So I received a robo-call today from a woman purporting to work for a gay magazine (I believe the name she put forward was “Gay Magazine,” which was very imaginative). She declared cheerfully that her publication was endorsing Brian Foley–a Democrat running for State Senate–because he supports legalizing gay marriage in New York. “So if you want gay marriage in New York, vote for Brian Foley!”
I checked with Foley’s office and they’d already heard about it, confirming that there’s no such endorsement. It’s an obvious dirty tricks stunt endeavoring to stoke the fears and bigotry of credulous voters by floating the “specter” of gay marriage being legalized in New York.
Unbelievable.
PAD
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“Unbelievable?”
You use that word. I don’t think it means what you think it means.
We’ve gotten some odd ones like that here in Virginia as well. Ours haven’t been on the gay marriage front, but they’ve covered just about every other hot button issue, been as covered in slime as they could be and to the last one been aimed at the national and local Dems.
Unbelievable? Not really. It’s unconscionable maybe, but far it’s from unbelievable in the political arena.
We’ve gotten some odd ones like that here in Virginia as well. Ours haven’t been on the gay marriage front, but they’ve covered just about every other hot button issue, been as covered in slime as they could be and to the last one been aimed at the national and local Dems.
Unbelievable? Not really. It’s unconscionable maybe, but far it’s from unbelievable in the political arena.
Unbelievable?
Actually, it’s becoming standard practice with the campaigns this year.
False quotes, impersonating voices, impersonating campaigns and candidates.
And that’s just the robocalls, much less everything else out there.
Unbelievable?
Actually, it’s becoming standard practice with the campaigns this year.
False quotes, impersonating voices, impersonating campaigns and candidates.
And that’s just the robocalls, much less everything else out there.
Btw, I’m of the view that robocalls, not just political, but ALL robocalls, should be banned.
Btw, I’m of the view that robocalls, not just political, but ALL robocalls, should be banned.
Unbelievable, maybe, but not really unexpected. Desperate times and all that.
Last week in Georgia, while I was sitting in a truck stop, some joker claimed that he had evidence from “reliable sources” that Obama had links to “Syria and other terroristic stuff”. When I asked him to cite his sources, they were “reliable, really reliable.” It’s the kind of slime a desperate campaign comes up with to muddy the waters.
Inevitable.
Inevitable.
I got a call from a representative of local republican candidate here in Missouri who tried to talk to me about Obama and his democrat friends. She was about half-way through her spiel when I said I’d heard this plot before and it was in 1976 and starred Gregory Peck as Robert Thorn. She didn’t get it so I bid her good day.
Sometimes I just like to hear what these people are telling others .. ie. my elderly mother. It’s appalling.
I was interested to see an ad linking Obama with Rev. Wright, a topic McCain had supposedly labeled “off-limits.” This is the first “God Ðámņ America” ad I’d seen (I don’t watch much TV), but I thought it was interesting that it was showing up at the last minute.
There doesn’t seem to be a limit to how low it will go this year.
Eric
Cinema history courses should be required-attendance.
I believe there was a SOUTH PARK episode a few years ago where the KKK was opposed to a political movement (or something), but they then realized that everything they opposed wound up getting passed, so they decided to support it since their support would lead to it getting defeated.
You know a campaign is in trouble when it takes its cues from SOUTH PARK.
I believe there was a SOUTH PARK episode a few years ago where the KKK was opposed to a political movement (or something), but they then realized that everything they opposed wound up getting passed, so they decided to support it since their support would lead to it getting defeated.
You know a campaign is in trouble when it takes its cues from SOUTH PARK.
Posted by JamesLynch
I believe there was a SOUTH PARK episode a few years ago where the KKK was opposed to a political movement (or something), but they then realized that everything they opposed wound up getting passed, so they decided to support it since their support would lead to it getting defeated.
Sort makes ya wonder what Cheney has against McCain…
The only thing about that I find unbelievable is that there’s someone with a real life that has the patience to actually listen to one of those robocalls.
Heh, I’m not an expert on the US, but what amuses me is that they thought this might work against them in a big cosmopolitan city like New York?? I could understand it might go against him in certain states of the US that are less tolerant and a bit more old fashioned, but surely the people of New York would be more welcoming??
Or am I just going off typical TV stereotyping here? 😀
Heh, I’m not an expert on the US, but what amuses me is that they thought this might work against them in a big cosmopolitan city like New York?? I could understand it might go against him in certain states of the US that are less tolerant and a bit more old fashioned, but surely the people of New York would be more welcoming??
Or am I just going off typical TV stereotyping here? 😀
“I’m not an expert on the US, but what amuses me is that they thought this might work against them in a big cosmopolitan city like New York?? I could understand it might go against him in certain states of the US that are less tolerant and a bit more old fashioned, but surely the people of New York would be more welcoming??”
Brian Foley is running for the New York State Senate representing a district in Suffolk County. That’s out on Long Island, not in New York City itself, so the demographics and general political attitudes of its constituents might conceivably be different than those the more cosmopolitan residents of the big city.
“I’m not an expert on the US, but what amuses me is that they thought this might work against them in a big cosmopolitan city like New York?? I could understand it might go against him in certain states of the US that are less tolerant and a bit more old fashioned, but surely the people of New York would be more welcoming??”
Brian Foley is running for the New York State Senate representing a district in Suffolk County. That’s out on Long Island, not in New York City itself, so the demographics and general political attitudes of its constituents might conceivably be different than those the more cosmopolitan residents of the big city.
Now I know there are half-truths from both sides,
“My opponent votes X many times for” when most of the votes were on various forms of the same bill.
But the outright nasty, loathsome, ugly work seems to be concentrated in the Republicans.
If someone could point to a Democratic campaign as horrid as those I’ve seen from the Republicans (including from the V.P. candidate). Maybe I wouldn’t think of them with such contempt.
In Connecticut, they are using the Gay Marriage issue to try to get a State Constitution review panel passed. But the way the question on the ballot is written, regular people/the voters would never get the final say on whatever the state legislature decides. There was even one pro-ad created and endorsed by the Catholic Church.
Meanwhile, did anyone see the attack ad that the GOP Party, (or at least, someone using that name is claiming creatorship of the commerical) ran during NBC’s Saturday Night Live 2008 Presidental Bash last night bringing up the subject of Obama and Reverend Wright again?
In Connecticut, they are using the Gay Marriage issue to try to get a State Constitution review panel passed. But the way the question on the ballot is written, regular people/the voters would never get the final say on whatever the state legislature decides. There was even one pro-ad created and endorsed by the Catholic Church.
Meanwhile, did anyone see the attack ad that the GOP Party, (or at least, someone using that name is claiming creatorship of the commerical) ran during NBC’s Saturday Night Live 2008 Presidental Bash last night bringing up the subject of Obama and Reverend Wright again?
“Brian Foley is running for the New York State Senate representing a district in Suffolk County. That’s out on Long Island, not in New York City itself, so the demographics and general political attitudes of its constituents might conceivably be different than those the more cosmopolitan residents of the big city.”
More or less correct. PAD’s in a district traditionally made up of white, upper-class voters who vote Republican to “protect their way of life” from the scary minorities, and this includes homosexuals. Brookhaven residents aren’t rural hicks, but they want to return to the 1950s, when supposedly everyone looked and acted the same way, and you could ostracize those who didn’t. Foley would be a fairly significant change:
Much the same calculation is appropriate in the 3rd Senate District in Suffolk County, where Brookhaven Town Supervisor Brian X. Foley is opposing yet another pro-DOMA troglodyte, Caesar Trunzo, a 36-year Senate incumbent. While in the Suffolk County Legislature, Foley supported several LGBT and HIV/ AIDS initiatives. He now says he is “studying” the issue of marriage equality, which is hard not to take as an indication he is uncertain he can topple an incumbent while carrying our water on this issue. Still, his posture toward our community is light years ahead of Trunzo’s, and, like Addabbo, Foley is the smart bet in this race.
http://www.gaycitynews.com/site/news.cfm?newsid=20182731&BRD=2729&PAG=461&dept_id=569328&rfi=6
Surprisingly, polls show Foley currently in the lead, which is no doubt why PAD got that call. We’ll see what effect it has. Unfortunately, there are even candidates in the city, representing lower-income districts, who take a similar reactionary point of view:
The fight for the Senate has been made all the more unclear by the shifting allegiances of two incumbent Democrats and two Democrats expected to win seats on Tuesday, who announced last week that they would form an independent caucus that might side with either party in a leadership battle between Dean G. Skelos, the Republican Senate majority leader, and Malcolm A. Smith, the minority leader.
One of the four planning the new caucus, Senator Rubén Díaz Sr., a Bronx Democrat, said on Monday that he would not vote for any leader who would allow a vote on legislation to legalize same-sex marriage in New York, something Mr. Smith supports.
“I would not vote for anyone that would push for gay marriage,” Mr. Díaz said.
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/11/04/nyregion/04senate.html
In Diaz’s case, the position is most likely because he represents Latino Catholic voters who are deeply anti-homosexual. So bigotry isn’t contained to any particular geography, even in one of the biggest cities in the world.
Yes, it took me by surprise that such a tactic would be used in NY. But it figures that such a big place would have a certain diversity in political tendencies.
But what makes me sad isn’t so much that the tactic is used, but that the tactic has a good chance of damaging a politician’s chances. We gays truly are the current “ņìggërš”.
Yes, it took me by surprise that such a tactic would be used in NY. But it figures that such a big place would have a certain diversity in political tendencies.
But what makes me sad isn’t so much that the tactic is used, but that the tactic has a good chance of damaging a politician’s chances. We gays truly are the current “ņìggërš”.
Last minute robo-smears? Child’s play. Here in AZ we have a Gat Marriage Ammendment on the ballot even though we voted it down in 2006, and – here’ the kicker – marriage is already defined by AZ law as between a man and a woman, *and* the AZ Supreme Court already denied a case trying to have the law declared unconstitutional. We can’t go a single election cycle without having to prove that we are tough on gays. Wouldn’t want to other states to think we have gone nancy.
Well, if I lived in New York he would have gotten my vote, LOL
Well, if I lived in New York he would have gotten my vote, LOL
The other night my husband and I went out to dinner, and we encountered a group of people protesting Prop 8 (the anti-gay marriage proposition) on a street corner, so we decided to join them for a bit. At one point, some guy in a car that was driving by shouted, “Gay lovers!”
It’s not what he shouted that scares me. What scares me is that someone, in 2008, in Southern California, actually thinks that’s an insult. It’s like, “Um, yeah, we are gay lovers, that’s kind of what WE’RE saying.”
The other night my husband and I went out to dinner, and we encountered a group of people protesting Prop 8 (the anti-gay marriage proposition) on a street corner, so we decided to join them for a bit. At one point, some guy in a car that was driving by shouted, “Gay lovers!”
It’s not what he shouted that scares me. What scares me is that someone, in 2008, in Southern California, actually thinks that’s an insult. It’s like, “Um, yeah, we are gay lovers, that’s kind of what WE’RE saying.”
You think that’s bad? Read this and try not to vomit:
http://news.aol.com/elections/article/voters-across-nation-hit-by-dirty-tricks/235328
Wouldn’t it be neat if just once we could have an election where nobody tried to pull this disenfranchisement crap?
Wouldn’t it be neat if just once we could have an election where nobody tried to pull this disenfranchisement crap?
It’d be nice, yeah.
But it really does show that for some people (on both sides), it matters more that some don’t vote, rather than everybody getting to have their own voice and your candidate winning on their merits alone.
Wouldn’t it be neat if just once we could have an election where nobody tried to pull this disenfranchisement crap?
It’d be nice, yeah.
But it really does show that for some people (on both sides), it matters more that some don’t vote, rather than everybody getting to have their own voice and your candidate winning on their merits alone.
I had Caller ID, so I tend not to answer calls from unfamiliar numbers. This has probably saved me from hearing a lot of robocalls. I did have one leave a message recently about one of the ballot questions, but I made up my mind about that question long ago and tuned it out as soon as I heard what it was about.
I had Caller ID, so I tend not to answer calls from unfamiliar numbers. This has probably saved me from hearing a lot of robocalls. I did have one leave a message recently about one of the ballot questions, but I made up my mind about that question long ago and tuned it out as soon as I heard what it was about.
Foley beat Trunzo, 63,054 (59%) to 44,480 (41%).
Not only did Foley win, but in doing so helped turn the NY State Senate Democratic. The Assembly, Senate, and Governorship are all controlled by the Dems.
As for dirty tricks, in Philadelphia somebody actually used the old “Whites vote on Tuesday, Blacks vote on Wednesday” trick, this time saying it was to reduce congestion at the polls. (Which it would do…)
I grew up in Omaha, Nebraska, which is even more conservative (Obama carried 4 of 93 counties, all by purple margins). Currently, that electoral vote (Nebraska splits the EVs by congressional district) is up for grabs, leaning towards Obama. The last time an EV went blue was the landslide in 1964.
Oh, and I own a cell phone, so robo-calls don’t work on me. But I would have voted for Foley. (And lest we forget, McCain in 2000 was the victim of dirty tricks in South Carolina, as the Bush campaign smeared him and his adopted daughter, Bridget, born in Bangladesh. If only he had won the nomination then…)
Not only did Foley win, but in doing so helped turn the NY State Senate Democratic. The Assembly, Senate, and Governorship are all controlled by the Dems.
As for dirty tricks, in Philadelphia somebody actually used the old “Whites vote on Tuesday, Blacks vote on Wednesday” trick, this time saying it was to reduce congestion at the polls. (Which it would do…)
I grew up in Omaha, Nebraska, which is even more conservative (Obama carried 4 of 93 counties, all by purple margins). Currently, that electoral vote (Nebraska splits the EVs by congressional district) is up for grabs, leaning towards Obama. The last time an EV went blue was the landslide in 1964.
Oh, and I own a cell phone, so robo-calls don’t work on me. But I would have voted for Foley. (And lest we forget, McCain in 2000 was the victim of dirty tricks in South Carolina, as the Bush campaign smeared him and his adopted daughter, Bridget, born in Bangladesh. If only he had won the nomination then…)