It's fascinating to watch Allen Quist try to squirm his way out of statements that he's said while campaigning for Congress in Minnesota's First District since 2009.
His latest move is to try to get voters to confuse Tim Walz with Mike Parry. I suppose: both men are balding, so their points about Quist must be the same.
In Walz, Quist clash in first debate, New Ulm staff writer Josh Moniz reports:
Quist started by criticizing Walz for making the 15-minute KSTP debate part of the three 90-minute debate challenge he issued.
"Mr. Walz consistently says one thing and does something else," said Quist.
Walz called Quist an extremist for his past controversial statements. Quist said he objected to being labeled an extremist.
Walz cited Quist's controversial 2010 campaign statement where he said that defeating Walz and other liberals was more important than fighting terrorism.
"I didn't serve this country in uniform for 24 years to be compared to a terrorist," said Walz, a National Guard veteran.
Quist somewhat walked back his 2010 [sic] statement post-debate by saying the deficit was still a national security issue and Walz had no interest in changing direction, but asserting he could not say it was the top national security threat.
Quist brought up Walz's 17-year old arrest for allegedly driving drunk in Nebraska. The charge was later dropped, but Walz pleaded guilty to an amended plea of reckless driving. After the debate, Quist said he did not regret raising the issue.
"I had no intention of bringing it up. But, I had to in order to stop his personal attack of bringing up 30-year-old statements that I may or may not have said," said Quist.
Actually, Walz brought up the late 2009 statement, and said that observers, including Republicans ranging from Vin Weber to Arne Carlson, have noticed how Quist is out of the mainstream. Rather than bringing up Quist's 30-year old statements, Walz supplied evidence of Quist's more recent fringe views.
Quist isn't even being subtle here in his comments to Moniz about his strategy. It's pretty awkward, and his passive-aggressive denial of his own attacks on Walz are laughable.
And even after the Mankato Free Press and MinnPost's David Brauer documented that Quist indeed said outrageous things 30 years ago, Quist tells Moniz that "I may or may not have said" have said them.
This is a strategy of distraction. Quist will try to use attacks that the Parry campaign made about decades old statements to try to obscure things that he's said more recently. Quist fancies himself to be the victim when anyone reads back his own words to him and isn't shy about proclaiming how bedeviled he is.
Here are a couple of Youtubes of those statements that Quist made within the last three years. The first is the 2009 congressional campaign statement at a Christmas fundraiser in which he claimed that Walz is a radical, a worse threat than terrorism. In the second, an audio recording made last Thursday at a Rochester Tea Party Patriot meeting, Quist carries on about euthnasia of seniors under the Affordable Care Act.
Last week:
Image: Allen Quist, by Ken Avidor
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