Pat Powers and I both have our biases. Powers boosts Annette Bosworth-Haber on his blog because (1) the Bosworth candidacy runs interference for Powers's sponsor Marion Michael Rounds against any authentic conservative challenge and (2) because he thinks he'll get tips from Bosworth's husband Chad Haber that will aid in his campaign to impugn my journalism, professional credentials, character, wife, etc. (By the way, see this comment to understand why nothing has come of the breaking-and-entering smoke PP shamefully blew for the Bosworth-Habers.) I challenge the Bosworth-Haber candidacy because I smell a con job. Powers and I both blog to support those biases.
The difference is that Powers's bias causes him to miss the big news. This morning he selectively quotes an Alexandra Jaffe report on South Dakota candidates' visits to Washington to dignify Bosworth with headline placement right alongside Rounds. Powers quotes Jaffe on Bosworth's visit this week to the National Republican Senatorial Committee. But he avoids mentioning anything about the visit Bosworth says she made in June... a visit the NRSC says never happened. Here is the text Powers carefully elides:
Bosworth said she had met with the NRSC in June, before she declared her candidacy, and found a much colder reception.
"The first time they were like, 'we have this one covered, we've got a Republican, what are you doing? Here's our tact to not let you win.' I wasn't a candidate yet, so I suppose it was legal for them to say all of that," she said.
She said this time, "they did have a transition of heart throughout."
...The NRSC also said that no one at the committee had met with Bosworth in June [Alexandra Jaffe, "Spirited South Dakota Race Revs up on Washington's Doorstep," The Hill, 2013.10.04].
A Senate candidate claims to have met with high-powered party officials. Those party officials say no such meeting happened. Does that sound like news to you?
Sons named for Presidents, anointment by Janklow, a locked desk break-in, a U.S. government effort to destroy her career, and now a fantasy June meeting: are we at the stage of pathological lying yet? Can Bosworth simply not tell the difference between the NRSC, the Koch Brothers, and the Legacy Fund? Or can she not tell the difference between reality and her self-aggrandizing retooling of it?
Update 12:05 CDT: David Montgomery, who has less bias in his whole body than either Powers or I have in our little fingers, notes that Bosworth claims to be following the "Kristi Noem pathway" to victory but is failing to focus on a key part of that pathway: fundraising. He points to another quote from Jaffe that Powers ignores:
Bosworth said she didn't know how much money she had raised for the third quarter and hadn't focused on fundraising in the initial stages of her campaign [Jaffe, 2013.10.04].
Showing further campaign cluelessness, Bosworth emails Jaffe and poops on the NRSC she's trying to court:
The NRSC wants to say that they welcome minorities and women to run for office. But when [they] do, the NRSC makes sure that it is well-known that they support the 'incumbent' who is the prototype polished career politician clearly representing the establishment [Annette Bosworth, quoted in Jaffe, 2013.10.04].
Annette, the National Republican Senatorial Committee may well be sexist, racist Establishment pigs. But you're not going to bully them into supporting you by saying so in the press.
Good thing I wasn't drinking any milk when I read her all over the place comments in that article. They love me.. they love me not. They love me.. they love me not.
Comically incoherent.
Bosworth makes Sarah Palin seem sane but she makes Kristi Noem and Michele Bachmann look like foundered fallen women: ah, the innocence of youth.
I don't get uncomfortable by the fact that "pretty brunette conservatives" exist and want to run for higher office. I get uncomfortable when old conservative men publicly exhibit their lust for the "pretty young brunette conservatives."
I do wish the "pretty young brunette conservatives" who are the subject of this post could distinguish valid concerns from vapid and vacuous talking points.
Relax Mr. Lis. I'm a Rhoden man.
Good Luck Grud.
With Nelson's campaign manager having Bircher ties, I have to root for someone else to make the primary interesting.
Hey, I have a something linked to a C.A. Heidelberger blog post. I feel honored.
Kal Lis: Campaign manager Eldon Stahl? Yeah, it's amateur hour on Team Nelson, too.
Dave: speak the truth, and you're bound to get linked here! Thank you!