Today, while cruising over to Terry McAuliffe’s website in response to yet another unsolicited email from McAuliffe’s campaign, I found something interesting. There, in the center of the page, was a plea for help with a cause.
Terry McAullife wants to clean up politics, and he wants your help!
What? I was surprised to see that this classless, morality deprived candidate was asking me to help clean up politics. Well, I thought to myself, why don’t we start with you, Terry?
McAuliffe is crying foul over having a fundraising event at or with the generous folks over at BRG, a lobbying firm that says they do “bipartisan lobbying”. He says that someone has said unkind things about this fundraiser and that they should stop it. Or at least Mike Henry says that in their clever email.
You see, the email is really a plea to donate to McAuliffe before the fundraising deadline at the end of this quarter gets here. (March 31, 2009) The subject of the email is that people who are criticizing McAuliffe should not be so cruel and heartless. I am paraphrasing here, but you can see it for yourself at the website and in the unsolicited emails sent by the campaign:
Today, one of our Democratic opponents took their attacks against Terry too far. Virginia Democrats have worked too long and too hard to stand by and watch the divisiveness that’s plagued the Republicans start poisoning our Party just when we’ve had great success.
Everyone knows that Terry McAuliffe supported Hillary Clinton in the primaries. But the day after she got out of the race, he hit the road fighting for Barack Obama. Terry spent the last 30 years of his life volunteering to advance Democratic causes; he even built from scratch the voter file that that helped Barack Obama win in Virginia. And to insinuate that he is a traitor to our Party is beyond nonsense — it is a Karl Rove-style attack.
I’ve always said that this primary was going to get rough, but in all the years I’ve worked in Virginia politics, I’ve never seen another Democrat use the kind of smear tactics that are being used against Terry for taking a bipartisan approach to politics – just like Mark Warner, Tim Kaine, Jim Webb and Barack Obama.
[emphasis in the original]
From the website:
Some have accused Terry of raising money from a “Republican lobbying firm.” BGR is a bipartisan firm. Terry held a fundraiser at BGR in March. Out of 11 event chairs, 10 were Democrats, including Terry’s longtime friend Jonathan Mantz, who has spent his career fighting for Democratic candidates and causes. Mantz was the principal host of the event. Throughout his career in Democratic politics, Terry has built relationships with many people, both Democrat and Republican. This ability to reach across the aisle is part of what will make Terry an effective governor.
This is all very silly. Ed Rogers, a well known Republican strategist and someone who only could spout invective against Obama last year, is a principal in this firm. Rogers is the type that refuses to pronounce the word ‘Democratic’ correctly. Notice it says 10 out of 11 hosts. Was Ed Rogers the eleventh, Terry?
For Terry McAuliffe and his campaign to be complaining and telling us we should run a ‘positive’ campaign is ludicrous to me. ‘Positive’ campaigning, to me, means that he would rather not have his record examined that closely. His minions in the blogs all preach the ‘Gospel of Terry’.
McAuliffe’s record would not stand up if it was promoted to the public. They can then decide for themselves whether he is someone who cleans up politics, or someone who has introduced many party-weakening items over the years to enrich either his clients or himself, or both.
Hey! Terry would like you to send him $25 to “…help fight the smears.”, [and] ‘fight the politics of the past.’
I have this one question.
Does this mean you would like us to help you fight yourself and everything you stood for up until you decided to run for Governor?
Yeah, I didn’t think so.
My friend on Orkut shared this link and I’m not dissapointed at all that I came to your blog.