Pennsylvania Republicans Email Lies To Jewish Voters
By Justin Gardner | Related entries in 2008 Election, Bad Decisions, Republicans
You want to know the most disturbing thing about the email? It was written, in part, by a former state supreme court justice.
A new e-mail making the rounds among Jewish voters in Pennsylvania this week falsely alleged that Mr. Obama “taught members of Acorn to commit voter registration fraud,’’ and equated a vote for Senator Barack Obama with the “tragic mistake†of their Jewish ancestors, who “ignored the warning signs in the 1930’s and 1940’s.†[...]But where most of the attack e-mails against Mr. Obama have been mostly either anonymous or from people outside of mainstream politics, this one had an unusually official provenance: It was sponsored by the Pennsylvania Republican Party’s “Victory 2008†committee.
And it was signed by several prominent McCain supporters in the state: Mitchell L. Morgan, a top fund-raiser; Hon. Sandra Schwartz Newman, a member of Mr. McCain’s national task-force monitoring Election Day voting, and I. Michael Coslov, a steel industry executive.
Republican leaders did repudiate the email and fire the strategist (Bryan Rudnick) who sent it out, but come on folks…how many stories do we have to read about Republicans spreading nonsense about Obama before it becomes obvious that these aren’t isolated incidents? Is anybody honestly telling me that they don’t believe this stuff is coordinated?
Well, I’m setting up a bit of a straw man here, because…
[...] contacted again on Friday night, Mr. Rudnick disputed the party’s version of events and said he had approval for the letter from officials at several levels.
So somebody’s lying here, and my guess is it isn’t Rudnick…especially since the email was, as mentioned above, written by a FORMER STATE SUPREME COURT JUSTICE.
They just don’t care anymore.
This entry was posted on Sunday, October 26th, 2008 and is filed under 2008 Election, Bad Decisions, Republicans. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
October 26th, 2008 at 7:47 am
“They just don’t care anymore.”
Nope, desperation is setting in. Odds are we’ll be seeing more emails making even more spurious claims being distributed by state parties and on the grassroots level from now till election day.
On the bright side at least we don’t have wait for the Obama is the Antichrist email to rear its head since that one got sent out during the primaries.
http://www.snopes.com/politics/obama/antichrist.asp
October 26th, 2008 at 12:07 pm
Just when I was going to make up a story like this about PA, it turns out I don’t have to. Damn it! The GOP keeps stealing my satirical ideas and using them for real.
October 26th, 2008 at 6:52 pm
Nothing the Republicans do to try and steal another election surprises me.
October 26th, 2008 at 8:33 pm
Really, this is just another desperate attempt by McCain’s campaign to steal the election. I mean, how many more of their committee members do they have to fire?
McCain’s campaign is low, and McCain will never be a respected president if he keeps using this strategy. Aren’t we sick of hearing him and Palin attacking Obama instead of focusing on the real issue, which is the economy?
October 27th, 2008 at 11:27 pm
I haven’t been able to find a copy of the email. Does anyone have link? TIA
October 28th, 2008 at 7:01 pm
It seems the mainstream media doesn’t care anymore either. This story has gotten almost no press play. What website coverage there has been has been on the blogs, not the main page.
Like you, I blogged this story on the 26th. I followed up with a request for action to the Anti-Defamation League. Their statement, and press release today has finally gotten a small bit of attention focused.
What is sad is that the PA-GOP, MCCain, and RNC websites have published NOTHING repudiating this email smear.
One commentor on ABCNEWS ‘Political Punch’ blog indicates that the PA-GOP sent out a followup, but rather than repudiate, it was a ‘disclaimer’. There is one small site (WTOP.COM) that ran the AP news story of the Judge who authored and signed the letter apologizing.
She ought to be disbarred; and McCain needs to fire her from her national campaign post.
This type of ethnic and religous fear mongering and baiting is beyond repudiation. It is not enough to simply disclaim, repudiate and move on. There should be real consequences. There is no room for this in American Politics.