The members of the Boots On crew are all good friends of this feature and I hold them all in very high esteem. Right Hook had a very interesting post over there the other day and it has caught the attention of Tim O'Brien, who runs the "Blog House" feature at the Star Tribune. O'Brien selectively quoted RH's piece, which strongly suggests that Sen. Norm Coleman does not deserve conservative support in this election. Here is the quote as O'Brien rendered it:
From the actions of the good Senator and many in the GOP it seems pretty
obvious that we are not held in very high esteem anyway.It is common knowledge
within the GOP that Senator Coleman has privately acknowledged a very cynical
"where else will Conservatives go?" attitude. His campaign has made the
calculation that he can maximize his vote total by moving to the left....
It's high time we Conservatives started a we're as mad as hell and we aren't going to take it anymore campaign against the RINOcracy, and the Coleman campaign is an ideal place to start it.
This is a pretty good example of how to use someone's words in a way that alters the message (an O'Brien specialty, by the way). RH is a very smart guy and he knows better than to take his ball and go home. What RH is suggesting is that Coleman gets our votes and nothing more. But unlike O'Brien, I'll let RH speak for himself:
I need to make it perfectly clear that I am not advocating that people vote for Al Franken. Rather my position is to urge people to vote for Norm Coleman if
their conscience allows it, but make it clear to Senator Coleman that a vote is
the only support he will receive - no phone bank time, no campaign
contributions, no literature distribution, no promotion on our blogs, etc. Think
of it as a kind and gentle throwing under the bus rather than one of extreme
prejudice.
I'm not sure if this the right approach or not, but I wouldn't reject it out of hand. It's a tough call, because Al Franken is so odious that I'm not certain I want to gamble with withholding support for Coleman if doing so would mean Franken would go to Washington. I like about 65% of what Norm does in the Senate. I would like about 0% of what Franken would do. That is what makes this a tough call.
In any event, I'd strongly recommend you go read RH's piece and judge for yourself. We cannot flinch from tough questions. And that means I'll have to come up with an answer, too. But not tonight, it's getting late....
1 comment:
Thanks for the honest reporting.
People with the same goals may disagree on the best way to achieve them, but honest critique and the ensuing discussion promotes an exchange of ideas that may eventually come up with a better strategy than any originally proposed by any of the participants.
O'Brien is merely promoting Franken by misrepresenting my position on Coleman. He conveniently ignored the
the stated goal of maximizing the total number of Conservatives in the Senate and the unambiguous rejection of Franken.
O'Brien seems to practice a concept I heard in a marketing class (a former employer of mine required that the tech people get some education on what the sales and marketing people did for/to the products we built): "Never lie, but carefully select your truths and how you present them".
Funny, and telling how this blog, which is openly an opinion forum, does a much more honest job of factual reporting than O'Brien and his peers in the mainstream media.
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