WALZ IN WINONA
Craig's Site posts a diary entry about a Tim Walz house party in Winona. Like so many Walz events, this one was well-attended:
Congressional Candidate Tim Walz Visits Winona
Tim Walz, the DFL candidate for U.S. Congress from the First Congressional District of Minnesota (which includes Fillmore, Houston, and part of Winona County) was in Winona Wednesday evening as special guest at a gathering of over 100 people at the home of Dr. Bill and Joan McNeil.
Walz is a high school geography teacher from Mankato, and is a 24-year veteran of the Minnesota Army National Guard. Walz, who says he will be “an independent voice for Southern Minnesota,” has been campaigning vigorously, strongly criticizing incumbent Gil Gutknecht for the lack of leadership Gutknecht has shown on critical issues such as affordable health care, Iraq, education, the environment, and energy policy.
Walz, speaking with several fellow veterans behind him, said, “My opponent recently referred to me as ‘irrelevant.’ After thinking about it, I saw that that it actually is true. The race is not about me or my opponent. It is about the people of southern Minnesota, and about giving them proper representation in Washington, which they have been lacking for several years.”
GUTKNECHT STAFFER SPANKED FOR WIKI WHACKING
The Gutknecht campaign may have thought it had an answer for the Winona
Daily News' editorial blasting attempts to erase his term-limits
pledge, but readers posting at the paper's online forum are not buying it. Samples:
The truth shall set you free.
wrote on September 09, 2006 2:06 AM:"It's all there in the edit history of the Gil Gutknecht article (the history tab at the top). First, using the Gutknecht01 user name on July 24th, the article was edited primarily to remove the term limits reference (with the edit summary: Edited on the authority of Congressman Gil Gutknecht's Office). Then on August 14th using the IP 143.231.249.141 (housegate10.house.gov) they engaged in a short edit war replacing the entire Wikipedia article with the official Gil Gutknecht biography from http://www.house.gov/gutknecht/About/about.htm. The Gutknecht staffer did not take the time to understand how the Wikipedia works and he tried to use the Wikipedia for propoganda purposes. If they had learned about the Wikipedia and had just edited to help improve the quality of the article to make it more accurate and better referenced, there would have been no problems at all. gk"
Oh Gil
wrote on September 08, 2006 10:57 AM:"Sending up a staffer to take the blame...you are better than that. "Hey
wrote on September 08, 2006 9:20 AM:"First of all - who is this guy and where is he from. Second of all - why would term limits have a negative consequence for the first district. Third of all - if renewable energy and pharmaceuticals are the only things Gil had any part in during his 12 years maybe its a good time for the voters to give him a 12 year limit."Taking one for the team..
wrote on September 08, 2006 8:14 AM:"Hmmmm...a strategy borrowed from the White House. That makes sense, Congressman Gutknecht usually follows in lockstep with them. Let someone on the staff take one for the team while the leader shrugs it off. Maybe Mr. Anderson can get a Medal of Freedom like George Tenant."
DISMANTLING A SMEAR
We could live without the purple prose shot through the entry, though we appreciate the sentiment of the MN Blue post on TimWalz (cross posted to a DailyKos diary) "Tim Walz (MN-01) under attack, Republicans ramps up the Lie Machine." The post reviews the history of the case, closing with:
Walz is a natural leader and would be a great addition to Congress. Gutknecht's and the RNCC's tactics are typical. Nothing has been going right for Gutknecht and he and the Republicans are going to try and and milk this pseudo-issue for every thing they can. Don't let them get away with it.
The sentiments about the source of the attacks are echoed in Tim O-Brien's Blog House, albeit about another race:
Back in July, I praised the work of Michael Brodkorb. His blog was instrumental in forcing the mainstream media to cover some valid issues regarding Fifth District U.S. House candidate Keith Ellison. Despite my opinion that he was a GOP party organ, in this case he had provided a public service: Voters had the right to know about the DFL-endorsed candidate's transgressions.
I take it all back. Brodkorb has gone all Drudge Report on me.
To decry the level of political discourse in general -- and both sides are guilty-- is to waste valuable oxygen. But what Brodkorb and his ilk are doing goes far beyond slinging mud. It's character assassination.
We anticipate that there will be more in this vein in the days to come.
Mark Gisleson predicts this at Norwegianity, while taking the RNCC to task for this statement: Walz "owes Minnesota voters a full confession for his impropriety 11 years ago.” The Wege's take:
Demanding a "full confession" is beyond noxious and truly world class Babbitry but the real bottom line continues to be this: Tim Walz got pulled over for speeding on an interstate in a part of Nebraska where you could die of hunger waiting for the next motorist to come along. In western Nebraska snails cross highways and live to tell about it.
But that's how fear-base campaigning works. Ratchet up the hysteria without the context.
[read the rest; politically incorrect language warning].
Bob Collins at Polinaut offers a slightly different version--more cordial toward Brodkorb and more urging of critical judgement on the part of readers and voters. But there's also this :
The strategy was clear and one that I would think we would have gotten use to by now. Throw up a bunch of stuff and hope some of it sticks and if in the process the credibility of the person writing what he does know is undermined, well, so much the better.
It's an effective strategy and it can work. Once. Twice. Maybe three times. But the problem with it is a constant barrage of "throwing stuff against the wall and hoping some of it is right" inevitably undermines the credibility of the person throwing it and pretty soon nothing sticks, even that which probably should. It is, essentially, the natural order of things and it's the political eco-system that eventually cleanses itself through natural means.
It's a fine line that some people walk and it usually becomes a problem late in the campaign, not so much for the Keith Ellisons of the world (hey, if you think this is bad, pal, wait to you go to Washington!) but the bloggers who end up destroying themselves in the process of trying to destroy others.
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