We paused at this reportage from KTTC in the case of the anti-Demmer smear:
"Could it mean that Demmer is a serious threat to Congressman Walz's campaign?
Demmer responds, "When your opponents work very very hard to try to find a way to get you out, I suppose you cold take that as a sign that they don't want you in. And maybe the reason they don't want me in is because maybe they feel threatened. That's probably a fair characterization."
Demmer says he hopes to avoid issues that were settled 13 years ago, and move toward issues that need to be settled today."
Either KTTC has completely stumbled in reporting the basic facts, or Demmer has been on the receiving end of a severe "come-to-Jesus" lecture about the GOP's Eleventh Commandment. It's amazing what two days will do.
KTTC-TV's take--or Demmer's spin--is considerably different than the way the three-term Representative talked about the threats to the Post Bulletin on Tuesday. The story that appeared on Wednesday morning:
Demmer said he suspects the effort originates in Republican circles, because he's not even the endorsed candidate to oppose Democrat Walz yet. He said he received a call from a Republican in Washington, an apparent ally, who had received a package with the information and called to warn him.
And the station also reports:
Whoever did it sent a copy of the lawsuit to the Rochester Post-Bulletin which printed an article about it this week.
Well, no, that's not what happened, so far as we can tell from reading the Post Bulletin. The paper reported:
. .On Monday, the Post-Bulletin received an anonymous telephone tip with information about the sexual harassment suit filed in U.S. District Court against Demmer, the three NAPA Auto Parts stores he then owned and a store manager in 1995. The paper also received an anonymous e-mail on the subject. . . .
Indeed, when readers open the Post Bulletin's pdf of the lawsuit that's posted on the paper's web site, the document's heading indicates that it was obtained--probably faxed--from the Dodge County Court on Feb.27. It appears that the paper was tipped, but obtained the copy of the lawsuit own its own after the slimester contacted it. We are contacting Matt Stolle to verify this sequence of events. It corresponds to what we were told by the Dodge County Court administrator.
Today's editorial in the Post Bulletin repeats Demmer's suspicion of the intra-party smear:
It's an ugly story of harassment, complete with threatening phone calls, hints of blackmail and shattered trust. People who read the description of what happened can't help but recoil at the overall sliminess of the whole incident.
No, we're not talking about the allegations of sexual harassment that were filed against Rep. Randy Demmer more than 11 years ago. Rather, we're disgusted by the way someone or a group of people -- fellow Republicans, according to Demmer -- tried to use that long-settled lawsuit to force him from the race for the GOP's 1st District nomination.
The Post Bulletin editorial gets it right in the editorial 1st District GOP race takes nasty turn.
Update: We have contacted KTTC-TV reporter Chris Hrapsky to see if Demmer has indeed changed his story since being interviewed by the Post Bulletin. If so, that change is a major shift on Demmer's part and we'd be curious to learn why.[end first update]
Second update: KTTC's Reporter Chris Hrapsky responses and with his permission, we're posting it below.
The questions that I wrote in the article are the questions I asked in the report, and if you click on the video link you can actually see me ask those questions and get his quoted response.
Demmer said what he said, but he really didn’t want to speculate, to me, who was behind the attack. That quote came out of his mouth. By opponent, I’m not sure who he was talking about. He never suggested that it was from Congressman Walz . . . he just said the threat was being passed through an intermediary Republican buffer in Washington . I’m sure in any race of this magnitude you can have opponents from both sides of the aisle.
It was not my intention to edit in any sort of subjective way, for that would be unethical. But Rep. Demmer simply stressed the fact that he wanted to meet these threats head on and wanted to move toward real issues affecting people in this district.
Thanks for the email!
Chris Hrapsky
[end update]
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