Press Release This Late Before A Three Day Weekend?
Posted on July 2, 2009 at 4:54 pmThis one might have had more of an impact next week:
U.S. Rep. Marsha Blackburn has resorted to the playbook used by a former Tennessee Republican Party chair now running for a congressional seat in East Tennessee.
Attempting to appeal to her far-right base, Blackburn, who represents Tennessee’s 7th Congressional District, is sponsoring legislation that would require future presidential candidates to show their birth certificates proving Constitutional requirements to serve.
“Mrs. Blackburn and Mrs. Smith are two peas in a pod,” Tennessee Democratic Party Chairman Chip Forrester said. “Both are appealing to the worst side of human nature when they use these tactics to try and scare voters.
“Such tactics are despicable and should be denounced by all of us.”
Robin Smith, the former chair of the state Republican Party, is seeking the 3rd Congressional District seat being vacated by U.S. Rep. Zach Wamp, who is running for governor in 2010.
Smith and former state Republican Party Communications Director Bill Hobbs were responsible for disseminating inflammatory anti-Obama propaganda in the 2008 election cycle. The two also spearheaded disgusting antics used in several state legislative races.
“At a time when people are struggling to make ends meet, my hope is that our elected officials will focus on affordable health care, quality education and good jobs instead of promoting divisiveness and bigotry that Mrs. Blackburn and Mrs. Smith seem to be doing,” Forrester added.
Comments
26 Responses to “Press Release This Late Before A Three Day Weekend?”
This should be a reqirement for every canidate
This is the only 2 constitutional requirememnts to become presiden
1. Be a natural Born Citizen
2. Be at least 35 years of age.
the only true way of proving this is with a valid noterized birth certificate from your state.
The Democrat Party just doesn’t get it. Americans want to know that our President is meeting the constitutional requirements for the office. Why is it so difficult to produce a valid birth certificate? We can only conclude that something is fishy.
Sorry, Chip. You are wrong on yet another issue.
You f**king morons, Obama’s birth certificate was released during the campaign. Would you give it a rest and accept that an african american is your president.
Seconding Ben’s motion- we’ve had MORE access to Obama’s birth certificate (see: http://www.factcheck.org/elections-2008/born_in_the_usa.html) than any other candidate for which such a requirement is necessary. Really. Let it go. Surely you can find something else to hate on, like that idea that all citizens deserve quality healthcare in a modern society.
Well, if its good enough for the Roberts Court, then its good enough for me. They flat refused to even consider looking at the lawsuit filed by some idiot …
… the Supreme Court has dismissed without comment a New Jersey suit seeking to block the presidential inauguration of Barack Obama over allegations he’s not a natural-born American…
Blackburn, Alan Keyes and others are just - once again, surprise - playing to the base. The birth certificate that’s online looks just like the one I got from the state of TN to replace my missing original one … pretty much exactly, only - of course - it has my information
“The two also spearheaded disgusting antics used in several state legislative races.” Interesting charge, Chip. Can you prove it? No. Because it isn’t factual.
Hey, nutjob birthers. Two words for ya:
“President Obama.”
Liv with it.
The Democrat Party is again showing how racist they are by using race as a shield. Anyone disagreeing with them or their candidates are “racist”.
ben, no a picture of a paper clamed to be his birth certificate,
No valid noterized copy of his birth certifcate has been released.
it is a picture of the short form Hawaii Birth Certifate that cannot even be used to get a passport.
Yes Barak Obama is my President… We conservitives acknowledge this, unlike Liberals that spent 8 years saying “Bush isn’t MY president”.
This does not change the fact that ALL canidates Democrat or Republican should show evidence they are Constitutionally elegable to be POTUS.
Interesting charge, Chip. Can you prove it? No. Because it isn’t factual.
You should know better than most that actual facts have little to do with politics.
Chip,
I’m a Republican and I can prove the disgusting antics of the TNGOP under the leadership of Smith & Hobbs. How about the card mailed out against Sullivan County Democrat Nathan Vaughn? It was black CROWS with the faces of Mr. Vaughn, Hillary Clinton & President Obama. It is stamped paid for by the TNGOP with their mailing address and all. Have you forgotten about that Bill? Thank God Chris Devaney is in and you and your embarrassing bunch are gone. You & Smith made every Republican in the State of Tennessee appear to be as racist & liars as the two of you. I hope the good people of the 3rd District are as disgusted of you and Smith as the rest of the Republicans in the State. How about moving to um…………I can’t think of a place far enough away. PLEASE STOP SPEAKING AS THOUGH YOU REPRESENT ME AND THE REST OF THE GOOD REPUBLICANS IN THIS STATE.
Hey Bill-o, shouldn’t you be busy writing Robin’s press releases?
That’s what you’d rather say and see, eh, Chippy? Bashing sitting presidents is a familiar meme to you. That’s certainly what you and your party did for all those 8 years of Bush. Don’t really be surprised to find the tables turned, and this substandard current president painted with the same brushes.
Obama is a Community Organizer first and president second. He’s only about building his far-left cabal’s power and feeding his own supercharged ego; he has no care for anything other than advancing his ChicagO!-style political machine as quickly and as far as possible. Evidenced by his personal, continuous non-stop campaigning (and he even trots out that..wife of his!) continuous e-mail beggings for donations I get every few weeks. Once an ACORN thug, always an ACORN thug.
One thing about President Bush: he never begged for money, and he didn’t beat the sewers for rats whose only worth is a couple-three (dozen) votes. There was no ACORN on Bush’s watch.
Bush never begged for money? Did you forget about those little fundraising stops he and Cheney made in West Nashville?
I love how the right has this obsession with ACORN too. That just cracks me up. I know some of the folks who worked for ACORN and trust me, they aren’t capable of pulling off some big conspiracy to steal an election.
Then there’s the facts. You know, those pesky things that people like Bill Hobbs and Robin Smith hate nearly as much as Democrats. The facts are that ACORN organizers were paid by the registration instead of by the hour, which encouraged I think three of them to fill out some bogus forms and turn them in to get the cash. Of course, those forms were useless when nobody showed up to vote on Election Day with those fake names. And they didn’t - they can prove that.
There’s your case against ACORN. Some college kids hard up for beer money are the basis for the right-wing’s hissy fits. HA! What a bunch of dipshits you all are.
You just can’t stand that a black, liberal NOBODY beat the dogshit out of your best candidate and made a laughingstock of the so-called Republican election machine. And here’s a newsflash: if the election was held again today, your candidate - doesn’t matter which one - would get hammered even worse than McCain did. Face it, you fascists: people are on to your scams and they’ve had it. Bush and the GOP Congress have ruined your party for the next 25 years. You may still have a foothold in TN, but that’s only because the TN Dems are idiots who still think that its 1995.
You can blame ACORN or the “liberal media” (what a joke) all you want, but until you start coming up with real-world solutions to people’s problems instead of railing about Obama’s citizenship (an even bigger joke), the Republicans will become a permanent minority.
Now someone just needs to mention George Soros and the wingnut constellation in this thread will be complete.
Rick,
There is a vast difference between a political party paying for the postage on a campaign mailer and “spearheading” the whole project.
(Never mind that the birds on the mailer were vultures and that “birds of a feather” is a common and non-racial slogan. And also never mind that it is beyond silly to believe that the people of the district - 98 percent white and heavily Republican - voted for Vaughn three times before but suddenly in 2008 turned against him because a mailer with a picture of birds on it made them suddenly realize he was black.)
Vaughn lost because the GOP did a good job of making people realize that Vaughn’s conservative rhetoric was out-of-step with his party leadership votes. He talked pro-life, and is committed to the pro-life cause, and yet he voted for a pro-abortion Speaker of the House who thwarted meaningful pro-life legislation at every turn.
If Vaughn had run as a Republican instead of a Democrat six years ago, he’d be serving his fourth term in the legislature right now.
As for the mailer, political parties can get better rates on postage than can a legislative campaign. So lots of campaign mailers are sent out with “paid for by” the political party. The TN GOP didn’t design mailers for individual campaigns, and it is simply incorrect (and slanderous) to say we “spearheaded” that mailer.
The actual facts aren’t on your side, or Chip’s, Rick.
The only thing Robin Smith “spearheaded” was raising - and spending - a record amount of money for the TN GOP for a state legislative election, along with candidate recruitment and strategic decisions in where to focus time, money and effort - all of which added up to accomplishing something historic: electing the first GOP majority in both houses of the state legislature for the first time in 140 years. The GOP failed to win a majority in the state legislature in 69 - SIXTY NINE - consecutive election cycles dating back to horse-and-buggy days.
I’m proud to have been a part of it, and wish the current party leadership and staff all the best in their effort to sustain and build upon the excellent foundation Robin Smith gave them.
TNOBSERVER: I’m not working for Robin’s campaign. Most of my clients right now are in business, not politics.
One more thing. Robin achieved what few people thought could be accomplished because she believed it could be done, and others bought into her vision. Her attitude was not “let’s do our best and hope,” it was “Take the Hill!”
That’s effective leadership.
Aw hell. We’re in for the never-ending comment screeds from Hobbs again.
To whom did you send that mailer, Hobbs?
I’m too busy with clients to spend a lot of time posting comments here, Ben. But I couldn’t let Rick’s untruths go without a response. When you examine the “racism!” allegations leveled against the TN GOP by the TN Dems point-by-point, they don’t hold water at all.
1. The press release: The president’s middle name is not a racial name. In fact, it is a commonly used name among people of different races who happen share a certain common religious heritage or culture.
The name is common in Indonesia, an Asian country, as well as the Middle East, where people are neither asian nor black. The parts of the president’s name most tied to Africa are his first and last name.
The press release made some points regarding Obama’s connections to people with anti-Israel or less-than-friendly-to-Israel views. Every single one of those facts were true - including the mention of the Obama foreign policy advisor who was a tad too cozy with Hamas. The Obama campaign later kicked the advisor, Robert Malley, out of the campaign, for that very reason.
Today, it is widely acknowledged that Obama’s policies are far less pro-Israel than his predecessors.
2. The “Proud” video - there is not a single racial component or insinuation in it. The video used Michelle Obama’s own words, which had already sparked a lot of controversy and news coverage on the cable news networks months earlier. The Democrat outrage was faux in the extreme, and used as a hook to cry “racism!” even where there was no racism.
3. The mailer: Vultures, not blackbirds. “Birds of a feather” is a common phrase not considered racial code. Nathan Vaughn was elected three times in a 98% white, heavily Republican district, meaning he got thousands of votes from white Republicans in 2002, 2004 and 2006 who, presumably, knew he was black when they voted for him. The election results of 2002, 2004 and 2006 in that district prove that the overwhelmingly white and Republican voters of that district are not racists, and it is absurd to believe that a mailer with a picture of some vultures on it would suddenly awaken their inner racism.
Vaughn lost in 2008 because conservative voters realized that while Vaughn was conservative enough, electing him didn’t do any good because he voted for liberal Dem leadership that blocked conservative legislation. And because Shipley flat out-worked him.
Vaughn should have run as a Republican in 2002. He’d hold the seat today, and be on the TN GOP’s short list for higher office.
Instead, he lost and is now in the unenviable position of possibly trying to win the seat back by blaming the voters who voted for him three times of suddenly turning racist on him. Meanwhile, Shipley is now part of the majority, and the conservative legislation Vaughn was ineffective at getting passed in Nashville is now getting passed.
Bottom line: The charges of “racism!” coming from the TN Dems are without merit, which is why they scream them so loud, substituting volume for substance.
Answer my question, Hobbs. What was the mailing universe for the blackbird piece?
Bill Hobbs sure knows his dog-whistle politics. And how to lie. That makes him the perfect GOP operative, though we have yet to see whether these things will help his “business clients” who need conservatives and liberals to stay in business.
Word of advice, Bill. Shut your piehole before your clients find themselves on the receiving end of boycotts. Unlike the state GOP, your new masters look at the bottom line, not the bottom of the barrel.
Hobbs answer smacks of after-the-factness - the kind of stuff you create to cover your real intent. Also, I think a 300+ vote difference isn’t conclusive at all - and I’d say the same thing had the parties been reversed. Shipley out-hustled him? - well, not by much, I’d say …
Mikey,
I suspect that the key to Representative Vaughn’s loss was the presence of then-Senator Obama at the top of the ticket probably hurt Democratic turnout. Look at how badly he got hammered by Senator Clinton in the primary in some counties. It seems likely that enough Clinton voters and more conservative Democratic voters stayed home. Certainly race had not hurt Vaughn in his previous elections.
To the extent that the mailer had an impact, I suggest that the efforts to exploit it by some Democrats probably hurt Vaughn much more than Shipley. Much like the ‘Call me Harold’ ad in 2006, the mailer wasn’t racist so that when the accusations started to fly, the perception of voters was that they were unfairly being characterized as racists. That hurt Ford and I suggest it hurt Vaughn.
Much like some Republican who call every tax change ‘the largest tax increase in history,’ the reliance of some Democrats on finding or inventing a charge of racism in campaigns has the effect of turning off voters after a while. If the voters didn’t see it as racist (especially white voters who had supported Vaughn), the accusations of outsiders probably hurt Vaughn.
I think it probably did just come down to GOTV, Mark. I think locally the stakes were presented as being a little higher for Republicans than Democrats, to take over the state house, etc. I don’t think the ads played a part at all - they stood alone, very racially motivated, but in the end I don’t think they did much to either help or hurt Shipley. It all came down to GOTV. GOP did; Shipley won - narrowly. Shouldn’ta happened, but it did …
Ben: I have no idea.