{"id":15908,"date":"2008-06-17T16:40:42","date_gmt":"2008-06-17T20:40:42","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com\/archives\/15908.html"},"modified":"2008-06-17T16:40:42","modified_gmt":"2008-06-17T20:40:42","slug":"about-those-prominent-dems-supporting-mccain","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/about-those-prominent-dems-supporting-mccain\/","title":{"rendered":"About those ‘prominent’ Dems supporting McCain…"},"content":{"rendered":"

Looking ahead to November, there are just two angles to the campaign that worry me. One is the extent to which email-circulated smears will undermine support for Barack Obama. The other is the number of Dems — either because of ideology or spite — who’ll withhold support from the Democratic ticket. I suspect both groups will be fairly small, and neither will affect the outcome.<\/p>\n

Nevertheless, I found it interesting that the McCain campaign hosted a conference call on Saturday as part of an outreach effort to non-Republicans. The campaign released a list of a “group of prominent Democratic and unaffiliated leaders and activists who have joined ‘Citizens for McCain,’ a new grass-roots effort headed by Senator Joe Lieberman (I-CT) to rally Americans of all political parties to support John McCain’s candidacy.”<\/p>\n

Ben Smith posted the entire list of 30<\/a>, and to characterize them as “prominent” is a bit of a stretch. Only one of the thirty ever held federal office; there were no Dems who currently hold statewide office; some have never held elected office before; and one is a blogger. More than half are out-of-office local officials.<\/p>\n

Nevertheless, these are ostensibly 30 “Democratic and unaffiliated leaders and activists” who’ve decided to throw their support to the conservative Republican candidate instead of the Democratic ticket. Cause for concern? Indicative of a larger trend?<\/p>\n

My estimable friends at TPM, Greg Sargent and Eric Kleefeld, decided to take a closer look at the group. Oddly enough, they discovered that the list is “a bit of a sham<\/a>.”<\/p>\n

Wait, you mean Joe Lieberman and John McCain would create a phony organization\/fundraising gimmick and then release a spurious list to generate some cheap publicity? I’m shocked. Just shocked.
\n
\nIt’s quite a motley crew of “Democrats,” many of whom have been voting for Republicans for quite a while now. One is an independent who endorsed Mitt Romney. Another is a Bush appointee in the Department of Agriculture. Another is a religious right activist who wrote a book accusing Democrats of becoming “the enemy of my religion.” Another publicly endorsed Bush in 2000 and 2004.<\/p>\n

But here’s my favorite:<\/p>\n

Perhaps the biggest stretch of all on the list is “former Democratic gubernatorial candidate Philip Frye.” It’s true that Frye did indeed seek the Democratic nomination for governor in 2004. But it’s less than surprising that he is opposing a Democrat now. <\/p>\n

Here’s why he ran in the first place: Dem Gov. Bob Wise had been damaged after having been caught having an affair with Frye’s wife<\/i>. (When Wise withdrew from the race, Frye’s star faded and he received less than one-percent of the vote.) To top it all off, Frye actually attacked Wise as a “typical Democrat” for having had an affair, so clearly he’s hardly a Dem in any meaningful sense.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

And yet, this largely-anonymous guy has teamed up with Joe Lieberman and other “prominent Democratic” leaders to show their support for John McCain.<\/p>\n

First, the McCain campaign seems to look increasingly ridiculous with each passing day.<\/p>\n

Second, kudos to Greg and Eric for fact-checking the specious “Citizens for McCain” list.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Looking ahead to November, there are just two angles to the campaign that worry me. One is the extent to which email-circulated smears will undermine support for Barack Obama. The other is the number of Dems — either because of ideology or spite — who’ll withhold support from the Democratic ticket. I suspect both groups […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[617],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-15908","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-general"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15908","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=15908"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15908\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=15908"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=15908"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=15908"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}