Lucas Baumbach, the most vocal of Raul Labrador's supporters, has admitted that the viral YouTube video he created to help Labrador win a Congressional primary race over Vaughn Ward was "a piece of propaganda." Baumbach heavily edited his video to give the impression that Ward plagiarized Obama’s 2004 DNC speech by juxtaposing phrases from speeches Ward and Obama.
“No, it wasn’t accurate - it was a piece of propaganda,” Baumbach told Eye on Boise today, “and people thought that there was enough truth in it to change their votes.” Baumbach said he decided to exercise his video-editing skills after a May 13 blog post from the Idaho Statesman’s Dan Popkey pointed out similar turns of phrase in the two speeches, and Dustin Hurst of the Idaho Freedom Foundation’s IdahoReporter.com followed up with a May 21 story including video from both speeches. “That wasn’t attracting much attention,” Baumbach said. Simply posting both videos wasn’t enough, he said, “when you’re trying to get the word out, sensationalizing something.”But the good ol' boy Republican establishment just loved Baumbach's video takedown of Ward:
“I admit that there was a lot of editing that went on there,” Baumbach said.
He’d just finished being congratulated by other like-minded Republicans after a GOP unity rally today at the state Capitol, where some were throwing around the word “brilliant;” last night, at GOP election-night headquarters, Baumbach attracted similar praise from some in the crowd who called him “the man of the hour.” Baumbach’s mash-up was featured on the “Tonight Show with Jay Leno” last night, though Leno left off the final scene in which Baumbach shows Ward’s face slowing morphing into Obama’s.We just hope that the "Tea Partiers" who supported Labrador are proud of the fact that their guy is an immigration lawyer "who represents clients before immigration judges, sometimes to help them remain in the United States after they’ve violated laws and are subject to deportation," according to the Spokesman-Review, and has been critical of Arizona's tough immigration law. Because that's one of the reasons why Sarah Palin wisely endorsed Ward.
- JP
Right on Josh. Labrador's win means the Democrats (Minnick) will likely hold on to this seat in November. Minnick, who is the MOST conservative Democrat in Congress, with a voting record better than many Republicans, will follow the same strategy as Critz did against Burns in PA - 12, and run to the right of Labrador. He will make himself out as the true conservative in the race (the Tea Party Express has endorsed him as an acceptable Democrat) and he will run negative ads which will portray Labrador as an ACLU loving left wing lawyer, especially on the illegal immigration issue. Minnick has a huge financial advantage and will "nuke" Labrador with an onslaught of negative ads about illegal immigration.
ReplyDeleteFurther,Labrador cannot raise money. Up to May 5th he raised only $174,000 - most from outside Idaho - compared to $578,000 raised by Ward and $1,514,000 raied by Minnick. On May 5th Labrador only had $36,000 left which means he is broke going into the campaign. Despite the unity rally, given the unfair way he portrayed Ward, it is doubtful if previous Ward contributors will back him. Given the way they trashed Sarah, I doubt if she will come back to do a fundraiser for Labrador. Compare this to Minnick who currently still has $1 million of cash, will get huge cash infusions from the national party and other Democratic groups to hold this district, plus the fact Minnick is a very wealthy man (former CEO of Boise Cascade) who can self fund. Idaho is an inexpensive media market so Minnick will be able to do saturation negative ads against Labrador on the illegal immigration issue - and Labrador won't be able to reply. While the ads may not switch Republicans into voting for Minnick, they will depress Republican turnout as people will rather stay at home than vote for Labrador.
Labrador is toast!
All citizens need to be cautious about "jumping
ReplyDeleteon the bandwagon" of a candidate because their
group is just loving him or her. There is no
excuse for not properly vetting a candidate.
Anyone can go online and get copies of speeches
verbatim or videos on youtube.com/cspan.com.
Read the blogs and, in particular, the comments
sections. While they have their share of loonies, one can also find good points of view
that are either for or against the person of interest. It is all good education.
With what we now know goes on in Washington, it is critical to carefully select/elect candidates that adhere to the principles of what we like
to call commonsense conservatism.
November 2012 will be the defining point. It is that important.
And the Republican establishment wonders why they have little support among honest voters...Sad! What a "waste of an opportunity"!
ReplyDelete