| With just 7 days left in this campaign, John Cornyn and his campaign would rather talk about the internet than issues.
In an e-mail titled, "24 Hours", Kevin McLaughlin, Cornyn Communications Directory, blasts the Noriega campaign and the online community for believing it is time for a change.
Let's go with the background first and then talk about how hypocritical the Cornyn campaign is being.
Last Friday, the Cornyn campaign stole footage from the Austin Chronicle and I am guessing Fox News. They then produced a negative online ad comparing Howard Dean's Iowa speech in 2004 with Rick Noriega. We of course covered the story.
The Cornyn campaign never admitted or apologized for stealing the footage, but issues are more important, so we remained silent.
That same night, Rick Noriega won an election. Of course it wasn't the election, but Rep. Noriega won an online contest at DailyKos. Noriega won the "Hell to Pay" contest with 42% of the vote and beat out 6 other highly qualified Democrats. The contest translated to dollars so what did the Cornyn campaign do? Attack.
After 96 hours, Kevin McLaughlin asks the question, "Did you see Rick Noriega condemn the comments?"
Lucky for us, he also answers his inquiry with a simple, "You didn't?"
Something seems hypocritical here, doesn't it? (Like McLaughlin, I will answer the question for you). Of course it does. On June 30, 2008 we realized David Beckwith was trolling progressive and news blogs and made sure our readers would know not to trust Buck Smith.
Beckwith was challenging people to duals and referring to himself in the third person.
How did the Cornyn campaign respond? With class.
On the same day, McLaughlin called me up early in the morning to say we had, "ummm.... Bad reporting." He then went on to send me this official campaign response:
What?!?! 'Buck Smith' isn't a real person?!?! Are you serious?? People blog under screen names?!?! I am shocked...next thing I know you'll be saying the Easter Bunny and Santa Claus aren't real either. What kind of world are we living in?!?!
With McLaughlin's e-mail, you have to guess that Cornyn condemned Beckwith within hours of hearing about this outrageous campaign tactic.
Well, Cornyn did respond-- sort of. Within hours he said that Beckwith would remain on the campaign and Cornyn himself said, "the campaign had no comment".
So McLaughlin pens the line, "Rick Noriega should show some political courage and repudiate these hateful comments from his hired staff. His continued silence speaks volumes about his partisanship, and his willingness to do anything to further his own political ambitions."
We would like to remind Kevin that Sen. Cornyn has been silent for months, where is the outrage there?
In case you are wondering, the comment that has the Cornyn camp so outraged goes on to say...
John Cornyn is now looking to become the most powerful Republican in Washington once Bush expires and McConnell is retired. In fact, he's even musing about a 2012 Presidential run. On top of that, after weeks of bland black and white ads reminiscent of John McCain's early campaign, he's turned to attack Rick Noriega & Howard Dean, and stolen footage from an Austin Progressive Paper in doing so.
The politics of fear and deception must come to an end. In the final days of the campaign, Cornyn, his staff, and the Republican Party have all shown us they can't win on issues. They have decided to go back to baseless, hypocritical hyperbolic attacks on Lt. Col. Rick Noriega's character. |
