Three Way News
Your Source. For everything. Really.
Contributors
- Hammer
- Jambo
- Libby Mae
Current Poll
Recurring features
Hammer's Favorites
- Dobson v. Sponge-Bob
- Calvin, the nest egg
- Pat's predictions
- Bachmann spins Cupertino
- 205 atheists assume the bench
- Fox spins Oil for Food
- Fact check: highest taxed state
- Gen. Myers v. Reality
- Janice Rogers Brown
- Killing Field
- Kline hates Big Bird
- Vote Luca Brasi!
- Cornyn's Stalinist Supreme Court
- Rumsfeld's hidden metrics
Jambo's Favories
- Dolphin research updates
- We all shine on
- If you have to write...
- Columnist NY Times should have
- Truth about taxes
- Fourth of July
- Movie objects
- Lost in supermarket
- Dysfunctional Farmer Labor party
- Punks you hated
- Some preacher from east
- Winning issues
Friday, October 06, 2006
MN 6th from coast to coast
Two of my favorite bloggers, one from San Diego and one from New York (I think), take on the Wetterling/Bachman race in the wake of the Foley scandal. Here's the Rude Pundit (the New Yorker obviously):
Now Democrats have been given a gift, on a goddamn gold platter... The greatest thing about this gift is that it's ever so likely that Democrats won't even have to try to mangle the spin on the Mark Foley scandal. It's metastasizing at a speed that'd make pancreatic cancer say, "Goddamn, that's fast." The first ad is already out, one by a Democratic candidate for Congress that directly addresses the Republicans' enabling of Mark Foley's masturbatory fantasies. It's from Patty Wetterling, a Minnesotan running for the House.
Her TV spot, "Crimes," is so ham-fisted, thuddingly literal, and open to charges of exaggeration that it actually obfuscates the most important thing about Wetterling: she's walked the walk and talked the talk on child exploitation and safety for years. Jesus Christ, her son was kidnapped in 1989 and has never been found. Just like the very presence of Iraq war vets running for Congress against the President who sent them there evokes more than words, so does the presence of mother and activist Patty Wetterling says everything about the Foley scandal. At this point, the media and political context takes care of almost all of the meaning.
5 Comments:
I know this has been elsewhere this week, but their is a great article on Michele Bachmann in the current City Pages.
http://www.citypages.com/databank/27/1348/article14760.asp
I can't tell you how happy I am this whole Foley business fell into Wetterling's lap. She should pound the sh*t out of this. It might be the issue that helps her pick up some ground in her race against the False Prophet. I have to admit, compared to the Klobuchar campaign which seems to be run perfectly, the Wetterling campaign could be a bit more vigorous--to say the least. While I don't have any facts to back this up, it certainly "feels" as if Bachmann is doing a lot more to win this seat.
By 
, at
2:36 PM
Kind of ironic that a scandal seemingly custom-made for exploitation of homophobia is being used against Bachmann.
By 
Joseph Thvedt, at
6:28 PM
I agree that Wetterling's campaign could be a little more vigorous, not to mention precise in it's ads. But I am even more disappointed in whistle-blower Rowley's non-existent campaign against Imperial Stormtrooper John Kline. It should be a slam-dunk, the one person Kline can't wrap himself in the flag against, the kind of candidate the thousands of soccer moms can embrace, and her campaign is virtually invisible. And little rubber-stamping Nazi is going to get another term in Congress because of it.
By , at
3:57 PM
But Patty and Coleen are such "feel good" candidates. That's what's important to Democrats, to feel good and be idealogically pure. Actually going out and vetting and getting good candidates who can win gets in the way of idealogical purity. It doesn't matter if you win, only that you feel good.
By , at
12:35 PM
MN's 2nd district is conservative, on balance. Not as conservative as John Kline. A moderate Democrat would have a good shot against Kline this year. Trouble is, it's hard to get Democrats excited about a moderate candidate. Same for Republicans, though -- the people most likely to volunteer and support a candidate are the least likely to want a moderate candidate to campaign for.
I'm in the 2nd district and haven't gotten any mail from Rowley. I haven't see any Rowley ads that I can recall. I see plenty of lawn signs and signs above Cedar Avenue during rush hour, but that's it.
