| I opened my mailbox this afternoon to find something truly amazing--and something I just knew couldn't have been for a Democratic activist like myself: an envelope from California Counts, the organization funded by Darrell Issa to resurrect the Dirty Tricks Initiative from the dead. It turns out that, yes, the envelope was in fact directed to whatever Republican apparently dared to inhabit my apartment before my girlfriend and I arrived to dispel the traces of the dark side that must have apparently been lingering there.
Regardless, I considered it a stroke of good fortune that this thing fell into my lap--not only because it allows me an opportunity to give some insight into what they're up to, but also because it's downright hilarious. More below--including a picture! |
| First and foremost, I have to admit that what they're doing is rather sophisticated--the envelope contains a fundraising letter from Darrell Issa, as well as a petition to sign. So it seems organized in that regard, though a little bit on the expensive side--collecting petition signatures through direct mail can't be that easy a process.
The fundraising solicitation is pretty boilerplate, with the usual talking points about how it's not a partisan initiative because Michael Dukakis got 48% of the vote in 1988 but still didn't get any electoral votes, and how candidates have no reason to come to California, etcetera, whereas the new initiative already in use in other states (namely, the powerhouses of Maine and Nebraska)
will lead candidates to campaign in every district of California.
Of course, why it will do that is still a mystery, give the fact that most CDs in California are hopelessly gerrymandered and even if you could find one that was still in play, it's a lot easier to stay in the East Coast and campaign in New Hampshire and Maine for 4 votes a piece than to come all the way out here to see if maybe, just maybe, you can peel off one measly EV you might not otherwise have gotten.
But I get ahead of myself. You see, the fundraising letter makes a big deal about how the initiative is non-partisan. And yet for some reason Darrell Issa just has to mention that he helped organize the recall of Gray Davis, and that the "liberal media" wants to convince you that the initiative has a partisan purpose.
Even at that, I may have been willing to suspend my disbelief and assume for the sake of magnanimity that California Counts really did believe in their heart of hearts that the recall was purely about accountability, and that the Dirty Tricks Initiative really is non-partisan, and that the media is just inherently liberal in its reporting that the initiative has a partisan purpose, even though it is funded by Darrell Issa, the financiers of the Swift Boat Vets, Hitachk and other well-known GOP operatives. But the envelope that the solicitation came in kind of burst my bubble a little bit:
So basically, it's non-partisan, it really is, except for the fact that the liberal media doesn't think so, it's organized by the same guy who recalled Gray Davis, and Hillary Clinton doesn't want you to open the letter. So other than the fact that Republicans are pushing for it and it will hurt Democrats and the media thinks it's a dishonest piece of crap--other than that, it's non-partisan.
It's funny in certain ways--but very sad and simultaneously very terrifying in others--that the Republicrooks can be so hypocritical that they will contradict themselves so repeatedly and so patently in fundraising solicitations to their own supporters. I don't know how they live with the logical disconnect. But then again, that's why I'm not a Republican. As Bill Clinton said in his speech at the Empowerment Summit at UCLA over the weekend:
I spent a long time trying to get into the reality based world, and I like it here.
I'm right with you there, Mr. President. |
