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Tuesday, March 20, 2012

Pointing out the "best conservative" appears to make the less conservative nervous

In Monday's post, "NRCC: 'On the Radar' But Off Target on NC-9", I clearly pointed out why I think Ric Killian is the best conservative in the NC-9 race.  It did not take long for the responses to come in.  Apparently, pointing out who is the "best" choice makes people nervous.  I imagine that to be the case when the only replies generated were based on misdirection and incomplete information.

It was an interesting day.

By morning I'd received the following anonymous comment on that post:

"If you are the best conservative in south charlotte, why did southcharlotte.org endorse pendergraph?"

That would seem to be quite a response, until you look a little deeper.  You see, southcharlotte.org is not an organization as far as one can tell.  In fact, it appears to be a one-man-show by a local activist.  What is even more embarrassing is that this one-man-show's southcharlotte.org is featured on Commissioner Pendergraph's campaign site with a "Breaking News" item.

Attempting to make support look bigger than it is in reality by saying an organization supports a campaign when it is really an individual is a classic misleading campaign tactic.  After having those same misleading tactics directed at the Pendergraph campaign (as I pointed out here in the FlackCheck.org piece), it's disappointing to see them directed at someone else.

The next one was a bit less direct. 

By sheer coincidence I'm sure, a few hours later the Pittenger campaign just happened to post a link on Facebook from the exact same website - Civitas Action - where I linked to Ric Killian's ratings the night before.  The post trumpeted Senator Pittenger's 2008 "highest letter grade of anyone in the senate that year (along with three others)".  That letter was a B.  Civitas is very tough in how they rate, and before the Republicans came to power in 2010 very few Republicans received an A.  Ric Killian happened to be one of them.  In that same year he received an A-.  Additionally, in 2 out of the last 4 years, Ric Killian has received the 2nd highest effectiveness rating of anyone in the legislature - House or Senate - once with a B+ and once with an A.  Nobody has been more consistent at being near the top of the list.  There are good scores and then there is the best. 

As I said yesterday, conservative voters are smart and they pay attention.  I'm sure they will see these tactics for what they are.  I'm also pretty sure we'll probably see more tactics worthy of FlackCheck.org before this campaign is over.

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