Just moments ago, I received this release from the Tommy Moore campaign, which started with this paragraph:
Mark Sanford launched two negative attack ads this weekend, which distort and outright lie about Tommy’s record.
Tommy has added a link to his Web site, Moore Sets the Record Straight, to respond to these over-the-top and increasingly desperate attacks.
So I’ve just got to ask — with apologies to Tommy, because it seems that everybody’s using this redundant phrase these days; he’s just unlucky enough to be the straw on this pedantic camel’s back…
… Where was I? I got lost in that sentence. Oh, yeah: So I’ve just got to ask: Is there such a thing as a positive attack ad?
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I don’t know the answer to your question, but I do have one of my own. Did The State just install a new thesaurus program on your computer? “Pedantic” and “canard” in your last two posts – impressive!
One other thing – what’s another word for “thesaurus?”
synonym-opedia?
Mark Sandford.He’s done such a great job,he deserves a four year vacation.
A dear friend of mine was asked to apply for an administrative job in the district attorney’s office of the county she lives in (different state). She showed up for the interview with the DA and afterwards was told that she was perfect for the job – she was the one they wanted. She could have the job on one small condition. She had to switch party affiliations. What do you think?
Has anyone ever seen a respectful but critical ad? What I mean is something like “We respectfully disagree with Mr. or Ms. So-and-so on the following issues…..with all due respect to so-and-so we feel that Mr/Mrs…. is the better person for the job because of these reasons.” – SOMETHING like that – is it possible? Has it happened in recent days? Or are the days of being curteous and respectful toward people of opposing viewpoints completely gone? I have to wonder at times as I read many of the blog comments people are writing here…but anyway. I just find it sad that “the days of considering others more important than ourselves” seem to have vanished…if you could list any candidate that is exhibiting these virtues I would be glad to know about it!!
I should add this to the first comment I made – I’ve created a somewhat fictional situation – my main goal being to initiate the debate of whether or not it’s acceptable to “discriminate” based on party-affiliation in certain situations or not. And I might add this – assuming the DA is a member of the party you support, how do you feel? Assuming the DA is a member of the party you oppose, how do you feel?
In answer to Annee’s question about respectful disagreement:
Sadie Wannamaker, who’s running against Kit Spires, is a real lady.
Robert Barber won’t say a critical word about Andre Bauer.
Both Emile DeFelice and Hugh Weathers treat each other with respect.
I can’t remember having heard any unkind or unfair words from either Bill Cotty or Anton Gunn.
The governor, for his part, is studiously courtly in his public manner. His opponent is more dismissive.
And Tim: "Pedantic" is a word used a lot in these offices, as when I’m arguing against someone being a little too rigid about style rules. "Canard" is not an everyday word for me, but I know I’ve been familiar with it at least since it was used and defined by a character in "The Natural." I’ve used it once or twice in columns. The last time was in a piece on May 4, 2003, when I dismissed assertions that our spending on public education does no good as a "vicious canard."
If I were you, I would hold off on pronouncements about what lobbyist Robert Barber will or will not say about Andre. I think you will regret those words next week…when you will see the landscape changing quickly.
I hope you did not mind I called him a lobbyist. From your tirade this morning against Andre, no one would have ever guessed that Mr. Barber’s most recent profession was acting as a paid agent for private interest in order to affect change by the State of SC in his client’s interest, i.e. he was a lobbyist.
For example, one of his clients paid him to try to change the manner in which the department of aging purchased goods and services. The State usually obtains two bids from qualified venders. Mr. Barber’s clients wanted to sell to the State without that bidding process. Well, come to think of it, what seller wants competitive bidding? But that single source procurement would cost the taxpayer of SC money…and lots of it
I found it odd that The State mentions his ministry background….but he seems not to have been a minister in the last 20 years…but he was a paid lobbyist until he stepped down to raise money for his race for Lt. Gov. Curiously, you failed to mention this. It is obvious he does not want to be called a lobbyist, as in his bio he calls himself a “consultant”…even though he was a registered lobbyist, not a registered consultant.
I am sure that Mr. Barber is thankful for your compliant attitude towards him. It must be nice, as a candidate, to have such assistance. But I wonder where that attitude leaves the voters of SC?
You can certainly endorse whom you want, and normally I would not quibble at all. But the intellectual laziness of your positions in indefensible…and it tees me off.
Yeah, he was a lobbyist until he quit to run for this office. Now he makes his bread from the restaurant. I thought I mentioned that.
Have you ever heard me say that lobbyists are bad? Some are, some aren’t. Sort of depends on what they’re trying to accomplish. They’re sort of like, you know, people.
Do you object to something that Mr. Barber lobbied for?
In any case, I know that Andre lobbies a good bit for himself, mostly with success. He gets the Legislature to hand him an agency — for no rational cause that I have yet heard, other than to let him put his name on anything that agency does to help the world’s most reliable voting bloc.
He was quite successful lobbying DOT to give him a better price on his land. He pulled out the big guns on that one.
His one noteworthy lobbying failure was trying to get his own SLED security detail. The governor just kept saying NO, and he couldn’t work his way around that. That’s one instance where I wish he’d gotten what he wanted — to keep the rest of us safer.
Brad…
That posting sounds awfully petty of you…it seems you made my point better than I.
My point is that I just want you to tell the WHOLE story…not just part of it.
Chris
PS…Good job of slammin Andre a bit more…did you not think that this mornings paper was adequate?
“The governor, for his part, is studiously courtly in his public manner.” Brad
Yeah,and that’s hard to pull off when you’re holding a couple of pigs.
Annee – I knew someone who experienced the same thing. That person switched registration, having been in a state that forced you to declare on registration, and then voted against that party from then on. Pretty clever I thought. But she got the job.
I talked to Andre today as he stood on a downtown street in Sumter. He would not mention his opponent. He would not discuss the State paper’s endorsement.
But he did discuss the Department of Aging, presiding over the Senate, and fighting lobbyist. He reminded me that he used to teach, and that experience was important to him
He is running hard. He was positive and forward thinking. I am glad I voted for him last time, and I will do so again.
Actually, bill, now that you repeat that sentence to me: “The governor, for his part, is studiously courtly in his public manner…”
… it strikes me that I was doing a sort of Jane Austen impersonation. I was channeling Mr. Darcy there for a few seconds.
OK, that’s my literary allusion for today.
Brad,
An unkind word from Bill Cotty? How about ‘Nazi-istic’?
By the way, I love the word canard, and also “prevarication” from that same scene…
or rather…
Literary allusion or
tutelary collusion,
with barber and Theodore
in delusion
the State is in allusion,
but soon to be a losin.
Your point is taken, Joshua.
As I was saying to someone here at the office, Bill Cotty is capable of stepping over the rhetorical line, and while I don’t know him as well and admire what I do know about him, Anton Gunn seems like a guy who could probably give as good as he gets — or maybe that’s just something about the way ex-football players carry themselves.
But I am not aware of any inappropriate language or sentiment they have expressed toward EACH OTHER, which was the context within which I was writing.