Thursday, August 03, 2006
Nevada GOP: Cheating is just a joke, just a game. Don't get too serious
State GOP resorts to tricks, Democrats say
By MOLLY BALL
REVIEW-JOURNALA campaign mailer sent to Democrats over the weekend said it was from a political action committee called Searchlight. But it didn't have anything to do with Sen. Harry Reid, who heads the Washington, D.C.-based Searchlight Leadership Fund.
Quite the opposite: The mailer listing judicial candidates came from officials with the Clark County Republican Party.
Democrats on Monday called the flier an attempt to deceive Democratic voters. But the Republicans behind it said it was just a bit of harmless fun and did not violate any rules.The heading on the flier said, "We know that the judicial candidates listed below share our desire to protect the rights of minorities and the individual from the majority. We support their election to office and ask that you cast your vote for them as well."
It then lists exclusively Republican candidates for the offices of Nevada Supreme Court, Clark County District Court and justice of the peace.
So if it was a joke, then this means that the Republicans aren't serious about protecting the rights of minorities...big surprise there...
The mailer is identified as coming from Searchlight Group PAC. Reid was born in the Nevada mining town of Searchlight and is the author of a 1998 history of the town titled "Searchlight: The Camp That Didn't Fail."County Republican Party chairman John Hambrick said he and party Executive Director Tim Robison put the mailer together. The PAC, he said, was "formed to do things like this."
So is he admitting that the PAC is engaging in dirty tricks or is he admitting that his PAC is nothing more than a JOKE?
"The purpose was to hopefully put people we believe to be more conservative in their viewpoints before a part of the voting public that might not otherwise consider them," Hambrick said.
Then why resort to distortions and misleading those voters? Either you really think the voters are dumb or you have no confidence in your own candidates to win if they truly reveal their positions. But isn't that what the Republican party is all about? If they came up honest in their platform, suggesting that they really didn't give a damn about gay marriage and abortion and that all that they wanted was to enrich their rich cronies like the big corporations and Big Oil, then would they really win the elections fair and square? Of course not, the Religious Right wouldn't turn out in droves to vote like sheep, automatically pressing the button for Republican or pulling the lever without a thought in the world.
The mailer was sent to Democrats considered likely to vote in the primary based on their voting records, Hambrick said.He said the flier was not an attempt to deceive or confuse. "We wanted to have some fun," he said. "It was tongue in cheek. Why not?"
Before sending the mailer, lawyers confirmed that it did not violate any laws or regulations, Hambrick said.
Apparently if it was so fun, if it was a harmless joke, if it was not meant to be taken seriously, why did they have to check up on their attorneys? I'm sure they'd get away with it if it were a harmless joke...
"I don't see any deception here," he said. "I don't think Democrats are that dumb."
No, you may not think they are but you're HOPING they are. There's a difference...but apparently lying has become so epidemic in the Republican Party that they just don't realize it anymore. This is supposedly the party of morality.
Kirsten Searer, spokeswoman for the state Democratic Party, said the flier probably was not illegal, but it was unethical. The party sent an e-mail alert to its members Monday about the mailer."Most Nevadans associate Searchlight with Sen. Reid," she said. "By calling it Searchlight and putting in language about protecting the rights of minorities, they were clearly trying to make it look like it came from Sen. Reid."
Democrats who received the flier might be duped into voting for the listed candidates in the mistaken belief that they were favored by Reid, she said. "This is further proof that Nevada Republicans will do anything to get elected," she said.
"We believe our candidates are strong enough to stand on their own. They don't have to try to fool people to get elected," she said.
The damage this "joke" can do is documented here...
"When I first saw it, I thought it was from Harry Reid," Sandy Hogan said. Had she not already voted, she might have taken the mailer's suggestions, although her husband probably would have set her straight, she said.
I guess it's a grand joke when people who might have been fooled vote the way the mailer wanted and then realize that they have been duped by the Republican Party. There are no do-overs when you've already turned in your absentee ballot at least not that I know of. I'm sure they're laughing quite heartily over being April FOOLED or psyched. I'm sure voters that your party has disenfranchised were sharing "good ole times" stories over a beer with you, laughing over bygones...after all it's just a joke, right?
It speaks volumes when a party has to go to quite such lengths to distort the other's positions. First you had Hindrocket blatantly cut off the video of a interview with Rep. John Dingell to suggest that he did not oppose Hezbollah. Then you had Santorum's campaign falsely claiming that Bob Casey had the endorsement of Al-Jazeera suggesting that he was in Bin Laden's camp. Back in 2004, there was the RNC Mailing that suggested that liberals would ban the Bible and destroy Christianity.
It's the CONTEMPT, stupid. It's the contempt the Republican Party has for voters on either side. Otherwise why would they have to play a shell game to hoodwink their voters into voting Republican and against their own economic interests?
I've seen these kind of tricks especially when it comes to petition signing. They'll have a petition about some environmental issue or a progressive one such as raising the minimum wage, but they'll stick a petition about "right to work" or increasing the requirements for teachers to met tenure at the bottom after you've wearily gone through like 8-10 petitions.
