Sibby Online

More Hypocrisy

The latest SDP bombshell is regarding Steve Erpenbach, Tom Daschle’s State Director, organizing a letter to the US Chamber of Commerce asking them to stop running their ad. Here is an excerpt from the email asking for assistance:

It is important to Senator Daschle that people understand that the state and local Chambers in South Dakota are not sponsoring this ad, and have remained neutral in this race.

In the very next breath this statement is made:

Your willingness to lend your name to the letter would be a great help to the Senator.

If the premise of the letter is to have the local Chambers remain neutral, then why would the Daschle campaign ask the local Chamber leaders to provide “great help to the Senator”?

Reader responds to debate

A Sibby Online reader responds to the Daschle-Thune Dakotafest debate in Mitchell:

I find it striking that Daschle would invoke LBJ and Robert Byrd in his logic for why he should lead the Senate.

With LBJ you've got a guy who was a known philanderer, schemer, and arm-twisting President who came to power under suspicious circumstances (ask Oliver Stone). Furthermore, LBJ proceeded to spend trillions on mostly failed social engineering while simultaneously allowing the Vietnam War to become politicized and doomed to failure.

In Robert Byrd you have a former Ku Klux Klansman who has become infamous for the amount of undeserving pork he brings to West Virginia, while at the same time under his tenure West Virginia remains near the bottom in quality of life statistics.

Are these guys truly heroes to Senator Daschle? Perhaps he was correct to invoke them. However, he should have inserted their dismal legacies in the part where he was complaining the massive federal debt saddled on his granddaughter sitting in the front row.

Daschle Campaign attacks free speech

Daschle’s campaign manager has sent out an email whining about conservatives free speech. Excerpt:

When I wrote yesterday, I told you that the U.S. Chamber and the National Republican Senatorial Committee had purchased more than $1 million in negative attack ads against Senator Daschle.

I spoke too soon. Since I sent you that e-mail yesterday the outside groups have MORE THAN DOUBLED THEIR BUDGET. They took the largest third party expenditure in South Dakota history and doubled it.

The U.S. Chamber of Commerce is spending $400,000 on both television and radio -- running negative ads against Tom. The Chamber has endorsed John Thune.

Then Hildrebrand resorts to more partisan name calling as he asks for more money:

The right-wingers are trying to buy this election because they know John Thune will rubberstamp their conservative extremist agenda.

We must fight back!

Please make an immediate credit card donation now so we can begin to place additional TV time before the opposition takes all the available slots.

Remember the report on Daschle leading the pack in campaign contributions at $11.8 million? Remember all the television ads Daschle has already run over the last year plus. Ads taking credit when credit wasn’t due. Now he is calling the Chamber of Commerce a bunch of extremists running "negative" ads.

When the ads start running hot on both sides, turn to us blogs for the truth. We will even link you to the Congressional Record and the votes that were made. Democracy and free speech in action…you got to love it.

Reaction to Daschle’s obstruction

This post is not about Daschle’s obstruction in DC, it’s about Daschle’s obstruction in South Dakota. Here is the Daschle quote reported in today’s Argus Leader report on the US Chamber of Commerce ad:

"We've got outside attack groups that do nothing but spoil the political process," he said.

Greg Belfrage had a great response to this on Straight Talk. He said that the Chamber of Commerce is not some radical organization. Greg is absolutely right (again). The Chamber should be allowed to address a valid point…the threat of frivolous lawsuits and how it impacts business. And in this case it is the business of providing heath care.

Quentin Riggins has a post that contains a Daschle Campaign email regarding the issue. Here is an excerpt:

2 months of negative attack ads paid for by people with one goal in mind -- to get rid of the guy who they think is the obstructionist to George Bush's agenda. They've seen their efforts to put special interests first stopped in the U.S. Senate.

Riggins makes this response:

Special interests first?? In case I'm mistaken the trial lawyer's lobby, which also happens to be Daschle's BIGGEST DONOR GROUP, is a special interest. Hildebrand wants us to believe that this is one special interest against Daschle. In reality, it's a battle between the Chamber of Commerce and Trial Lawyers. Tom Daschle has come down squarely in the corner of the Trial Lawyers and understandably the US Chamber of Commerce is not happy.

I could not say it better. Now check out the DVT post on the pressure tactics being used by the Daschle campaign on local business leaders. Here is an excerpt from a letter the Daschle campaign is asking the locals to send to their national organization:

Your decision to run these negative ads hurts our image and our relationship with our Congressional delegation.

To borrow a phrase from Randell Beck, this is crap. This would be like the Daschle campaign calling me up and asking me to tell the NRA to stop running ads showing Daschle’s vote in support of the Million Mom March with Rosie O’Donnell as the emcee. But there is one big difference…money. The business leaders are being asked to shut up and take the frivolous lawsuits with a grin if you want Daschle’s continued effort to bring home the pork. This is outrageous!…outrageous!

Sag Harbor is not in South Dakota

Remember Tom Daschle leaving the Democrat Convention early, just so he can get back to South Dakota to campaign. That weekend he was in Sag Harbor. SDP has a great post about the fundraising event in New York…which is far away from South Dakota, in more ways than one.

The front-page of today’s Argus Leader reports that Daschle is the top fundraiser. Looks like Campaign Finance Reform hasn’t made any difference, unless you are an issue orientated third party. The Argus Leader also has a front-page report on the US Chamber of Commerce running ads taking Daschle to task for filibustering tort reform and the energy bill. The report ended with Daschle whining about third parties. Daschle would rather control the whole process with his $11.8 million by running ads taking credit for funding he has voted against. He doesn’t want us to know the truth about what he really has done while in Washington DC.

Note both Argus Leader reports were not done by David Kranz. Could this be an impact of bloggers?

UPDATE: DVT has more on the Argus Leader's coverage of the Chamber ad.

The anti-blogger is blogging

Remember my posts on Todd Epp? Then anti-blogger is now blogging. He has linked to Sibby Online and I got less than a handful of hits. I would link you to his site, but I want him to earn his traffic the way I did…days and days of blogging with only a few hits. Let’s see if he can handle the challenge. He won't be able to rely on government handouts on this one. Of course I am giving him a favor. The sophisticated Sibby Online readers will be able to find him without my linking to him. In fact one has already informed me of his presence in the blogosphere.

Todd and I have had some constructive and interesting, but more importantly respectful emails. On has blog he mentions this as he refers to me as a right winger and himself as a left winger. I accept those labels. I rather be right than wrong. Therefore being left is also wrong.

What I continue to argue is that Todd is not liberal. In the next issue of The Bird I respond to the Argus Leader’s description of me as a contradiction…a conservative with a ponytail. Instead I argued that I am the liberal…a classical one. Today’s liberals are more accurately described as “socialist”…but they don’t want to admit it. Instead they demand to be called “progressive”.

What’s progressive about those who want to go back to the ideology that the Founding Fathers (the classical liberals) were opposed to? Those of us who have rejected the “new-age” liberals and become “classical” liberals are the true progressives.

Todd also argues that he is not a Democrat because he is voting for Ralph Nader. Todd…Nader is running as a Democrat. OK…he is on the far-left of the Democrat party. His anti-capitalistic ideology is just that much more socialistic. I could, but I won’t use the ‘C’ word (Communist). I will reserve that for Michael Moore. Just think…Tom Daschle was just one little hug away from communism.

White men who speak with forked tongue

Today the Native Times is reporting the Cheyenne River Sioux are celebrating money sent from the American taxpayers:

South Dakota Democratic Senators Tom Daschle and Tim Johnson are both trumpeting a grant of $271,512 that the Cheyenne River Sioux Tribe will receive to begin development of a nursing home for tribal elders. Daschle and Johnson say they secured funding for the project in a fiscal year 2004 appropriations bill for the Department of Health and Human Services.

"A new nursing home on Cheyenne River will allow community members to take special care of their own elders," Daschle said. "Seniors will receive the skilled care they need without having to leave the community. The facility will improve health care services for Cheyenne River families, giving them the peace of mind that they won't need to travel long distances to visit their elders. This funding will get the engine going for construction and administration of the new nursing home."

"People on Cheyenne River should be able to receive care near their homes as they reach their golden years. This facility will keep seniors closer to their families, and provide the necessary health care to this aging population. Senator Daschle and I made this important project a priority during last year's funding cycle," Johnson said.

The US Senate approved the funding 65 to 28 on January 22, 2004. Would you be surprised that both Tom Daschle and Tim Johnson voted “Nay”?

Senator Daschle and I made this important project a priority during last year's funding cycle," Johnson said. That is an absolute lie. The 65 Senators who voted for this funding and President Bush who signed the bill into law deserve more credit than the two clowns from South Dakota who voted against it do. The taxpayers that are paying for this funding deserve even more credit than the politicians who approved it do.

Tom Daschle and Tim Johnson should be placed at the bottom at the totem pole. That won’t happen until the South Dakota media reports on what these two white men who speak with forked tongues are doing while they are supposedly representing South Dakota in Washington DC.

Check it out

I got to run, so I don't have time to detail the tons of great stuff that DVT has posted today. It you haven't been there yet...check it out.

SD Democrats and lawyers

SDP has a great post on Tom Daschle and his involvement with trial lawyers. This reminds me of Larry Diedrich’s closing statement during the Dakotafest forum with Stephanie Herseth (via AP):

Diedrich ended his presentation by saying there are too few farmers and too many lawyers in Congress. He said that when he started running, there were 146 lawyers in Congress and only 16 farmers and ranchers. ''I ask you, do you think government is working better today than it did 200-plus years ago when most of those people were involved in agriculture? . . . We have an opportunity to change that number to 17 this fall,'' Diedrich said.

Since the candidates pretty much agreed on almost every issue, Larry smartly distinguished himself from Herseth who is a lawyer. Of course, Herseth had to move to the right in order to meet Diedrich on most issues. In DC, Herseth may have problems maintaining those positions when the Democrat leadership will expect votes to the left in exchange for the money she wants to bring to South Dakota.

Besides the risk that Herseth will change her tune, the choice is now between a South Dakota farm boy verses an East Coast lawyer.

The new populism…blogs

This morning I posted an email I received from a reader. That post was linked to by the Club For Growth web site. [Under Campaign News; SD: Daschle Doesn’t Understand Taxes] This is further evidence on how the blogs can bring forward the thoughts and opinions of everyday people. Many are very thought out and intelligent. Today, one of those thoughts made it to the national level.