Interestingly, the ivory tower crowd on the left has been complaining for ages that people like Bruce Poliquin only know how to go negative and are somehow very negative in their campaigning. It is their chief complaint about him, actually, even though he typically sticks to rhetorical criticisms of policy differences, and runs just as many positive ads as negative ones. Do you ever hear any of those same people - Im looking at you Amy Fried - lecturing and taking the Democrats to task for the disgusting tactics they undertake, smearing not just conservative candidates, but folks in the centrist/liberal side of the Republican Party? Not once. What the left is doing to legislative candidates from top to bottom, from Cary Weston to Amy Volk to Brian Langley to Eric Brakey, is utterly disgusting. What Emily Cain is doing to Poliquin, stoking personal animosity about him and using lies to make him into a caricature, is disgusting. The treatment of LePage speaks for itself: childish, repulsive, and deeply personal. And when will the hypocrisy end? Negativity is a mortal sin to the left when directed at Emily Cain, but outright lies and mischaracterizations are okay when directed at LePage, Poliquin and the legislative candidates? Money in politics is evil and bad when directed by Republicans, but 8 of the top 10 financial backers of Maine political figures are Democrats, with Mr. Sussman contributing 3 million dollars to candidates and groups? Overwhelming races like Bangor with hundreds of thousands of dollars in liberal dark money? Oh... but it isnt hypocritical, because it is just the system, man. They cant voluntarily disarm themselves, even though they are morally disgusted with it and lecture the right about their use of money in politics. They cant avoid going so disgustingly negative that they get into outright lying, because a Republican somewhere came up with a contrast ad on issues? Really? If there were any justice in this world, voters would punish this kind of behavior. To be clear, I have no problem with negative campaigning, and I have no problem with money in politics. What I do have a problem with is sanctimonious, self-righteous, hypocritical pandering. I have a problem with turning negative into slimy, ugly lies and turning we oppose money in politics into we will overwhelm conservative candidates with 10-1 money advantages, while we decry money in politics. Ive been around the block more than a few times, but what Ive seen in this election is among the most repugnant campaigns for public office from top to bottom that Ive ever seen.
Posted on: Fri, 31 Oct 2014 19:54:34 +0000
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