The Republican spin machine has to make stuff up about Matt Varilek to distract voters from talking about Rep. Kristi Noem's rotten record. Democrats can simply respond by pointing to a real empty chair...
...Congresswoman Noem's far too frequently empty chair in House Agriculture Committee meetings.
...or how about Kristi's empty chair at yesterday's State Fair candidates' debate:
I know it's an easy mistake to make, but that's not Clint Eastwood at the mic. That's Matt Varilek, your next Congressman. We Dems don't need celebrities and rodeo princesses to tell us what's good for South Dakota. We need real intelligent leaders who show up to work.
Update 09:17 MDT... tangentially related: Obama advisor David Plouffe says on ABC this morning, "We're all Clint Eastwood fans here in the Obama campaign."
Now there's a great campaign commercial idea. Good work Cory. The empty chair at Ag Committee meetings. The empty chair at the State Fair debate. Varilek ought to hold more debates and use the empty chair technique when Noem doesn't show up. He ought to invite Noem to town halls all over the state and bring a chair for her. Then run 2 tv commercials. One talking about all of the empty chairs. Then another talking about where Noem has been. California raising money, lobbyist parties in DC raising money, Sioux Falls country clubs raising money.
Noem is a garden variety typical politician (Garden Noem). People are tired of typical politicians. Varilek ought to tell people straight up that if you're tired of typical politicians with their bad performance, lack of work ethic, and casual disregard for meeting with constituents - then give him a shot, and if he performs as bad as Noem then they can remove him in 2 years like they ought to remove her now.
Garden Noem! Clever! Thanks, R!
We need the graphic.
I think Jon Steward said it best on his Friday show. The empty chair completely explains Republican behavior:
http://www.thedailyshow.com/full-episodes/fri-august-31-2012-
Spot on, Cory! Matt should take an empty chair with him on every campaign stop across the state. He doesn't need to speak to the chair like Eastwood did, but, just place it on the stage next to his and the point is made...LOL!
Don't surprised by a visit from Chelsea Clinton on behalf of Matt Varilek's campaign:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/08/31/chelsea-clinton-our-time_n_1846694.html
Tony: "Gran Torino id"—that's a great line! And you're right: the whole segment is Stewart at his best: funny, angry, and hitting the bullseye,
Oh, and on that graphic: didn't Mr. Ehrisman make a "Garden Noem" graphic once? I can't remember for sure....
Varilek should have Nancy Pelosi and Obama in South Dakota. Let them both blast the retrograde obstructionist liars as they stress the importance of getting the Republican do-nothing Congress replaced with realists.
If you have not seen it, the last Bill Moyers and Co. linked Grover Norquist, Koch Brothers, Ralph Reed, Jack Abramoff sp? and Native American gaming with ffcoalition.org. The cynical exploitation of religion is obvious. They are playing them like a cheap fiddle.
http://billmoyers.com/episode/full-show-the-resurrection-of-ralph-reed/#
I was at Noem's town hall meeting last week. She said that they cut 16B from farmers so we were going to cut 16B from food programs also. So did they look for waste and find 16B or did they look for 16B and call it waste.
The latter, Roger. Wow! Political thinking like that shows how petty and unanalytical Noem is.