One can tell the nature of a campaign by how it’s supporters are behaving, and the race for the Republican nomination for U.S. Senate is no different.
While Marshall bloggers (such as Shaun Kenney) are seeing the continued strength of our candidate, the Gilmore side is full of denial and innuendo. Truth be told, it saddens me to see this, since the bloggers in question (Mason Conservative, Spank That Donkey, and Spark It Up!) and I agree on the other major race in the GOP (we all support Frederick for Chairman).
First up, Chris Beer over at MC, who insists that Gilmore’s position on illegal immigration is not de facto amnesty. He cites a Gilmore for President press release in opposition to the President’s deservedly-dead-and-buried “immigration reform” plan. That’s hardly an indication of Gilmore’s view (John Podhoretz, who is far more open about his support for amnesty, also opposed the Bush plan). In fact, Chris completely ignores Gilmore’s support for temporary work visas for illegals – if that’s not amnesty, I don’t know what is.
Chris Green (better known as Spank That Donkey) goes so far as to politicize Memorial Day in a desperate attempt to go after Marshall’s plan to move American troops from Germany to the border with Mexico. Yet Chris refuses to acknowledge that Germany hasn’t been a front-line state in nearly a decade.
Finally, there’s Carl Kilo (Spark It Up!) who resorts to bring back the old “Love Canal” reference (with complete ignorance about the source of that metaphor), and when he’s not imitating the left in such a way, he’s spreading around rumors by Vince (TC) of Marshall-Warner collusion. Greg L (Black Velvet Bruce Li) put it best in the comments to TC’s nonsense:
Ridiculous. Marshall despises Warner’s policies. Besides that, the Marshall folks believe they’re going to win the convention (with good reason), so there’s no point to trying to defeat a Gilmore candidacy that isn’t going to exist come Saturday evening.
Here we get to the crux of the problem. Based on this barrage, I can only conclude that Gilmore is not just losing – he and his supporters know he’s losing. Thus, it’s everything-but-the-kitchen-sink time.
Still, none of this upsets me (or any other Marshall backer). After all, the general election campaign will be a rough-and-tumble affair, and it’s best we thicken the skin as soon as possible. In fact, that’s the entire purpose of a vigorous nomination campaign; nice to see the Gilmore people are finally understanding that (well, sort of).
Cross-posted to Bloggers 4 Bob Marshall
May 28, 2008 at 8:55 am |
The MSM – WSLS in Roanoke in print and TV broadcast throughout SWVA brings up the Marshall Love Canal and the many other asinine statements made by your boy Bob. The tv show and printed text are linked in my post. Your boy Bobs own words and the talk circulating the coalfields.
Ignorant about love canal? I was a working teenager when that went down in NY. You better check yourself.
Throwing insults out on blogs with a keyboard is a two edged sword. I don’t play that game because sooner or later you meet face to face and it makes for a awkward situation.
You can spin it all you want, but after Saturday your serving of crow pie will be huge. The only ones desperate are Marshall and his bloggers. Don’t insult readers intelligence…The desperation is coming out loud and clear.
May 28, 2008 at 9:15 am |
Still waiting on the car tax removal…
May 28, 2008 at 9:27 am |
Kilo,
Then you should have known that Marshall was referring to the Love Canal fiasco when he made his comment. Instead, you just followed the lefty line on it. That was the source of my ignorance comment, because if you did know, you did a good job of hiding it.
As for your holier-than-thou nonsense, please. You’re just as willing to load and fire snark as the rest of us. That’s what I like about you.
As for “meeting face to face,” I hope we do on Saturday. Whoever wins the Senate nominee, we have to get Jeff Frederick elected Chairman!
May 28, 2008 at 9:34 am |
DJ,
I’m staying on the sidelines in the race for a few reasons so I’ve gotta ask —-
What makes you think that Bob Marshall has any chance of beating Mark Warner this year ?
Winning is what matters in politics, after all.
May 28, 2008 at 10:31 am |
Good question, Doug.
The fact is, Warner has never won without a large chunk of right-wing votes, He came close in 1996 thanks to SWVA support over anger with John Warner’s treatment of Oliver North. Five years later, Mark Earley’s weaknesses on guns and taxes opened the door for Warner to do it again (and this time he won).
Marshall would slam that door shut; Gilmore would leave it open on life issues – and that’s the least of it. Also, Marshall will get the GOP base out (Gilmore can’t), which is critical since the Dem base has been itching to get out and vote for months.
Finally, NoVa knows Marshall, which is a big deal, and will make it a lot harder for the typical Dem hit-job to stick. I think it says something that while the lefties outside NoVa are falling for that crap, the NoVa lefties aren’t bothering to try – they’ve seen it fail once too often.
I do think it’s a tough road for Marshall, but I believe he has a far better chance to win than Gilmore.
May 28, 2008 at 10:58 am |
Doug,
With Rasmusen polls putting Gilmore at only 15% likeable, and Doug Wilder’s polls showing him with 40%+ unfavorable among general voters, do YOU think Gilmore has any chance of beating Warner? He’s spent $800,000 so far marketing to voters about the ‘Warner v Gilmore’ election– completely ignoring the vote at hand hoping no one will notice– and he STILL has these awful poll numbers.
If I know with reasonable certainty that his boat won’t float in water, I’ll take my chances with a person of steadfast Republican prinicples and let the voters decide whether they want a flaming liberal or a true conservative. Virginia is still pretty red overall, so I think Marshall will be fine in November. These polls show unrecoverably, that Gilmore will not however. If he wins this weekend, and it’s a big if, I’ll owe Gilmore a big steak dinner in November.
May 28, 2008 at 12:39 pm |
Eric,
No I don’t. Both because of the incompetence of the Virginia GOP and because of the fact that the National GOP is heading for disaster, I think Warner will win easily no matter who the nominee is absent some bombshell scandal.
May 28, 2008 at 12:41 pm |
DJ,
The motivated voters in November are going to be the Democrats and people who are sick of the Bush Administration. Warner is going to clean up in Northern Virginia and that will probably be enough to give him the win, and put him in a Senate that could very well have 59 other Democrats in it.
I’d like to wish it weren’t so, but that is the way things are looking right now.