This story just won't go away. Read Hawpe's take here: David Hawpe Conway's Aqua Buddha ad met McConnell's standards courier-journal.com The Courier-Journal. The most interesting part of the article is how David Hawpe tries to tie Mitch McConnell into it.
Hawpe admits that as a volunteer on Conway's staff (big surprise there) he viewed the ad before it aired and actually portrays this ad as a valid ad because it raised questions about Rand Paul's religion.
It is a pathetic excuse to try and justify the actions of the Conway camp and quite frankly, in my opinion anyway, proved what we always suspected we knew about the CJ under his reign. It is indeed a Democrat at all costs newspaper as Hawpe I believe was involved in more than just this campaign when he was working for the CJ and had editorial control.
What a sad testament to a once great paper.
So much for equal fair coverage in the media.
I did however like the Al Cross piece you can read here: Al Cross GOP wave ran deep in local elections courier-journal.com The Courier-Journal. It is a testament of how the Democratic Party today just cannot take responsibility for their failures.
For example many throughout the party are blaming Jack Conway for their losses believing that his failures hurt the party candidates across the state.
I say hogwash. IF these candidates were doing their jobs and convincing voters they were the best, Conway could not stop them. Jack Conway ran his campaign and they ran theirs period. To blame one candidate for losses of another is just another example of what is wrong within the party structure itself.
For Jack Conway he hasn't manned up either opting instead to blame his loss on being outspent by, according to him, 5-1. Additionally he is trying to take credit for Greg Fischer winning the Mayoral race while denying it was his fault that anyone else across the Commonwealth lost.
Here is a lesson for you Jack. You cannot have it both ways. You didn't get Greg Fischer elected any more than you were responsible for anyone else's loss. MAN up.
Al Cross actually said it best in his article:
Conway had an authenticity problem. In debates with Paul, he often came across as tense and manufactured, spitting out sound-bite talking points while Paul was calmer, cooler and more conversational, with a clearer, simpler message.
Here is what Crit LuAllen had to say about the aqua buddha ad when asked:
“He told me he was very uncomfortable with it,” Luallen said. “My advice was to rely on his own personal instinct….. If he was uncomfortable, that should be a significant factor.”
The article goes on to state:
On the conference call that followed, Conway said his consultants told him, “If you want to win this race you have to run the ad.” He summed up his decision for me this way: “When everyone around you tells you to pull the trigger, you go ahead and do it.”
But “everyone” did not include Luallen or anyone else with her level of experience in Kentucky politics, and Conway clearly needed that. He may have “an incredible intellect,” as Luallen says, but when it comes to the gut instinct that is so important in politics, he either lacks a full measure of it, full confidence in it, or both.
Sorry Jack but you don't pull the trigger because everyone tells you to. You pull the trigger when your life is on the line or it's the right thing to do. If everyone jumped off the bridge and told you too, would you do it?
Your answer is as childish as the bridge example I just used.
No Jack you lost because you just don't have the instinct, or the backbone, or the confidence in yourself to win. You lost because you relied too heavily on failures such as Mark Riddle in your staff. You lost because you chose to attack your opponent instead of engaging them on the issues.
That fight you may have won. Why you chose to run the way you did is beyond many. This election was not run like the Conway elections of old.
And it may have just cost you a future in politics.......
Regardless of the issues and who stands where, Hawpe is right. McConnell would have no problem running this ad against one of his opponents. He just wouldn't run it himself. He'd have some other PAC run it against his opponent.
ReplyDeleteI find Metro Hack's comment to be, shall we say, curious.
ReplyDeleteMost of those who are critics of anything Republican wail like a banshee if a conservative critic pulls the SAME STUNT that Hawpe did.
It's the classic Democrat double standard:
Their guy got caught doing something sleazy, so they're gonna drag someone from the other side into the ooze with him. But them rascally Republicans better never do to us what we do to them: it's UNFAIR!
Why do most of you want to be labeled with a partisan tag?
Can't you think for yourself?
Do you have this need to be a member of a gang?
You know, considering that the current crop of humans on this planet are considered to be the best "educated" and most "intelligent" that have ever walked this earth, certain primal instincts seem to alive and kickin'!
Nurture is on life support.
Nature rules the day.
Tribal warfare lives on!