
Corruption That Shook Capitol Isn't Rattling Elections
Sen. Conrad Burns gazed at a debate audience and asked if anyone could guess who was blocking efforts in Washington to control health-care costs.
"Abramoff?" shouted a heckler. The crowd at a packed high school auditorium here in Montana's Bitterroot Valley erupted in hoots and jeers.
There's a couple of points here. First the article postulates that the Abramoff issue isn't effecting the Burns race. It quotes Burns, not the Tester campaign on the effect corruption has had on the race. Of course Burns says Abramoff has had no effect. If Burns loses this race,the main reason will be corruption. The voter has a choice between Burns and Tester. They will look at both candidates in the voting booth and say "They're about the same, but Burns is dirty." It's the kicker. That's why they have to go negative against Tester.
The second point is that the raucous Hamilton debate has reached conventional wisdom in the beltway. Note the words heckler, jeers, and hoots. Negative words. It's another marginalization of the grassroots. They don't like the messy noise of politics. It misses the point that Tester supporters outnumbered Burns supporters 3-1. In Ravalli county. There's a reason Rove is coming to Montana.
Posted by admin at 07:24 AM | Comments (0)
The Fast Rise and Steep Fall of Jack AbramoffAlan K. Simpson (R), the former Wyoming senator who was in Washington during the last big congressional scandal -- the Abscam FBI sting in the late 1970s and early 1980s, in which six House members and one senator were convicted -- said the Abramoff case looks bigger. Simpson said he recently rode in a plane with one of Abramoff's attorneys, who told him: "There are going to be guys in your former line of work who are going to be taken down."
Posted by admin at 06:08 AM | Comments (0)