Saturday, April 8th, 2006...3:55 pm
Since they Have Nothing Else, DeConcini is an Issue Again
One of the things that I have always found amusing is that any Republican losing an argument, anywhere, anytime for any reason loves to bring up Ted Kennedy. It’s like Chappaquiddick makes everything from Watergate, Iran-Contra, Jack Abramoff to, I dunno, this business with pedophile employees of Homeland Security, is okay because one Democratic Senator had a car accident thirty years ago.
Here in Arizona, the bugaboo is Dennis DeConcini. If you ever allege any sort of corruption against a Republican, they will bring up DeConcini. The fact that the guy has been out of office for over a decade doesn’t seem to matter, everything any Arizona Republican will ever do will be erased by his tenure. Of course, few can tell you what it is he did that was so wrong, but that isn’t really the point is it?
Never mind the fact that a room full of high ranking Republican officials in this state who have never been touched by any scandal as serious as what DeConcini was accused of doing would be, well, close to empty.
This came up when Gov. Janet Napolitano appointed Dennis DeConcini to the Arizona Board of Regents. Republicans were livid, those people that only a few months ago wanted Fife Symington to run for Governor again bringing up the Keating Five thing one more time. Say, who was that one Senator on the Keating Five, you know, the only one that never gave the money back?
Well, the DeConcini “issue” is back, this time in beautiful San Diego, California. The district was represented until very recently by a fella named Randy “Duke” Cunningham, or “Duke-stir” to the folks that visited him on his boat. The Democratic candidate is named Francine Busby, and she has able to get a lot of traction from Cunningham’s corruption and the wider corruption in the Republican caucus. She looks like she can win the special election. So, now the National Republican Congressional Committee is funding ads attacking her for her corruption. Why, she’s Albert Fall, Spiro Agnew and John Jenrette rolled up into one. How do we know this?
She…she…
It’s so hard to even say it, I am so disgusted…
She took a $500 check from Sen. DeConcini.
All the humanity! The horror of it all!
Yep, folks. That is the best they can do.
Here is the real fun part.
The NRCC took a check from Rep. Cunningham before he was sentenced, not a whimpy $500 either. They accepted nearly $12,000 before his guilty plea, then an additional $2000 after his guilty plea. So, they are running an ad essentially paid for by a guy who was convicted of some rather extravagant corruption to allege that someone else is corrupt for taking a pittance from a guy who was never convicted of anything.
I was trying to come up with something clever and snarky to say, but this one speaks for itself.
NB - Since the NRCC is so offended by the Keating Five, does that mean that John McCain will not be campaigning for Republican House candidates this year?
2 Comments
April 9th, 2006 at 3:23 am
The strategy here, as I understand it, is to basically smear Busby just enough so she doesn’t get an outright majority in the Special. Not everyone who hears the smear attempt will take the effort to understand the underlying farce. If they can keep Busby from getting 51%, then they can force a runoff.
Then, they’re hoping that the various voters who are currently supporting any number of GOP and Indy candidates will get behind the one top vote-getting Republican who will compete against Busby in the runoff.
The NRCC know what they’re doing is basically dishonest. You’d never want to do business with people that behave in such a scurrilous manner. Frankly, I wouldn’t want to have anything to do with them, at all. But somehow, in politics, their lack of integrity is roundly cheered by many. Which, of course, is quite hypocritical, dishonest and sad.
All the more reason why people in CA-50 who TRULY are people of integrity - Republicans, Democrats and Independents - should clearly repudiate the NRCC tactics and vote for Busby.
April 10th, 2006 at 8:23 am
Does this mean DeConcini is still living in La Jolla or was the contribution made before he was appointed to the Board of Regents?
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