{"id":9858,"date":"2007-02-07T13:12:01","date_gmt":"2007-02-07T18:12:01","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com\/archives\/9858.html"},"modified":"2007-02-07T13:12:01","modified_gmt":"2007-02-07T18:12:01","slug":"the-company-the-candidates-keep","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/the-company-the-candidates-keep\/","title":{"rendered":"The company the candidates keep"},"content":{"rendered":"

Following up on an earlier post<\/a> on the pseudo-scandal about John Edwards’ official bloggers, an emailer who wishes to remain anonymous suggests I’m being hypocritical. I’ve made a big deal about who Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) has brought onto his campaign staff, so I “shouldn’t be surprised” when there’s similar scrutiny applied to a Democrat’s staffing decision. It’s an interesting point, which I think is entirely wrong. Let’s flesh this out a bit.<\/p>\n

The Edwards “controversy” is about two bloggers, who’ve written a few posts conservatives consider “shrill.” That’s really the whole story in a nutshell — Edwards is under fire for hiring Pandagon’s Amanda Marcotte and Shakespeare’s Sister’s Melissa McEwan, who’ve collectively written thousands of blog posts, some of which the media is inexplicably referring to<\/a> as “hate speech.” The Edwards campaign is reportedly so concerned about the right-wing accusations, it hasn’t decided whether to keep Amanda and Melissa on staff.<\/p>\n

On the other hand, we have McCain’s decision to hire Terry Nelson, a veteran GOP campaign operative, to be the senator’s national campaign manager for the 2008 campaign. As regular readers know, Nelson has a colorful background that has not yet received much media scrutiny. As Media Matters reported<\/a>, Nelson:<\/p>\n

* Approved attack ad on Harold Ford criticized as racist<\/i> — As head of the RNC’s independent expenditure unit in 2006, Nelson approved a controversial advertisement attacking Senate candidate Rep. Harold Ford Jr. (D-TN). The ad featured a scantily clad white woman posing as someone who “met” Ford “at the Playboy party.” As the ad concluded, she looked into the camera, purporting to address Ford, an African-American, and asked him to “call” her.<\/p>\n

* Implicated in DeLay scandal<\/i> — In September 2005, then-House Majority Leader Tom DeLay (R-TX) was indicted on charges of conspiracy involving alleged illegal corporate contributions into the Texas state elections…. While Nelson has not been charged, both the conspiracy and money-laundering indictments allege that, as deputy chief of staff of the RNC at the time, Nelson received a $190,000 check from Colyandro in September 2002, along with a request that the RNC fund seven particular candidates for the Texas House of Representatives. The RNC subsequently carried out this request.<\/p>\n

* Implicated in NH phone-jamming scandal<\/i> — During Nelson’s tenure as RNC deputy chief of staff, one of his subordinates, RNC New Hampshire political director James Tobin, conspired with several GOP operatives to obstruct the Democrats’ get-out-the-vote effort in the state by jamming the phone lines they used on Election Day, November 5, 2002…. While the degree to which Nelson was aware of Tobin’s scheme is unknown, his name did appear on the government’s witness list during the Tobin trial.<\/p>\n

And, best of all, are the Swiftboat Liars.
\n
\n* Consulting firm connected to Swifties<\/i> — Nelson’s consulting firm, Crosslink Strategy Group, counts Chris LaCivita among its employees. While working for a separate Republican strategy firm in 2004, LaCivita was a paid consultant and media adviser to the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth, who launched a smear campaign against Democratic presidential nominee Sen. John Kerry (D-MA) based on lies, factual distortions, and baseless attacks on Kerry’s Vietnam War record and personal life.<\/p>\n

All of this led TNR’s Conor Clarke to write a terrific piece<\/a> on Nelson, describing him as McCain’s “hatchet man.”<\/p>\n

How is this similar to Edwards hiring Amanda Marcotte and Melissa McEwan? It’s not. Neither of them has ever been involved in a serious political scandal, neither of them has been accused of illegal political schemes; neither of them has been accused of doing anything unethical. They’ve written a few blog posts with some profanity, and said some mean things about right-wingers they disapprove of. They weren’t even in any official party or campaign positions at the time.<\/p>\n

In short, there’s no comparison<\/i>. Out of McCain and Edwards, I agree that one of these campaigns should probably start firing controversial employees, but it will turn logic on its head if it’s Edwards.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Following up on an earlier post on the pseudo-scandal about John Edwards’ official bloggers, an emailer who wishes to remain anonymous suggests I’m being hypocritical. I’ve made a big deal about who Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) has brought onto his campaign staff, so I “shouldn’t be surprised” when there’s similar scrutiny applied to a Democrat’s […]<\/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-9858","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-general"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9858","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=9858"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9858\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9858"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9858"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9858"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}