fiber. Tom Tancredo is being attacked in phone calls and e-mails for changing his position on term limits. In a Web video he accuses Brownback of telling pro-life voters Tancredo is pro-abortion. "We do expect more from people who at least call themselves Christians and have great family values," says Tancredo, demanding an apology.Dickerson believes that smear campaigns are such a temptation because the internet makes spreading rumors cheap and easy. In fact, the smearing is so pervasive in the run-up to the Iowa straw poll that Republican candidates consider being smeared a sign that people are taking their campaigns seriously.
But there are no reports of similar smear campaigns among the Democrats.
Maybe the Republican candidates are smearing because they're Republicans.
Posts
5 comments:
This is very typical of Republican candidates. Especially since 1968. What bothers me is that even though the candidates from my own party aren't engaging the this kind of "extreme mud-slinging", they are still constantly being forced to discuss irrelevant non-issues. And even when there is a question about something substantial they have either one minute or thirty seconds to answer. I refer to the debates I have watched thus far. No one asks them about our nation's spending priorities. They are never asked why bridges and roads are allowed to crumble until tragedy ocurs, while unnecessary wars are never too expensive. A forty year old bridge collapses. Levees give way in New Orleans. An 83 year old steam pipe errupts in Manhattan. At the same time, the CBO estimated last week that when all is said, done, and spent, $1Trillion of our nation's treasure will have been spent on wrecking and rebuilding Iraq. This includes the largest embassy compound in the world in Iraq. This thing takes up an area larger than the Pentagon!! This is obscene. What happened in Minneapolis, New Orleans, and New York is happening in cities and rural areas across the country. These tragedies are the direct result of the right-wing in power. They hate government,they do not want it to work. They are obsessed with cutting taxes on wealthy people and starving social spending. For years, they have systematically have shorted public investment in our bridges, roads, rail lines, air systems, parks and schools. $1 trillion dollars squandered in the debacle in Iraq. A clamp on vital investments here at home. Those are the stated priorities of modern day conservatives – a far remove from those of President Eisenhower who built the modern interstate road system while putting a lid on military spending and balancing the budget. Ike knew that the infrastructure was important; that military adventure was dangerous, and that fiscal balance was common sense. Modern day conservatives have abandoned every part of his lessons. Conservatives will deny culpbability for the crumbling of America. Every leading Republican presidential contender has called for staying in Iraq and opposed increasing taxes on the wealthy even as they admitted the need to invest in our infrastructure. I wonder what color the sky is in their world? For over twenty-five years, we’ve been cheated on public investment. Activists like Grover Norquist took to the extreme, saying “I don’t want to abolish government. I simply want to reduce it to the size where I can…drown it in the bathtub.” This has gone on so long that no one bothers to ask more than token questions about desperatley needed Universal Single Payer Health insurance for every American regardless of ability to pay. No one asks why money for the arts continues to be cut. They don't ask why assistance for the poor continues to be slashed even as the poverty rate rises. No one asks them why public transportation is in tatters. They are never asked about the virtual collapse of Amtrak. The fact is, public funds in the U.S. flows to projects that make the pulse race. Name a major U.S. city that either does not have, or is not getting, a brand new, publicly funded stadium. New York is slated to get two as the Brooklyn Bridge rusts over. Yet New York is getting no funding for bridge repair but they are getting two huge stadiums for two seperate baseball teams. The Yankee field is reported to come in over $1 Billion, making it the most expensive sports stadium in the United States. Now I've no objection to building these stadiums but I do object to building them at the expense of the safety and well being of our citizens. We could do both if the right-wing was not obsessed with abolishing government entirely. No one should be fooled. Those who choose to spend $11 billion a month in Iraq while shorting vital investments here at home aren’t securing America, they are weakening it. And let's not ignore the racism here. Resources do not flow to minority communities. As a result African-Americans have inflicted upon them the following:
No. 1 in the poverty rate; No. 1 in the rate of incarceration; No. 1 in victims of homicide; No. 1 in victims of hate crimes; No. 1 in mortgage-denial rates; No. 1 in obesity and diabetes rates; No. 1 in teachers in neighborhood classrooms with less than three years experience; No. 1 in receiving the death sentence; No. 1 in the unemployment line; No. 1 in suspensions and expulsion; No. 2 in percentage of Americans who do not have health care. Does anyone think this has nothing to do with our backward spending priorities? These statistics have EVERYTHING to do with how public funds are allocated. The Republican candidates wallow in the whitewashed myth of Ronald Reagan, who opposed the Civil Rights Act of 1964, and backed South African apartheid. Senator John Edwards launched his campaign in New Orleans in an attempt to make poverty a serious subject for the campaign, but the media wants to talk about his haircuts. Where is the prison reform agenda? Who will challenge our failed, wasteful and unfair drug policies? Who will call for full employment? We are in the midst of a right-wing inspired national crisis. And yet virtually no one is talking about it. President Eisenhower said, "Under the clouds of war, it is humanity that is hanging on a cross of iron." I couldn't put it better. Priorities folks!!
At least they are smearing each other over important things: term limits (rejected by any serious person a decade ago), who's more anti-abortion than other guys, and who's more Christian! It's all about policy, baby.
Speaking of babies, are the R's babies or just children? Talk about fiddling while Rome, errr, Baghdad burns.
James Fallows once said Republican can get elected, but cannot govern; Democrats can govern, but can't get elected (I'm sure it's not original). This decade is just absolute proff that the Republicans will nominate a bunch of retards and clowns, who are more concerned with silliness (see Protein Wisdom) than they are fixing what can fixed.
Nope, no smear attempts over there.
http://www.captainsquartersblog.com/mt/archives/011065.php
Huckabee, Brownback, and Tancredo. That is the equivalent of Kucinich, Sharpton, and Gravel smearing each other. Wow, incredibly insightful post, which dovetails nicely with the not-so-subtle Nazi reference.
Todd Mayo
These tragedies are the direct result of the right-wing in power. They hate government,they do not want it to work.
Wipe the spittle off of your monitor. Your assessment of Republicans is laughable, at least outside of your little echo chamber.
But there are no reports of similar smear campaigns among the Democrats.
A demonstrable lie, as usual.
Post a Comment