True to form, with the prospect of some of the most right-wing members of the legislature losing their seats to Democrats, Republicans in Jersey have decided to play the terror card. September 11 is not a distant memory for most in this state, and the GOP knows it. So they're really left with no other way to go after an increasing Democratic majority than by appealing to fear.
The New York Times wrote up a comprehensive review of their tactics this morning. Here are the most galling examples. I think you'll agree that the charges of terrorist sympathy are stretches at best and straight up lies at worst.
In Bergen County's 39th LD, incumbent Senator and right-wing lunatic Gerald Cardinale is attacking Democratic challenger Joe Ariyan because Ariyan's law partner is an Arab-American who is involved with the American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee. The ADC is a favorite target of David Horowitz, whose front-groups are clearly the source of the Cardinale campaign's talking points. But according to Cardinale's own wife, the state chapter of the Anti Defamation League has refused to condemn the ADC, denying that they are aligned with terrorists, calling them "benign." This whisper campaign against Ariyan has only started peaking its head in the press, but it's widely expected that the GOP will be doing a heavy direct mail campaign on this to close out the election.
In Burlington County's 8th LD, Democratic Assembly challenger Tracy Riley is being attacked because her husband is the court-appointed public defender for one of the men accused of plotting a terror attack on Fort Dix. Mail sent to voters in the district shows photos of masked men with guns overlaid with the question, "Tracey Riley: Whose values will she represent in Trenton? Ours? Or theirs?"
In Toms River's mayoral race, Democratic challenger Richard Strada is being attacked by the incumbent Republican's campaign for holding an interfaith panel as the dean at Ocean County College, which was attended by an associate of Sheik Omar Abdel Rahman. The associate, Mohamed Nabeel Elmasry, was not invited by Strada, who was also unaware of his association with Rahman.
In the case of both Ariyan and Strada, their Republican opponents had conducted polling (some called it push-polling) that implied that the Democrats supported terrorism. And in all three races, Republican favorites are feeling the heat from Democratic challengers.
Sadly, this is what we've become used to from Republicans in New Jersey and across the nation. Since September 11, every time they're in trouble, they pull the proverbial fire alarm and scream terrorism at the top of their lungs. It's interesting to note that this time, the media doesn't seem to be buying it. Though the Times is the first to give this trend its attention this election cycle, PoliticsNJ reporters Matt Friedman and Max Pizarro have been on these stories from the start (check here, here, and here for examples).
We can only hope that the voters are as astute as the reporters in sifting through these Republican scare tactics and recognizing them for what they are -- baseless garbage.
While explaining Tom Kean Jr. talking points about how people care about corruption at the "wrap up" press conference, Deborah Howlett in the article, "For Kean, no regrets about run for Senate" cites the upticks in the polls after the that the U.S. Attorney's office had issued subpoenas to a nonprofit agency in Hudson County.
They go on to claim that the benefit of the story to Kean was short lived because of ads run by Menendez. She goes in to state that Kean had "no money" to respond to the ads.
No mention that Kean, then used the story to claim baselessly claim that it was Menendez and not the nonprofit agency that was under investion. Nor does she bother to mention other claims in regards to the agency were refuted by both the Star Ledger and the New York Time. No mention that he had "no money" to respond because he continued to run with more baseless claims that continued to tarnish Keans image and improve Menendez's position in the polls.
Trying already (or so it seems) to prepare for the State Assembly Elections next year, Tom Wilson Chairman of the State Republican Party baselessly claims:
"Bob Menendez didn't win an election with people liking him or trusting him," Wilson said. "He was an alternative that they preferred based on a message. . . . More people disliked him, distrusted him, than liked him."
Just how did Wilson come up to this determination that it was "just the message" and that people voted for Menendez despite "not liking him" or "distrusting him"? Oh, I forgot, the GOP doesn't have to have any actual facts to back up their claims. They just say it, so thus it "must be true."
I guess after all the lying that Kean Jr. did in this past election, are they really going to talk about "distrust"? That really is no longer a good talking point for the State GOP.
The elections are done and over with. The lies and the tainting and the misinformation can stop now. Right? Well, I guess not if you are Mike Kelly of The Record.
He chooses to blame Kean for the loss, more than giving credit to Menendez, or just leaving as, "the voters have spoken." And that is of course his right. The whole point of view thing. I can understand that.
But he doesn't stop there. He continues the Kean lies stating that Menedez was under Federal Investigation and insinuates that it was Menendez that was served with the subpeona, and not the charity that rented the building Menendez owned.
He then trys to blow it out of proportion by claiming Menendez benefitted, "to the tune of $330,000 over a decade." Yes that is right OVER A DECADE. Let us see, that is $33,000/yr or about $2750/month for 4000 sq. feet of commercial space in Union City. Oh hell, why am I reiterating it all when the truth is right here.
This is all documented and disproven. Why are they continuing, even now after the elections to claim this as fact?
While places like Media Matters do an excellent job covering the Nationals, it seems we have to start patroling and monitoring our own local news sources as well for this sort of Faux News Channel type of "reporting"
During the next month, I am going to tell you what the Kean campaign is going to do. The Kean people have done some internal polling and they believe that the only way they can win is by emphasizing "corruption, corruption, corruption."
So they are going to keep the empty right wing suit away from mikes (unless he is giving a scripted speech) and run millions of dollars of ads about "corruption, corruption, corruption."
Like it or not, Bob Menendez must counter this. Fortunately it's fairly easy.
Straight out of the Rove/Bush Smearing Your Opponent for Dummies [2006 edition] playbook, the Kean Jr campaign is trotting out new accusations against Senator Menendez on a nearly daily basis. It doesn't matter that the they're baseless - they just keep throwing things out hoping something sticks. The latest smear du jour:
State Sen. Diane Allen (R-Burlington) and Assemblywoman Alison Littell McHose (R-Sussex) claim Menendez violated House ethics rules by working to prevent a $3.5 billion merger of Univision and Hispanic Broadcasting Corp. in 2003 while owning stock in the rival Spanish Broadcasting System.
The interesting thing here is to note who Kean Jr and the Republicans picked to launch this attack. The pickings on the GOP bench must be pretty slim considering they had to resort to Assemblywoman Allison Littell McHose.
Today the New York Times reveals that the Kean Jr campaign is self-funding a swiftboat-style smear campaign against Senator Menendez. These repeatedly discredited lies are so sleazy that nobody else - not the RNC, RSCC, or any independent groups - are willing to fund them, so the campaign has to do it themselves. It's too dirty even for Karl Rove, but as they say, Tom Kean Jr personally approved this message. The New York Times pulls back the curtains (emphasis mine):
The Republican candidate for Senate in New Jersey, Thomas Kean Jr., intends to make a campaign film that accuses his Democratic opponent, Robert Menendez, of "being wrapped up in the rackets for 30 years" despite public records and statements by former federal prosecutors that contradict Mr. Kean's most serious charges.
Mr. Kean's chief campaign consultant, Matt Leonardo, a strategist for Republican candidates, disclosed the plans in an interview and said the film would be "very similar" in purpose to the commercials used to attack the military record of John Kerry during the 2004 presidential race.
Both the New York Times and the Star Ledger recently exposed the Kean Jr campaign as a bunch of liars, but they're going to keep digging themselves in the hole anyway.
Mr. Kean's charges are not, however, supported by the public record and were repudiated by independent authorities including the four assistant United States attorneys who prosecuted Union City officials of that era for racketeering and corruption. There is no truth, those former officials say, to the Kean campaign's charge that Mr. Menendez made a deal to keep himself out of prison.
....
Mr. Leonardo did not directly dispute that information, published Sunday in The New York Times and The Star Ledger of Newark, but described it as a "set of views" and said other people held different views.
The only "different" view you can have from the truth is a lie. To be fair, there is one big difference between this smear campaign and the attacks on John Kerry:
Both he and Ms. Hazelbaker said that the source — campaign money as opposed to a 527 committee — was the primary distinction between the Swift boat commercials and the planned film on Mr. Menendez.
You read that correctly - they seem to be proud of the fact that the campaign is directly funding this. I've always assumed that Kean Jr wasn't really in this to win, but rather to set himself up for a future race. The way the campaign has been completely mismanaged, it's hard to conclude otherwise - but this latest news seals the deal. Nobody serious about winning would hold on to such wildly incompetent campaign staff. A broken magic 8 ball could be more effective.
What Junior might not realize it that it's his indifference to this idiocy that will doom his future prospects, too. What began as his only asset - the Kean family name - is being eviscerated by his immature, selfish ambitions. One of the largest newspapers in the country has exposed him as a liar, but he stubbornly pushes forward with his sleazy lies. If he hasn't already, his actions will ruin the chances of any future political ambitions he may have. The formerly respected "Kean" name will become a burden on the rest of his career and nothing but a shameful legacy to future generations.
In a New York Times piece out today titled Conservative Blogs are More Effective, Corzine's campaign blogger Matt Stoller cites the example of a New Jersey conservative blog that spread rumors about Corzine which were picked up by radio stations and eventually news papers:
Shortly before the election, a conservative Web site claimed that politically damaging information about Corzine was about to surface in the media. It didn't. But New Jersey talk-radio shock jocks quoted the online speculation, inflicting public-relations damage on Corzine anyway.
These lies were spread by the blog Enlighten-NJ, and we exposed the situation over a month ago. It has been 46 days since the website threatened that an incriminating tape of a drunk Corzine spouting racial slurs would appear. The tape of course doesn't exist.
Despite being outed as a lying smearmonger by a national publication, Enlighten uses the occasion to rejoice about how effectively his blog was used to smear Jon Corzine in a blog post titled Conservative Blogs Rock! Considering his complete lack of ethical and moral standards, this shouldn't come as a surprise. He knew from the beginning that he was lying, and his plan all along was to smear a good man through cowardly anonymous posts. Why should we be surprised that he would celebrate the recognition of his accomplishment?
Earlier we wrote about the revelation that Forrester's campaign manager was the source of rumors surrounding Corzine's personal life. Enlighten-NJ started dropping hints of these and other rumors about two weeks ago. Finally, the last piece of the slime machine, the Drudge Report, helped push the rumors to the mainstream press. This set in motion blowback for the Forrester campaign, and dispirited the New Jersey electorate even further. Even Forrester condemned the rumors he set in motion (then later changed his mind), though he won't go so far as to fire or discipline his campaign manager Rick England or communications staffer Sherry Sylvester for pushing them.
But I'm not so interested in the smear campaign so much as what it portends for the future, and specifically 2006.
Let's start at the beginning. I wrote earlier about a blog called Enlighten-NJ. It appears to be part of a network of blogs funded to push rumors on Democrats (another one is here). This is version 2.0 of a strategy outlined here in Personal Democracy Forum: Daschle, Thune and the Blog-Storming of South Dakota...
Yesterday we noted that while Forrester condemned his campaign manager for spreading lies about Corzine, he was unwilling to fire him from his campaign. That alone says a lot about his complete lack of ethics. Now, he's flip-flopped and won't even condemn the smearmongering of his most senior campaign officials:
Forrester, meanwhile, backtracked from his statement Friday condemning his campaign manager, Rick England, for fueling a rumor that Corzine had an affair with a young female political staffer. The Star-Ledger reported yesterday that England cited the rumor in an August conversation with a lobbyist for the New Jersey Education Association.
On Friday night, Sylvester said Forrester had spoken to England and "condemned" his actions. But Forrester said the issue came to his attention only yesterday morning through The Star-Ledger report. He said he would review the circumstances. Asked if there was any chance he would discipline England, he said, "Let me get the facts first."
Either his spokesperson is a liar, or Forrester approves of these smear tactics. A man of real integrity however, wouldn't let that happen in his campaign:
Corzine, however, said if such gossip were spread by senior people on his campaign, there's no question what he would do: "I would ask him to step down."
It's been revealed by the Star Ledger that the smear campaign against Jon Corzine has been led by Doug Forrester's campaign manager, Rick England. Forrester initially denied that he even knew about it:
Forrester said he was unaware of the details of a rumor Republicans have been circulating about Corzine: that the U.S. senator had a sexual relationship with one of his young female aides.
Riiiiighht. Then, one of the people who had been fed the smear spoke up:
In August, England spoke with Jim Schroeder, a lobbyist for the New Jersey Education Association, about the decision by the state's largest teachers union to endorse Corzine.
Schroeder, in an interview yesterday, said England "did tell me I was making a mistake" by endorsing Corzine. He said England relayed the rumor about Corzine and the staffer, saying reporters were investigating it and that resulting stories would embarrass the Democrat's supporters.
Enlighten NJ continues the smearmongering by posting anonymous emails. His latest post on Thursday threatened to produce some damaging information on Jon Corzine within 2 days:
The next 48 hours could dramatically change the direction of this race.
It's been nearly 3 days now. Do you need an extension or do you plan to enlighten us at some point? We need all the facts in order to make an educated decision. Please don't keep us in the dark.
