Just a little something from the Blogosphere

We just had to share this sampling of the fare on the net with our Devoted Readers. First, there's this piece from our friends at Polis Politics :

April 02, 2008
"But sometimes, sometimes Bad is Bad"

One of our favorite campaign moments last year was when Amos Brown had Lonnell "King-Ro" Conley and the other embattled Democrat At-Large Indianapolis City Councilors on his show. All, especially Conley, were under attack for increasing taxes. The GOP claimed Conley increased taxes 19 times, and Amos and Conley went threw his voting record and concluded the GOP was wrong! Conley only voted to increase taxes 11 or so times!

Such is campaign psychology against a gotcha campaign, when your opponent is so eager to point out you are wrong, they make themselves look foolish and prove your point in the process. The latest example of this reverse psychology: Congressional Candidate and former Marion County Coroner John McGoff.

McGoff unveiled a minute-long radio ad last week going after his opponent, incumbent Congressman Dan Burton, for missing committee meetings. Burton countered with his own 60 second ad, saying McGoff was distorting the facts and McGoff was a "career politician" who caused tax increases by increasing the Coroner's budget.

Normally the Challenger could claim success by engaging the incumbent to go negative. But McGoff didn't leave good enough alone. His campaign sent an e-mail out refuting the Burton ad, including this excerpt:

"Burton Claim #2: While coroner, John's budget went up 200%.

"*The first year John was in office, the coroner's budget was $1.1 million; the last year, it was $1.9 million. That is an increase, but only 73%." (emphasis added)

Our advice to McGoff: You don't refute the claim that your budget ballooned by claiming it was only a 73% increase. That's a mighty hefty raise and one that makes out look out of touch with average Hoosiers. It didn't work for King-Ro Conley, it didn't work for Bart Peterson, and it won't work for you.

We don't like speaking ill of fellow Republicans, so just some friendly advice.

Posted by The Polis at 01:14 PM Permalink

And then there's this from Hoosier Pundit's Scott Fluhr:

Burton vs McGoff Spill-Over

As I have long said, I don't have a dog in the fight in the 5th District Republican Primary; all that matters to me is that the seat is held by a Republican and that the bloodletting be cathartic and not fatal.It's true, Dan Burton has been in office for a long time in a safe district, with that political security comes complacency, and with complacency come behaviors in office that are unwanted by the voters.But with being in office for a long time also comes seniority, with seniority come better committee assignments and so forth, and with those come demonstrable benefits for the citizens of the 5th District.

And it's also true, as Thomas Jefferson (or was it Ben Franklin... I forget) famously opined, "A little revolution now and then is a healthy thing."

The question for the voters of the 5th District is whether the seniority Dan Burton has is worth the benefits it brings, even with the downsides, or whether a little revolution is better instead.Because the downsides were brought on by complacency, and if anything the McGoff challenge has ended Dan Burton's complacency (he needed a swift kick in the pants, I think), it's probably an open question as to what the future downsides will be.But that's a balance that will have to be made in the 5th District, and I'll be happy whatever the result, since the composition of the district will almost certainly see a Republican victory in the fall regardless of the primary outcome.

In that sense, a primary is a cathartic, correcting, and healthy process; competition strengthens the participants so long as it is not combat to the death.

But the Burton-McGoff contest is increasingly getting ugly; one need merely look at the allegations that are being traded to see that.McGoff accuses Burton of taking a taxpayer-funded junket to Central America; turns out that McGoff came along on that very trip for a business opportunity and had to get passport help from Burton's office to be able to go.Burton accuses McGoff of having the budget for the Marion County Coroner's office double under McGoff's tenure; turns out that it went up by only about seventy percent (some of which attributable to relocation costs and so forth).How do these exchanges advance the cause of serving 5th District voters?

Give me a break.

More troubling still is the spillover on Wednesday, when the Burton-McGoff square-off somehow managed to spill out of the 5th District and onto Frugal Hoosiers, the de facto campaign blog for Mitch Daniels' reelection campaign.The spillover came in the form of a posting of a McGoff campaign ad, along with some favorable observations (Frugal Hoosiers long ago removed Burton's campaign blog from its roll, and retains the McGoff blog).I would have thought that the Governor has plenty of ads about which to post and his opponents have plenty of ads about which to issue critiques that would keep the folks in green busy, but I digress.Of course, a quick check with the communications director of the Daniels campaign confirmed that, no, Mitch Daniels (Governor of Indiana, candidate for reelection, leader of the Republican Party in Indiana, et cetera) has not endorsed John McGoff in the 5th District race for governor.This is not the first time that Frugal Hoosiers (which professes itself to be utterly unaffiliated with the campaign or the Governor's office, which everyone knows is manifestly absurd; no more believable than Jen Wagner claiming her blog had nothing to do with the Indiana Democratic Party) has weighed into the 5th District race, and almost always in favor of the challenger John McGoff.I also know it's not the first time that Daniels will have gotten grief from Burton and his people over this "unaffiliated" blog.How exactly such posting about a controversial and increasingly divisive primary among fellow Republicans advances their proclaimed cause of getting Mitch Daniels reelected is beyond me; such posting might actually hurt it.

Posted by Scott at 11:49 PM Labels: 2008 Election, Congress, Indiana Politics, Mitch Daniels

H/T Polis Politics and Hoosier Pundit, insightful and fair assessment

When misleading is just, well, misleading.

See what I mean when I tell you that shameless does not begin to describe the Nameless Campaign. In fact, we may just change the Nameless Campaign to the Shameless Campaign.

When asked by a reporter asked: "Do you think Burton has an integrity or ethics problem? Is that what your campaign is implying?" McGoff simply stated, No. But wait! Hasn't the campaign run around for the past year saying "Integrity Matters", infer that Our Congressman lacks integrity? Hasn't your campaign financed attack website tried to imply - actually, imply is being kind - that Our Congressman has ethics problems? You attack him all over the place for voting against all kinds of ethics reform stuff.

At least Our Congressman is consistent. He's voted against all of them because none of them address the real problem. If you really understand the ethics/campaign finance process, and you really want to clean it up, then the answer is full and complete transparency. Everybody reports everything within 48 hours. Joe Smith gives you $25, report it. MoveOn.org gives you $5,000, report it. The lobby-shop of Dewey, Cheatham & Howe takes you to dinner at the Palm, report it. Your Committee Staff Director gets a trip to Atlantic City for a conference, report it. Trust me. There are enough media-types, and dumpster divers like us, to shed some light upon the darkness there. In this age of modern technology, it is as easy as an ATM machine to get this stuff out to the public. But I digress ... Back on topic.

Playing fast and loose with the rules is one thing if you're a huckster selling snake oil. Being truthful when you talk about Integrity is not in that zip code.

More importantly, as was pointed out in an email from one of our Devoted Readers,

"If you cannot tell the truth [or not distort it to imply or infer facts not in evidence - G.O.D.] as a candidate asking for my vote, what then makes me think that you would be any different if you got my vote?

That's the question that every voter needs to ask him or herself."

Well said. You can be sure that we here at the WPBCHQ will continue to dive into every dumpster, scour through the public record, and continually fight for Truth, Justice, and the American Cocktail Hour! Fear not, America! We never sleep.

We'll do our job, you do yours! Register... and Vote!

Nulla Dies Sine Linea or, Never a day without a line ... Part Deux

Hello again fellow DDs! Here's another quick installment of the ol' GonzO's fact-checker.

[Turner, KP] "Is that trip different than the ones you criticize, on your Web site, him for taking and imply are personal vacations rather than actual? …

McGoff: I don’t have the specifics for all the trips he took down there. I know that he had to do work with Central America and was going down there quite frequently."

What? You mean the Nameless Campaign is making baseless accusations? You mean the infer something that they cannot substantiaite? Hmmmm ... Integrity matters? Oh, BTW, above emphasis added by me.

H/T Tim Turner, Kokomo Perspective

See even more

Nulla Dies Sine Linea or, Never a day without a line ...

Fellow Dumpster Divers, I have been remiss in providing you with the timely and accurate information that our Devoted Readers have come to expect. Thankfully, our fellow conspirators have been uploading some really delicious tid-bits, but that's no excuse for the Gonz. So here's the first of a few new factoids to have some fun with.

How do you know that Dan Burton has served his constituents honestly? Just ask John McGoff, who said…

"McGoff: The fact that my passport was running out is true and that he helped me get a passport... My passport was going to expire within that timeframe, and he helped me out, so I don’t have any problem with that."

H/T Tim Turner, Kokomo Perspective

CD5 Challenger Fades to Black ... Staff Sacked and Short on Cash, do Insiders hear the "Fat Lady" Sing?

This just in ... (Dateline: Indiana CD 05.)

The erstwhile pol, former coroner, perennial candidate, and ER Doc (who strung out Marion County/Indianapolis GOPers contemplating on a bid for Mayor of the State's Capitol City) has apparently flamed out in his bid to unseat the popular incumbent in CD 05.

"This is like the Surge in Iraq," said one pol close to the Incumbent's camp, "You know he's losing it because nobody is writing about him and those who are seemingly need to stretch the facts somewhere near absurdity to even have anything to write about. It's almost sad."

Local cage liner The Indianapolis Star published a story on 2/1 that cited unidentified "political handicappers" as having the race being "one of fewer than two dozen potentially competitive House Primaries in the country." Really? Who are they talking to? All the political insiders with any street cred wrote this off in October after the abysmal 3Q report showing an anemic (to be kind) $21K raised, and only $81K in the bank. (Not much better at EOY: $85K COH), and the majority of that came from three sources: Medical Professionals, Big Pharma Execs and PACs, and Lawyers ... not to mention the $10K he "loaned" himself.

"At his current burn rate, he will not have enough cash to get into mailboxes, let alone up on the tube, even Cable" one insider told us.

Staff Let Go ... Consultants bail.

In an apparent effort to keep his camp from completely collapsing, we hear that he sacked his FD in a cost-cutting move and noticed in the EOY FEC filing that his consultants are no longer on the payroll ... hmmmm.

Other interesting, but as yet unconfirmed, rumors have been circulating about some "less than honest representations made by the campaign," said one flack over the weekend. " I mean, he was less than accurate with Howey last summer, right? $500 grand by the end of the year. C'mon, where'd he end up? 235 or so, not including the ten grand he gave himself."

Another pol watcher told us, "There's no support there, especially from the activists you need in a primary. Nobody has been willing to stand up behind him and endorse the candidacy."

"The real problem I have with this whole thing", said one GOP party official, "is that he's told folks he's not expecting to win, he just wants to drive his name ID up. That's just forcing us to expend valuable resources unnecessarily in a year where we have tough Statehouse races and a Special Election in CD 07." We've heard the same or similar expressions from many other GOPers who are steamed over losing the "generous contributions" that usually come from the Incumbent's coffers to help fund their GOTV and down ballot races.

Our Call: This one's dropped off the radar... crash & burn.