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Campaign Crawlers
Trick or Treat Time for Democrats
Scary tactics in a key campaign in coal country.
ABINGDON, Va. — Rick Boucher voted for the “Job-Killing Cap & Trade Energy Tax,” says a voter guide distributed in Virginia’s 9th District and that may well be the obituary on the Democrat’s 28-year career in Congress.
Southwest Virginia is coal country and, according to an estimate by the National Association of Manufacturers, the Waxman-Markey bill for which Boucher voted — formally known as the American Clean Energy and Security Act — would eliminate 56,000 jobs in Virginia. The unemployment rate in many counties in Boucher’s district has been above 10 percent for months, and it is hard to see why anyone concerned about this region’s economy would vote for the man who voted for legislation so inimical to their own interests.
President Obama didn’t exactly help the Democrat incumbent’s re-election chances last year when he declared, “I love Rick Boucher,” a statement that has now been replayed thousands of times in Republican campaign ads in a district that John McCain carried with 58 percent of the vote in 2008.
Improbable as it may seem, however, VA-9 is still a rated a “toss-up.” For months, polls showed Boucher with a double-digit lead over Republican challenger Morgan Griffith. It was not until this week, in the wake of a televised debate on a Lynchburg station, that a poll by Survey USA showed Griffith pulling ahead by a single point, 47 to 46 percent.
That Boucher could get 46 percent of the vote here — indeed, the incumbent may actually win re-election Tuesday — demonstrates the power of Democrat party attack ads, which have been pouring into airwaves and mailboxes in the 9th District, as in so many other key congressional districts nationwide.
Months ago, top Democrat strategists realized that if this year’s mid-term election were fought as a referendum on their own party’s record, they would lose. Instead, as Matt Bai of the New York Times explained in July, Democrats wanted to make the election “a choice between two parties — one that offers a workable agenda and one that clings to discredited ideas.” The problem with that strategy, it seems, is that Republican ideas of free enterprise and less government aren’t nearly as “discredited” as Democrats had hoped. And so the Democrats adopted two basic tactics: Accuse Republicans of favoring heinous policies (like “shipping jobs overseas”) and unload opposition-research files that highlight negative personal information about GOP challengers.
With a huge financial advantage — the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee raised nearly $22 million more than its counterpart, the National Republican Congressional Committee — Democrats have unleashed these attacks in an astonishing blitzkrieg of TV ads. The result is that GOP candidates in key districts are campaigning against a powerful headwind of negativity, as television commercials tell voters over and over that Republicans are bad people who favor bad policies. Just this week it was reported that the DCCC had purchased another $21.6 million in TV airtime in 66 districts. And in nearly all of those districts, the Democrat incumbent has his own fundraising advantage over the GOP challenger.
Such is the case in VA-9, where Boucher has raised more than $2.3 million while Griffith has raised a little over $800,000. Boucher’s basic attack is that his Republican opponent doesn’t live in the district. One oversized mailing features a giant headline: “Meet Morgan Griffith. Not From Here. Not For Us.” Another mailing declares: “It’s a Long Way From Morgan Griffith’s Home… to Ours.”
Actually, while Griffith lives in the adjoining 6th District, the Republican can literally throw a stone from his home in Salem into the 9th District, which contains many of his constituents in the Virginia House of Delegates. Nevertheless, Boucher and his Democratic Party allies have enough cash to hammer the GOP challenger with TV ads that tell voters he’s a outsider. Griffith “supported taking money away from our schools,” and “blocked electricity rate reform,” says the Boucher TV ad that concludes, “Morgan Griffith: He’s not from here… and it shows.”
Yet the Democrats have other tricks up their sleeves this year. In many close races, third-party “independent” candidates appear to be running primarily as spoilers against Republicans, hoping to drain off enough anti-incumbent votes to enable Democrats to survive by narrow margins. In Nevada, for example, Scott Ashjian’s is running as the “Tea Party” candidate for Harry Reid’s Senate seat, although actual Tea Party activists there have denounced Ashjian as a phony, and Republicans suspect the Ashjian campaign is actually a Reid stalking horse. In other races, as Politico reported this week, Democrats appear to be “attacking” minor third-party candidates as a way to draw away conservative voters from the Republican challenger.
Here in Virginia’s 9th District, businessman Jeremiah Heaton is on the ballot as an independent candidate. As Virginia conservative blogger Jerry Furhman notes, Heaton doesn’t seem to be running against the incumbent Boucher, but instead “has chosen to devote his every energy to attacking the Republican in this race.” With Boucher and Griffith in a dead heat, votes for Heaton might be enough to keep the Democrat from paying the price for supporting Obama’s agenda in a district where the president is deeply unpopular.
Adam Tolbert is chairman of the GOP in Smyth County, where the unemployment rate is currently 11.8 percent. He compares the Democrat’s campaign to the horror-movie marathons that cable movie networks run at Halloween. “The last week has been nothing but Rick Boucher’s dirty tricks,” Tolbert said Thursday night at Griffith’s campaign office in Abingdon.
With four days left until Election Day, the Griffith campaign is gearing up a series of get-out-the-vote rallies across the district. Griffith is running hard. But it looks like Boucher is running scared.
About the Author
Robert Stacy McCain is co-author (with Lynn Vincent) of Donkey Cons: Sex, Crime, and Corruption in the Democratic Party (Nelson Current). He blogs at The Other McCain.
Letter to the Editor View all comments (18) | Leave a comment
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Brian Mc| 10.29.10 @ 7:37AM
I think I have found where some of the stimulus funds ended up...
Nunya| 10.29.10 @ 5:12PM
Brian, I believe it was Rush who stated that the stimulus plan was going to be a Democrap fund for exactly this purpose, shortly after it passed. I'm guessing you are both right on the money (pun intended).
ggoblue| 10.29.10 @ 8:38AM
this election is over and the best thing a liberal can do is save the ozone layer...BY STAYING HOME...and leave the voting to us.
i'm ggoblue and i approved this message
T| 10.29.10 @ 8:46AM
No mention of the PAC money that's pouring money into Griffith. How funny.
dac| 10.29.10 @ 10:55AM
No mention of the public employee union $, or $ from Greenpeace and other corporate eco-communist jackals pouring into Boucher's campaign, not to mention the reconstituted ACORN and our own taxpayer money (laundered through the "stimulus" funds) being spent on electing a guy who is, at bottom, nothing more than a partisan hack and a Pelosi bootlicker. Move to California, assmonkey.
Cjane | 10.29.10 @ 1:50PM
The SWVA Tea Party did the job the newspapers around here---all on board for Boucher---refused to do. We vetted Heaton ourselves. We figured him for a spoiler months ago, before his quasi-business relationship with Amy Boucher was even given the mild mention it rated from the press.
He's been given a total pass by the print media, even as he junkyard dogs Griffith. Gee, remind anyone of any other historic elections???
Full story on Heaton here: www.swvateapartab.org
Bruce | 10.29.10 @ 6:24PM
dac - you're not supposed to talk about that, didn't you know? Only lefties can use that line.
Gee, ya think the Dems are using those open-ended international credit card scams this time too? Doesn't look like it has had much effect if they are - or are we not supposed to talk about those issues either, "T".
One of the VA 9th| 10.29.10 @ 12:40PM
Um, Griffith's campaign chest is shockingly LOW compared to the onslaught of the Dems for Boucher. Boucher has even tried to hoodwink the Miners Union folks into thinking that Cap & Trade is a better alternative than the EPA's bureaucratic carte blanche regulations would be.
BOUCHER ALSO REFUSES TO MEET WITH THOSE OF US WHO WANT TO QUESTION THE WISDOM OF CAP & TRADE. REFUSES. (I thought our elected representatives were working for us, not for the Democratic elite.)
The local rag here in Bristol refuses to publish letters to the editor that are critical of Boucher's voting record.
Boucher voted for stimulus and bailouts.He voted NO ON BANNING THE HORROR OF PARTIAL BIRTH ABORTION. That, folks, is so horrific even many of those who support Roe v. Wade think it should be banned. He voted NO on barring transporting minors to get an abortion. He is rated 100% on pro-abortion legislation -- 100%. I don't think Roe v. Wade will be overturned, and this is not the only issue, but Boucher doesn't care how many get butchered in the name of "choice." He's fine with cloning and embryonic stem cell research. He voted NO ON FEDERAL CRIME TO HARM THE FETUS WHILE COMMITTING OTHER CRIMES.
He voted NO on funding health providers who don't provide abortion INFORMATION.
He voted YES on prohibiting oil drilling & development in ANWR.
Morgan Griffith's home boundary is literally ONE FOOT AWAY FROM THE boundary of the VA 9th. ONE FOOT.
I'd say the person willing to kill our coal and our unborn babies -- but is willing to send our tax dollars to "bail out" the Beltway Buddies of Pelosi, Reid, and Obama -- is the TRUE OUTSIDER.
I'm busy making phone calls every spare moment for Griffith. I only wish our own family economics were better than they are. We're really suffering here in Bristol, VA. If we had more, Griffith's campaign chest would be a little bit heavier.
Petronius| 10.29.10 @ 9:16AM
The term "skulls full of mush" heard first from the late great stentorian voice of the late John Houseman and a constant refrain by El Rushbo has been the primary component of liberal dominance of our polity for so long one could preclude that the average voter's thought processes are petrified, as they are here in Mo.3.
Well it's almost Doomsday. The plebes have finally come to realize that those wonderful, compassionate, Diplutocrats living like royalty inside the beltway have brought and inflicted real pain in their lives and ruined the economic well being of their households. So mote it be!
What the Clintons got away with shutting the mines in southern Illinois can't be done in the Appalachians. Those not in mining bring home meager paychecks by comparison. And don't think that Richard Trumka moving to D.C. and selling out his UMWA members went unnoticed either. There's another line of yore spoken by Richard Harris in The Molly McGuires: "I can always tell the buttered side from the dry."
Denver Todd| 10.29.10 @ 9:23AM
I think that most attack ads use a overly dramatic style that only a drama queen could think up. Here in CO, the anti 60/61/101 say that voting yes will cause another recession. How about a little scorched earth with your espresso? Perhaps politicians should come up with a new style that breaks through the rubbish.
CMS| 10.29.10 @ 10:33AM
Here in Indiana, the DCCC attack ads are trying to paint the Repubs as the tax and spend guys...imagine that!
RacerJim| 10.29.10 @ 10:46AM
Several middle schools in Montgomery County Maryland have canceled supporting Trick or Treat activities at school in acquiescence to the demands of the parents of their culturally and religiously diverse student populations.
Al Adab| 10.29.10 @ 12:02PM
It is about manipulating the voters in order to achieve the "correct" result. To The Left, allowing the voters "voice to be heard" is an old concept that too often results in the wrong people being elected. The Plebs just need to be quiet and let their betters do the thinking for them. If you notice they talk in terms of ruling, not governing. That is a huge difference. Self-government is too precious to lose.
Pat| 10.29.10 @ 6:27PM
Around Halloween, Democrats in Washington fear to go out at night under a full moon. Being skeptical, you’re probably thinking: “Give me a break, they grow hair on their bodies, sprout fangs and turn into werewolves?”. Well, not as many as you might think. And, as to vampires, most Democratic lawmakers were formerly lawyers so being called a blood sucker isn’t all that unusual. And, zombies, the walking dead, that’s more the Republican Party and their barely animated candidates than that which describes most Democrats.
No, what the Dems fear is more the Edgar Allen Poe or H. P. Lovecraft type evil. For example, many scientists were unhappy Congress didn’t fund the global warming scam with many billions of tax dollars more than the paltry sums they actually gave out. It’s been a tradition for Democratic lawmakers to grant the National Science Foundation or National Institutes of Health enormous sums for “research” purposes. In return, the scientists will name a new building after a lawmaker as a tribute to his or her legacy as well as for their generosity with taxpayer money. So, the Senator Budtcrack Hall of Science Building gets erected, the scientists receive a few hundred million in return, one hand washes the other as per normal.
But, recently, with the disappointment over funding of global warming research or the lack thereof, certain Democrats have been receiving little cloth dolls with pins sticking out of various parts of the doll’s anatomy. Normally, when it involves Obeah, a California senator who won’t be mentioned will lift the curse using certain traditional skills she learned before switching to politics. But these dolls have also been accompanied with anonymous threats to entomb some Democrats alive under those very buildings which display their names over the door – not a cheery thought.
And rumor has it that a group of young Democrats, growing impatient with Robert Byrd’s refusal to retire after a 51 year reign in the Senate, kidnapped him, wrapped him completely in bandages, cut out his tongue and buried him alive under one of his many highway projects in West Virginia, there to be eaten by dung beetles for the next 300 years. So, it isn’t the traditional Halloween monsters the Dems fear, it’s more the sophisticated evil of special interests and jealous political enemies which will frighten them. Most years there are more tricks than treats for Democrats around Halloween.
fantum| 10.30.10 @ 9:55AM
YOU DEMOCRATS DECLARED THIS WAR ON AMERICA...
Now Americans are gonna shove it so far up your pooper it will require a surgeon to get it out! (Good luck finding one under ObamaCare.)
WE ARE BRINGING A TSUNAMI TO THE NOVEMBER 2ND ELECTIONS!
We Are Coming for YOU Congress!
http://usataxpayer.org/htm/vids.asp?A=50369481
AND NOVEMBER 2ND IS JUST THE FIRST WAVE!
Don't miss this - The Last Best Hope
http://usataxpayer.org/htm/vids.asp?A=69378366
DUMP "I the Obama." - RETURN TO "We the People!"
heir2freedom | 10.31.10 @ 5:57PM
fantum,
Here are two more videos that every American needs to watch before he or she casts a vote on Tuesday:
TAKE A MOMENT AND PLEASE WATCH:
“TWO INCREDIBLY INSPIRATIONAL VIDEOS ON WHICH TO REFLECT AS YOU PREPARE TO VOTE NOVEMBER 2nd”
http://heir2freedom.blogspot.c.....os-on.html