Common Sense

We just have a whole bunch of stuff about Van Taylor today.

First off, the GOP is “cutting and running” from TX-17.

Waco – In a devastating blow to the Van Taylor campaign, the National Republican Congressional Committee (NRCC) has canceled its planned television ad buy of over $1.5 million after conducting a poll in TX-17. The news followed on the heels of the Taylor campaign’s October Quarterly Federal Elections Commission (FEC) report which showed just $102,495 cash-on-hand as of Sept. 30th, while Congressman Chet Edwards’ campaign had an 11:1 cash-on-hand advantage, with $1.14 million in the bank.

According to an October 12th independent expenditure report with the FEC, the NRCC paid for a poll of the Edwards-Taylor race last week.  Groups such as the NRCC are required to report independent expenditures to the FEC within 24 hours.

According to five television stations in the DFW market, the NRCC on Monday canceled its planned television ad buy on behalf of Taylor.  The cancelled Taylor buy was valued at over $1.5 million and was scheduled to run in the last two weeks of the campaign.

“Two years ago, the NRCC ran over a million dollars of ads in the DFW market alone in support of Chet’s opponent.  Mr. Taylor can spin the bad news any way he wants, but the fact is that after reviewing its own poll last week, the NRCC has pulled the plug on the Van Taylor campaign,” said Edwards Communication Director, Jessica Schafer. “That’s not just bad news, that’s devastating news for a campaign that was already in trouble.”

They are “withdrawing” their campaign committee dollars in favor of races where the numbers don’t look so bleak. See what I did there? I made allusions to how Republicans won’t exit Iraq no matter how bad the reality is, but will leave Taylor, who served in Iraq. That’s kind of funny, but not really.

As Asshole said when he saw the Trib front today, “He’s rich, he’ll be fine.” What with all that Exxon-Mobil stock… I’m sorry, that’s really a low blow.

The Intern T-shirt Controversy made Robyn Hadley’s Out There column for Texas Weekly, even though I didn’t and I was pissed.

In Waco’s CD-17, incumbent Democrat Chet Edwards appears to be on his way to winning another election, in spite of a majority-Republican district and an Iraqi war veteran opponent.

Right of Texas, which has spent much of the campaign season promoting Republican congressional candidate Van Taylor, posted a photo of one of Edwards’ interns with a desecrated flag. A few people responded that you can’t judge a person by their interns (is that the same argument they used with Monica Lewinsky?).

Vince Leibowitz at Capitol Annex said, “… it illustrates exactly why Van Taylor is resorting to such filthy tactics as leaking photos they probably found on MySpace or Facebook of young campaign volunteers or Democratic activists who support Edwards and claiming they are ‘interns’ doing irreverent things to flags.”

One man’s desecration is another man’s irreverance…

I haven’t talked to anyone on the Taylor campaign yet, but I’m willing to give them the benefit of the doubt about leaking photos. I’m sure they could have, but I don’t think they did. I’m more sure that RoT, or one of his readers, was cruising through Xanga and came across it.

I really don’t think its that big a deal, though. So, a guy who claims to be an atheist volunteered on a campaign and also has a personal blog where he posted a picture of himself and a desecrated flag. It’s not illegal to desecrate a flag. It’s not illegal to volunteer for a campaign. All it shows someone with really poor taste and no appreciation for real art. Edwards has co-sponsored numerous flag-burning and flag-desecration amendments, so its not like he supports this kind of thing.

I’ll draw an analogy. On my Myspace profile, I have a picture of me and Wes Clark from this summer’s convention. Even worse, I’m also wearing a Chet Edwards sticker, and I just realized its also the very same t-shirt I have on right now. One of my Top 8 friends is Sasha Grey, hardcore porn star. Does that mean Wes Clark supports harcore pornographers, or that Chet is a fan of her movies? Of course not, and you’d have to be an idiot to draw that conclusion. Same thing with Mueller and Edwards; just because an intern does something on his own time doesn’t mean he has the consent and support of the entire campaign.

The real question is why would an atheist go to the world’s largest Baptist University? One of the copy desk women last night posited that he was a “non-practicing atheist” which would be an even bigger story than what he did to a flag.

We just have a whole bunch of stuff about Van Taylor today.

First off, the GOP is “cutting and running” from TX-17.

Waco – In a devastating blow to the Van Taylor campaign, the National Republican Congressional Committee (NRCC) has canceled its planned television ad buy of over $1.5 million after conducting a poll in TX-17. The news followed on the heels of the Taylor campaign’s October Quarterly Federal Elections Commission (FEC) report which showed just $102,495 cash-on-hand as of Sept. 30th, while Congressman Chet Edwards’ campaign had an 11:1 cash-on-hand advantage, with $1.14 million in the bank.

According to an October 12th independent expenditure report with the FEC, the NRCC paid for a poll of the Edwards-Taylor race last week.  Groups such as the NRCC are required to report independent expenditures to the FEC within 24 hours.

According to five television stations in the DFW market, the NRCC on Monday canceled its planned television ad buy on behalf of Taylor.  The cancelled Taylor buy was valued at over $1.5 million and was scheduled to run in the last two weeks of the campaign.

“Two years ago, the NRCC ran over a million dollars of ads in the DFW market alone in support of Chet’s opponent.  Mr. Taylor can spin the bad news any way he wants, but the fact is that after reviewing its own poll last week, the NRCC has pulled the plug on the Van Taylor campaign,” said Edwards Communication Director, Jessica Schafer. “That’s not just bad news, that’s devastating news for a campaign that was already in trouble.”

They are “withdrawing” their campaign committee dollars in favor of races where the numbers don’t look so bleak. See what I did there? I made allusions to how Republicans won’t exit Iraq no matter how bad the reality is, but will leave Taylor, who served in Iraq. That’s kind of funny, but not really.

As Asshole said when he saw the Trib front today, “He’s rich, he’ll be fine.” What with all that Exxon-Mobil stock… I’m sorry, that’s really a low blow.

The Intern T-shirt Controversy made Robyn Hadley’s Out There column for Texas Weekly, even though I didn’t and I was pissed.

In Waco’s CD-17, incumbent Democrat Chet Edwards appears to be on his way to winning another election, in spite of a majority-Republican district and an Iraqi war veteran opponent.

Right of Texas, which has spent much of the campaign season promoting Republican congressional candidate Van Taylor, posted a photo of one of Edwards’ interns with a desecrated flag. A few people responded that you can’t judge a person by their interns (is that the same argument they used with Monica Lewinsky?).

Vince Leibowitz at Capitol Annex said, “… it illustrates exactly why Van Taylor is resorting to such filthy tactics as leaking photos they probably found on MySpace or Facebook of young campaign volunteers or Democratic activists who support Edwards and claiming they are ‘interns’ doing irreverent things to flags.”

One man’s desecration is another man’s irreverance…

I haven’t talked to anyone on the Taylor campaign yet, but I’m willing to give them the benefit of the doubt about leaking photos. I’m sure they could have, but I don’t think they did. I’m more sure that RoT, or one of his readers, was cruising through Xanga and came across it.

I really don’t think its that big a deal, though. So, a guy who claims to be an atheist volunteered on a campaign and also has a personal blog where he posted a picture of himself and a desecrated flag. It’s not illegal to desecrate a flag. It’s not illegal to volunteer for a campaign. All it shows someone with really poor taste and no appreciation for real art. Edwards has co-sponsored numerous flag-burning and flag-desecration amendments, so its not like he supports this kind of thing.

I’ll draw an analogy. On my Myspace profile, I have a picture of me and Wes Clark from this summer’s convention. Even worse, I’m also wearing a Chet Edwards sticker, and I just realized its also the very same t-shirt I have on right now. One of my Top 8 friends is Sasha Grey, hardcore porn star. Does that mean Wes Clark supports harcore pornographers, or that Chet is a fan of her movies? Of course not, and you’d have to be an idiot to draw that conclusion. Same thing with Mueller and Edwards; just because an intern does something on his own time doesn’t mean he has the consent and support of the entire campaign.

The real question is why would an atheist go to the world’s largest Baptist University? One of the copy desk women last night posited that he was a “non-practicing atheist” which would be an even bigger story than what he did to a flag.