{"id":8789,"date":"2006-10-18T09:45:18","date_gmt":"2006-10-18T13:45:18","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com\/archives\/8789.html"},"modified":"2006-10-18T09:45:18","modified_gmt":"2006-10-18T13:45:18","slug":"going-after-a-candidates-dating-habits","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/going-after-a-candidates-dating-habits\/","title":{"rendered":"Going after a candidate’s dating habits"},"content":{"rendered":"

Way back in March, Republicans thought it was so hilarious that Rep. Harold Ford, a Dem Senate candidate in Tennessee, enjoyed nice hotels and amenities, that they created a borderline-racist website<\/a> called “Fancy Ford.”<\/p>\n

The GOP has updated the attack<\/a> with what may be the lamest criticism of the entire election season.<\/p>\n

Don’t tell us that Rep. Harold E. Ford Jr.’s past relationship with a local college coed is the most Republicans can muster in diverting attention from the Mark Foley congressional page scandal.<\/p>\n

“More Details of Ford’s Fancy Fling” — or so blares the National Republican Senatorial Committee’s headline about the personal life of the Tennessee Democrat, who is in a tight race for his state’s open Senate seat.<\/p>\n

The so-called “fling” was several years ago, when the unmarried Mr. Ford was celebrating his 31st birthday at Georgetown’s Paolo’s restaurant and laid eyes on Julia Baugher, then a sophomore at Georgetown University (after graduation, she penned a column in New York about dating. In fact, she wrote about the couple’s otherwise ordinary relationship for Cosmopolitan.)<\/p>\n

As the Memphis Flyer quotes Miss Baugher, “Other than a fabulous weekend ski vacation and a few fancy dinners, all Harold gave me was the certainty that dating a [politician] is overrated.”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Let me get this straight — the National Republican Senatorial Committee is not only interested in Ford’s personal life, the NRSC also finds it fascinating that a 31-year-old bachelor went out with a college student. That’s it. No weird sexual scandals, no untoward lobbying contracts for the girlfriend, no illicit pictures. Republicans genuinely believe Ford having dated<\/i> someone should be a campaign issue.<\/p>\n

I know the Republicans are getting desperate, but are they really this pathetic?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Way back in March, Republicans thought it was so hilarious that Rep. Harold Ford, a Dem Senate candidate in Tennessee, enjoyed nice hotels and amenities, that they created a borderline-racist website called “Fancy Ford.” The GOP has updated the attack with what may be the lamest criticism of the entire election season. Don’t tell us […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[617],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-8789","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-general"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8789","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=8789"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8789\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8789"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8789"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8789"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}