How far will filthy lying Republican racist candidates go to win an election???

In the just completed Republican Primary for Governor of South Carolina the only female candidate, Nikki Haley just missed winning an outright majority and will face a runoff election. She gained 49% of the vote against 3 opponents. She will face a runoff against the candidate who finished 2nd with 22% of the primary vote

She was a dark horse unknown candidate who leaped to the forefront in this race. Once she became the front runner this is what occurred:

1. One guy (a republican functionary) claimed he had an illicit affair with her. Then the guy vanished from sight. NO PROOF

2. A second guy (a republican functionary) claimed he had an illicit affair with her. Again NO PROOF. Then the 2nd guy slipped away into the night.

3. Finally a thrid guy just called her a "raghead". (She is of Indian Sikh origin) Direct dirty racist attack.

Well it works...and it doesn't work. She had by far the largest number of votes in the primary...getting 49% of the vote. The 2nd candidate got 22%.

51% of the voters in this republican primary voted against her.

How many voted against her because the first guy made an outrageous claim....totally unsubstantiated...then slunk away? How many voted against her because the 2nd guy made the same kind of unsubstantiated claim and slunk away? Finally, how many voted against her because a candidate just knowingly racially slammed her?

(why aren't the bank accounts of the two guys who claimed illicit affairs being checked? Who paid those guys???)

Who would ever trust this party for ever speaking the truth about anything?

Finally, just think about this.....these were the lies/attacks made against someone in their own party. How far will these lying filthy people go when they run in a general election from someone in a different party?

Who can trust them???

 

Who can trust the Democrats when LBJ himself stated:

“I’ll have those niggers voting Democratic for the next 200 years” Lyndon B. Johnson

Sounds like pandering to me.

Sort of erases the whole "One side is racist and the other isn't" philosophy so, doesn't it?

 

Ya really gotta quit sugar coating it when you write your titles Earl... we can hardly tell which side you're on sometimes.

 

Damn...I was trying to be subtle.

but seriously....who paid those two guys???

 

Who knows. Does it matter? Allegations of sex scandal are an old tried and true tactic. This is the nature of American politics. I find myself flashing back to John Edwards. The term "raghead" is pretty offensive, but again who cares? Use of those types of terms lowers public opinion of the person using them, not the person being referred to. I consider the same to be true of those referring to Tea Party people as racists.

 

O_Nation: As a rightist, its easy for you to shrug off the most grotesque examples of Republican politics. Oh yeah...then some Dem does some little thing and you turn it into the worst experience in the history of the world

Serious lies often dominate the GOP political message. Those types of horrendously ugly and salacious attacks 10 years ago in the South Carolina Primary might have resulted in George Bush being President. Mighty big consequences, no matter how one looks at it.

As to John Edwards...a totally different story. John Edwards turned out to be a lying dirtball. The truth came out. He finally had to acknowledge it.

 

Your title is also misleading, for a minute I thought some of the guys who post in this forum are running for the office.

 

Only 25% true. I try to shrug off grotesque examples of all politics. I also don't buy into political hype like some of the right wingers trying to get excited about Obama saying he is looking for an "ass to kick", or Biden saying, "this is a big "f*ckin deal". I could care less.

And the Democratic political message, both while running for office, and while in it. One of my favorite recent ones from our president was, "Passing this healthcare bill is vital to help our struggling economy".

Sure. Personally, I'd take Bush over McCain any day, so I was happy with the outcome in that case. It didn't make the politics any less dirty. McCain did something similar to Romney in the 2008 primaries, by having his people caucus for Huckabee in certain states, and I'd take Romney over either of those two so it was more upsetting. What can I say, politics is a dirty game.

How do you know Edwards is a different story? I bet you called the people accusing him of cheating lying scumbags as well, until they produced incontrovertible evidence. It may very well be this woman had affairs with those men. I won't pay the story much attention until some real non-hearsay evidence comes to light, and I doubt she saved a dress with semen on it. If it turns out she had an affair, I won't look at that as a slam on the Republican brand either. People have affairs, Democrats and Republicans alike. When Massa as a "non-homosexual" was accused of tickling his male interns, I didn't look at that as a blight on the Democratic brand either. Its just a creepy guy elected to public office that happens to be a Democrat. If the same guy wants to raise my taxes to pay for public health care and bailouts, that is where the "brand" starts to get damaged.

 

O_Nation: unfortunately you are off the mark now....not at all close to grasping the real truth as when you noted the following

 

I can tell I'm going to see that quote a lot.=)

 

from time to time

 

Hey David - Isnt the whole problem with racism about attributing pejorative generalities to an entire population? If so, does the title not essentially do the same thing?

I realize Republicans arent a race, but my point is observing a trait in some Republicans isnt an indictment of all Republicans... and it'd be pretty hard to look at history in general and not just say that nasty habit is one that's been used all too often by selected members of every political party ever in existence?

I'm not belittling the devious and ugly nature of the topic, you're right, if someone lied about that they deserve scorn... just not certain it warrants a condemnation of one party when multiple parties have been guilty of the practice. Personally I'd be just fine with the idea of haviong pretty much all p[oliticians spayed or neutered for about the same reason we do it to stray animals, except that really isnt IMO a fair comparison... I happen to think stray animals have more integrity.

Anyway, food for thought... hope all is well.

 

I just think it's hilarious that earlpearl pretends to care about the Republican primaries. Just as soon as Haley wins the runoff, he's sure to change his tune and suddenly she'll be the devil incarnate.

 

Rob:

1. It turns out politics is important. It creates policies that have critical importance in people's lives. We go to wars. People die and are injured. It impacts our economy. People's financial livelyhoods are impacted. It can increase or decrease opportunity. People's long lives are impacted by it. Choosing good policies is very important. It should devlop from real discussions of those policies not some fantasy claims by politicians or not from brutal character assassination.

2. Politics is incredibly dirty. Its not just dirty in the US. Its dirty everywhere. I got real close to some politicians a while back. It was friggin filthy. I was in the commercial real estate business at the time. That is all about money. Then its about money. Its brutal, competitive, and dirty. But compared to politics it was like Sunday School. Also competing in business doesn't send people to wars, or create policies that impact their entire lives dependant on the color of their skin, where they grew up, or other factors.

3. Hard to believe but I'm not a died in the wool all the time liberal communist pinko democrat. I've voted for and supported Republicans. Deep down I like business decisions that make economic sense and I believe in pretty liberal human freedoms. I've got biases that over time I've recognized and tried to work through. Homosexuality spooks me out. But in the early 1990's I saw a Gay man die of aids. Over the course of a year, he spent a lot of time living at his brother's(my best friend's) home. I saw this guy wither away over the course of a year. It was grotesque. Then he died.

It pissed me off. He died a little before the aid's "cocktails" of drugs were developed. Those medical cocktails have saved thousands of lives.

During the 1980's the flow of money towards Aids research was hampered, slowed, and restricted by Conservative Republican Politics. Possibly, because of that stupid politics, more people died. Maybe the medical "cocktails" would have been discovered before the guy I knew died. Maybe he would still be alive if the research funding had not been restricted by politics. Maybe a lot more talented people would be alive.

Politics is important.

Brutal character assasination became a popular technique well-developed by the Republicans in the 1980's. Its since taken off. Its often a brutal pack of character lies. It always deflects from real issues. It always goes to character assasination.

Dems do it also. They don't do it as often, and they don't do it as brutally as do Republicans. If they did, some of the actions taken during the Bush administration by Republicans would have gained a sick notoriety, not unlike what the GOP labels Dems with now. What Sarah Palin labeled as death panels was legislation taken directly from the GOP driven drug expansion legislation from the mid 2000's. Nobody labeled that as death panels back then.

(and I thought I was being mild and subtle with that title)

The South Carolina primary was particularly ugly. First one guy claimed an illicit affair. Then he slunk away. No proof. No substantiation. No nothing. All personal attack. No substance. Nothing about issues. Nothing about the fact that the South Carolina economy is in terrible shape with one of the worst unemployment rates in the nation.

Then a second guy did the same. He slunk away also.

These two guys ripped into this woman's personal life, the lives of her family, husband and kids in a brutal way.

Someone should be following a trail of money. Some media should be tracking those two guys bank accounts and following who paid them to make such brutal attacks.

Finally someone called her a raghead. South Carolina has some of the worst unemployment in the nation....and some guy who wants people to put him in office so he can get tax payers to pay his salary, he can be a big shot and he can determine the welfare of others....decided to call her a raghead...and not talk about real stuff.

Rob: You don't like the title. Sorry. Point taken. (I still think its subtle)

btw: when I got exposed to inner politics and saw how friggin dirty it was....the people I knew were Dems.

 

Not disagreeing bout politics being important, nor that it's nasty. Participated in the local version (school board and city level) for a number of years and walked away feeling like I need a bath. My objection is to your suggestion...

The idea that politics got dirtier in our own lifetime is maybe a nostalgic history sorta thing, but US politics was brutal from the git-go. The Aaron Burr / Alexander Hamilton feud that resulted in a duel to the death was about character assasination. That goes back to our earliest elections, to the founding fathers, and the practice has been unabated since.

Andrew Jackson held his political foes liable for his wifes death due to the stress the of the scandalous things said about her marital fidelity, some whispered, some published. It has always been thus. Do a search on the ditty "Ma ma where's my pa. Gone to the White House haw haw haw." [That during the Grover Cleveland 1884 campaign.] Do a little reading on the Tail-gunner Joe McCarthy era. We have a nasty political history from start to finish.

Not saying its right... it is not, but I am saying it was in existence before the GOP and will live long after it's gone. The idea that the Dems dont get into that practice near as much as the GOP is simply a matter of perspective. Basically it isnt a practice related to one party. Heck, Obama managed to gain office early in his career with the aid of a sex scandal that took out his opposition. The tactics of Acorn in the recent election are not exactly free of the taint of corruption either.

And of course my own state's LBJ was probably one of the most ruthless political beings to ever walk the halls of the white house or congress... and though he didnt create the practice of stuffing a ballot box, his notoriety for utilizing the practice inside Texas is widespread. His ability to "twist arms" is often lauded as a political strength, but he was pretty rough about it.

We have no argument about the evils of political mudslinging, just pointing out the mud goes in all directions and from varied sources.
The GOP has neither a patent nor a monopoly on grimy mendacity.

 

The racial slamming undubitably helped her.

The sex allegations were from previous supporters - supposedly bringing to lite the candidates actual demeanor than the political rhetoric she adopted to win the election - the same tactic used by Sanford, her protégé, who was forced to admit the affair when it surfaced.

Politicians should be held accountable for their action and it is the worst of them that deceive in their message to acquire votes they do not deserve - lets be Republican for a moment and demand both Haley and the conspirators be required to take a lie-detector test and publish the results, neither should have an objection if they are innocent.
.

 

Comic relief. On the one hand, we have Earlpearl, a self proclaimed leftist disparaging the Republicans for "falsely accusing" this woman of extramarital affairs. On the other, we have BreezeWood assuming guilt until proven otherwise, and calling for a summary political execution of the woman prior to her trial. All the hullabaloo over sexual morality and what goes on in the bedroom, which is not even on the list of Democratic values. Perhaps we should accuse every Democratic candidate of being a homosexual and demand they take lie detector tests to prove they are not! Do you think Democrats in general would approve of such a thing, or punish candidates at the polls for being outed?

I think you need to go back to the Garden, pull some weed(s), and open up a medical marijuana store here in California. You'd fit right in, and it would focus on your strengths.

 

Yep, Rob. It has been brutally ugly since the beginning of the nation and probably brutally ugly in other nations before that going back to the beginning of politics.

Yup LBJ twisted it every which way. probable yup to all your other references too.

What can I say? I strongly assume the two fellas (scumbags) that "announced" they had affairs with the lady and then went off to hide somewhere should probably be turned into eunichs (by my form of justice). That is after its found out who payed them to do that. As for the guy w/ the "raghead" comment. If that guy is currently on the govt payroll in some fashion, he should be fired. (that is at the least) frankly I got far more serious consequences in mind for that guy.

and O_nation: yer game is way way off. You were on target when you cited this..........

 

You are always right, so long as you agree with me!

 

BTW O_Nation: Do you STILL suscribe to this out of whack Right Wing Republican BS about sexual morality being a Republican issue?? Come on we have GOP moralist politicians who prey on young boys, GOP moralist polititicians who are closet gays, GOP moralists who have illicit affairs, GOP moralists who hire hookers, who have their wealthy parents pay off people to keep their mouths shut, and of course GOP moralists who spend their time in airport bathroom stalls trying to get a quick anonymous manly BJ.

Somehow this high and mighty GOP moralist issue thing is one of the great political BS jobs of recent times.

As to the idea about Dems taking a lie detector test to see if their gay or not...its more likely that the Gay Dem pols will tell you they are gay...while the only way you'll find out about the GOP closet gays....well you'll probably have to climb into that closet or an airport stall, or hang out with underage boys. Helluva nifty idea