Don't Give Up Your Day Job

There are a lot of Republicans, even very conservative ones, whom I respect. I read their blogs and take seriously their comments and even criticism of liberals and progressives. One of their strongest objections is to the liberal propensity for, what they call, "political correctness." That's the attempt, in their view, of liberals to silence true diversity of opinion. For example, although liberals place a high value on racial and ethnic diversity, conservatives claim we are not so tolerant of differences of point of view, especially if it involves the views of conservatives. They believe this is especially true on college campuses, where they suspect leftists rule the day and prevent the expression any beliefs different from their own.

And there may be some truth to that. Many conservative blogs have posted videos and snippets of articles that they think illustrate their charges. But there is another side to this story.

It seems that both sides are equally guilty of intolerance. Indeed, it may be built in to human nature, but it's worth pointing out that liberals don't have a monopoly on political correctness on college campuses, as this piece illustrates.

Here's the other side of the coin. Gary Peters, a professor at Central Michigan University is running for political office as a Democrat. Dennis Lennox, a student, who is a self-appointed watchdog, has taken to hounding him, with a video camera no less. The problem isn’t that this student is simply following him and videotaping campaign appearances, which are public events and are fair game. But the student is following him all around campus, asking insulting questions, and setting up misleading situations to make the professor look bad. In addition, he is attempting to shoot situations that involve the violation of the privacy of students and campus employees.

Here’s how some describe the situation:

"Basically, he's just an extreme partisan. Anybody that's a Democrat, he's going to try to get at," said fellow political science major Eric Schulz.

Lennox's anti-Peters campaign shows no sign of slowing down, though his tactics have generated complaints.

Both Lennox and college Dean Pamela Gates filed police complaints against each other after Lennox requested Peters' e-mails under the Freedom of Information Act. At one point in the brief video, also posted online, Gates it seen gesturing into the camera at close range, and it then goes out of focus, as if it has been struck.

Lennox is heard saying, "Don't touch my camera," suggesting that Peters either touched it or attempted to.

Lennox claims he started doing this because Peters won’t choose between his teaching at the campus and Congress. The fallacy of that logic is that Peters has yet to be elected and observed that everybody had a right to earn a living even while campaigning.

It should seem to any decent and fair minded person that as long as Peters is doing his job, showing up to teach his classes, is presenting well prepared lectures, and meeting his professional obligation that he should be allowed to teach while campaigning. In fact, despite Lennox’s claims to be simply trying to protect taxpayers’ money, here’s Peters’ take on the situation:

"The bottom line is that people who run for public office still need to pay the bills and still need to work," he said. He drives 130 miles from a Detroit suburb to Mount Pleasant to teach class once a week.

"If I was running for Congress in a seat where I had no chance of winning, I probably wouldn't have any attention put on me at all," said Peters, a former state senator who lost a close race for Michigan attorney general in 2002.

He acknowledges it would be difficult to keep his $65,000-a-year job at the university if he gets elected to Congress, but says he will worry about that if he wins. Peters holds the Griffin Endowed Chair in American Government - named for a former Republican U.S. senator and Michigan Supreme Court justice.

Of course, Peters also pointed out that his salary is not funded by taxpayers but is, and this is a direct quote from Peters, “privately funded.”

This is nothing more than partisan inspired harrassment. The student should be jailed for infringing on the privacy of others – not Peters – but the dean and other students.

But more chilling is that this is a blatant attempt to intimidate somebody into not running for Congress. If everybody who decided to run had to give up their jobs, only the very rich would be able to do it.

That is the unintended consequences of this type of action by Lennox. At least, I hope it's unintended and this kid isn't attempting to deliberately create a situation where political office is open only to the independently wealthy who don't need day jobs.

I would hope, at the very least, that even my conservative blogger colleagues would join me in condemning actions like these. Until then, my advice to candidates is don't be intimidated by grandstanding like this. And above all, don't let actions like this force you into giving up your day job until after the election

An Offer You Can't Refuse

Money is crucial to a successful campaign. I know we’ve all had the pleasure of seeing very good candidates come from behind and win even when being badly outspent. But that’s all too rare. More often we’ve agonized to see really deserving, capable, dedicated people lose elections because they just didn’t have enough money to get their message out effectively; or worse, they didn’t have the funds going into the home stretch to counter false attacks from their opponent.

That’s what is happening now, in the 34th District, to Chap Petersen in his race against Jeannemarie Devolites-Davis, who has been running television ads misrepresenting Chap’s record on the estate tax, the gas tax and handgun legislation. You can go here to get the details from this excellent post by James Martin.

The bottom line is that Chap needs money to answer JMDD’s false charges and misleading accusations. We’ve all seen the damage that can be done when a candidate doesn’t have the funds to counter attack ads with his own advertisements to set the record straight and hold his opponent accountable for deception. So go and contribute to help Chap. He’s one of our most promising prospects for this year, and he’s in a tight race that could be a key to taking back the Senate.

Meanwhile, we have a bunch of other excellent candidates who also need another boost of funds to carry them over the finish line to victory. Lowell is making an offer you just can’t refuse if you care about Virginia’s future. Raising Kaine will match the first $1,000 in donations to candidates. Go over to RK to see the details.

And please be generous with both your money and your time. Remember the campaigns also need foot soldiers to staff their phone banks and canvass door-to-door. Political scientists, who do studies of the most effective campaign tactics, say that face-to-face contact with voters – basic retail politics – is still the most effective vote getter. And in local races like these the ground game will determine the winner. Whoever gets their voters out will claim victory on November 6.

Announcing Netroots for Virginia

Eileen, from VB Dems, is calling all Democratic bloggers to send her posts for a great new campaign Website Netroots for Virginia. You may have noticed the logo on my sidebar. If you click on it, you'll be redirected to the new site.

The logo originally was linked to a post on Raising Kaine and this new site grew out of a discussion that started there. Check out the new site for a compendium of articles and posts on your favorite candidates. And please contribute your own blog posts as well.

Here's what Eileen is asking for:

Send us the post that best trumpets your candidate! Also send in posts that best illustrate why your candidate's Republican opponent just doesn't get Virginia. Send links to live blogs you have conducted with our candidates as well.

So, please contribute and help us turn Virginia blue!

A Harbinger of Victory?

Lowell just posted Virginia Public Access Project's raw numbers from the campaign finance reports for the period from 9/1 to 9/30. It seems that Democratic challengers have raised money hand over fist over their Republican opponents.

We all know money alone doesn't guarantee that a candidate will win an election. Still, it never hurts. So, going into the final weeks of a campaign, those funds for a final get out the vote push are going to be mighty sweet. And more important, it’s unusual for challengers to be that much more successful at fundraising across the board.

That success at getting the money may be a strong early indication that this year is going to break in a wave for the Democrats. There are two reasons to be hopeful.

First, if individuals are making small donations to the challengers, it shows the level of dissatisfaction with the status quo. People are mad about the transportation package that came out of Richmond. And they are especially angry about the abuser fees. They blame the Republicans more for it and trust the Democrats to fix it. If voters are ready for change, the first indication may be that they are voting with their pocketbooks first.

Business donors, on the other hand, usually hedge their bets and give something to both parties. But they give the most to those they think will win. If more cash is flowing to Democratic coffers, it could be that the smart money is on a Democratic victory.

And that money helps. It certainly boosts my hopes. But in the end, local races like these depend on a good ground game. Now is the time that each side is going for the final push to identify and turn out their voters.

But with George Barker, Janet Oleszek, Chap Petersen, and and Ralph Northam all raising healthy sums over their incumbent opponents, and John Miller out raising Tricia Stall in the open seat, and even newcomer Tom Periello out raising Virgil Goode, this could very well be the harbinger of a Democratic wave that really turns Virginia blue and gives Governor Tim Kaine a working majority to accomplish great things for the commonwealth.

Tim Hugo: Lying Liars and the Lies They Tell

CORRECTION: Lowell Feld just sent me an email correcting a mistake in this post. I said that Raising Kaine had endorsed Rex Simmons in the primary, which was an error on my part. Raising Kaine originally endorsed Morris Meyers. They do support Rex Simmons fully in the general election. AIAW.

By now most people who are interested in blogs and campaigns have probably caught Tim Craig’s Washington Post story last Saturday, where Raising Kaine objected to a Tim Hugo campaign ad, which Lowell Feld called deceptive.

Hugo aired an attack ad against his opponent, Rex Simmons, and attributed damaging quotes, disparaging Simmons’ integrity, to Raising Kaine. RK endorsed Simmons in the primary and certainly is supporting him in the general election against Republican candidate Hugo. But the ad makes it appear as though Raising Kaine were critical of Simmons.

Nothing could be further from the truth. One diarist at RK, however, did post a critical diary after a bruising primary where his candidate lost. Nate de la Piedra, of Next Generation Democrats, expressed some personal anger in his ill-considered diary, which he later removed.

The main objection by Feld and others is that Tim Hugo did not properly source the quotes used in the ad. The argument is that the quotes should have been sourced to the diarist not simply to RK. It wasn’t that Hugo lied. It’s that he told a half-truth designed to mislead the public.

In the WaPo story, Hugo admitted he knew who had posted the diary and not just that person’s screen name but his real identity. That’s tantamount to making a deliberate decision to mislead viewers.

This controversy has swirled around the blogosphere all weekend with bloggers on both sides of the spectrum weighing in. The rightwing, of course, was simply gloating that it happened to RK. That’s a shame because it will probably come around to them, as all things that go around do. It will be harder for them to whine when they are treated unfairly if they don’t stand up for ethical sourcing now.

Anyway, one of the more rational and principled disagreements with the left, though, comes from Bwana at Renaissance Ruminations. His main point is that while it was probably something he personally wouldn’t do, the diary was fair game as was the blog RK as a whole. His point seemed to be that it’s going to happen to blogs regardless of how much we object to it, so we might was well either get used to it or figure out how to prevent it by changing what we allow to be posted on our blogs.

Bwana is not wrong. You can rail against reality but it’s gonna be reality anyway. Unscrupulous politicians and their campaign operatives are going to continue making unfair and misleading ads as long as they are effective no matter how much we object.

So, we do have to figure out how to slow them down or not let ourselves be taken advantage of.

One obvious way would be for Raising Kaine to change the way it does business. It could go from being a community of progressives, which encourages ordinary citizens to air their opinions in diaries in a free forum to one that polices what goes up on the site. Lowell has always envisioned RK as a citizen’s public square where people meet to consider a variety of opinions. That makes RK more vulnerable than my blog, for example, or Bwana’s. I am, after all, a one-woman show. I’m the only one responsible for the posts on AIAW.

However, I don’t think Lowell, Josh and the rest of the RK management ought to change the nature of RK. It’s a valuable forum. But they have already taken one very simple step that newspapers and even radio and TV stations use when they air differing opinions. RK will now have a visible disclaimer that the views of individual diarists do not represent the views of the entire RK community. Of course, RK will also continue to get out the word that they endorse Rex Simmons and have done so since the primary.

But here’s another suggested way to handle it. Continue to insist loudly and publicly that Tim Hugo ran a misleading and deceptive ad. Get the word out. Turn it around on him. He claimed we can’t trust Rex Simmons.

Well, guess what?

We just can’t trust Tim Hugo. He’ll say anything to get elected. And he doesn’t care whose opinions he misrepresents and how many people he misleads.

Want to discourage dishonesty? Keep pointing it out. Maybe some people think that what happens to RK is the consequence of having a popular public forum that encourages a freewheeling debate. That may be true. But being publicly called out as a deceptive liar is the consequence of being deceptive and lying.

The Negative Attack Dogs of August

UPDATE: Brian Kirwin pointed out to me on Vivian Paige's site that by titling my piece "attack dogs" I was implying that he was a dog. That was never, never my intention. Frankly, I just thought it was a snappy title. But I guess because of the proximity of the title to Brian's name in the post, you could make that connection. So, I am sorry Brian. You are not a dog. I'd never call you that. AIAW

Or just a reasoned, vigorous debate?

Brian Kirwin, on Bearing Drift, challenged Creigh Deeds to condemn a new Democratic Website for going negative and attacking Republican candidates. For some background, at last month’s Blogs United conference in Hampton Roads, Deeds said this in a speech:

Whether it’s in Washington or in Richmond, we have to change the tone of the debate and put a stop to the endless bickering and gamesmanship that has come to define politics.

We have to reject the poisonous language that is used to describe the other side and hold up as an example those people who believe, “I may disagree with what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it.”

So, Kirwin, whose favorite part-time hobby is to accuse Democrats of hypocrisy, thinks that Deeds should publicly disavow TheyDon’tGetVA.com.

Of course, turn around is fair play so let me point out that he thinks it’s perfectly fine for him or his cohorts, like Squeaky Wheel, to call Hillary Clinton a utopian socialist here.

First of all she’s no such thing. She is a moderate centrist Democrat who believes the government does have some role to play in solving social problems like health care. She also believes in public education, a socialist scheme that came over from England on the Mayflower. And her husband was the president who got NAFTA and other free trade agreements passed in Congress. There are real liberals who actually have trouble with her candidacy. But that doesn’t stop these two from misrepresenting and stereotyping her.

Or from whining when indeed there is turnabout. Somehow, Democrats are always the ones with the double standard when they retaliate against attacks. All schoolyard bullies love it when their victims are too cowed to fight back.

Unfortunately for them, Democrats are more and more refusing to be cowed and are fighting back. Something I heartily recommend, as long as they do so fairly and with integrity.


So, I went to the Website that’s causing these two conservatives such profound distress because of its patent unfairness - or so they allege. I decided to check it out for myself and here's what I found.


It’s neither unfairly negative nor an attack site. It’s a challenge.

The Democrats who put up the site do indeed claim they think some conservative Republicans are out of touch with most Virginians. And they back it up with fact-based evidence for their position.

For example, they point out that Tricia Stall signed a petition and made statements that she does not support public education. I’ve been to the anti-public education Website and seen her signature there (you do have to scroll down to see it) and read her subsequent statement.

So, what TheyDon'tGetVA.com alleges is true. In fact, you can even argue that if others agree with Stall’s position, then this site would help her by publicizing it. It’s only if you disagree with her public position on education and think it is extreme that you would call this is a negative attack.

The site also illustrates Jeannemarie Devolites Davis' less than sterling attendance record at the Northern Virginia Transportation Authority and the Northern Virginia Transportation Committee. JMDD claims credit for her clout, expertise and dedication to solving the transportation problems in Northern Virginia. If she’s not attending the meetings of boards she is on that address this issue, it’s fair game to mention it.

In fact, anything that challenges a candidate on either a public position they’ve taken or their performance on the job is perfectly fair. Without debating differences or scrutinizing competence and dedication, how is the public supposed to make an informed decision in November?

What’s unfair and negative is to make a personal attack on a candidate for things that are irrelevant to his performance, competence or public positions. It’s wrong to demonize people, stereotype or slander them. Telling outright lies is wrong. So far, this site has done none of that. It’s promoting fair and vigorous debate.

Not only does Creigh Deeds have nothing to apologize for, I invite Republicans to put up a site as balanced, fact-based and temperate as this one. Go ahead. We can stand the heat in the kitchen.