This is of course serious dog bites man news, but the deflector shields are being passed around in Congress in an attempt to insulate vulnerable GOP Congresspeople from the stench of the growing Abramoff scandal:
The campaign will zero in on Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.); Sens. Debbie Stabenow and Carl Levin, both Michigan Democrats; and the Democratic Senatorial Committee (DSCC), among others, for taking money from Abramoff’s former clients.
Stabenow is up for reelection next year; Reid and Levin are not. With the entry of Oakland County Sheriff Michael Bouchard (R) into the Senate race in Michigan, many leading Republicans believe they have a reasonable chance of unseating the first-term senator.
Republicans have spent months trying to blunt Democratic ethics charges. But the new communications blitz — which will include disseminating talking points to Capitol Hill Republicans and flooding local media with information linking Democrats to Abramoff — marks a more coordinated effort to halt the anti-GOP tide.
NRSC spokesman Brian Nick said the campaign committee would “be getting the resources” not only to senators up for reelection but to all members of the Republican Conference “so that they can offensively message that Democrats are playing partisan politics with an issue that involves all of Congress.”
My God--"offensively message?" I'd say this PR flack offered an outstanding example of offensive messaging. Note of course that he doesn't use the phrase "point out the fact that," because that would have the unfortunate effect of being false--since it doesn't involve all of Congress--just about 40 of them, 37-39 of them Republicans.
The reason for posting this notation of the obvious is that it would strongly behoove the Democratic Party to quickly get straight and "rebuttally message" what the clear differences are here between their politicians and the Republicans:
- Payments AFTER votes; and
- Payments from the tribes, not Abramoff.
Taking money from special interests, odious as I find it, is SOP for federal politicians. That's not an issue. What becomes an issue is when money is spent, and favorable votes are then suddenly cast. That's not what you have with Senators like Dorgan (who Roll Call strangely doesn't even mention) and Reid, two figures with long support for tribal casino interests, who voted favorably and then sometime later received payments.
And those payments came directly from the tribes, as the standard political donation. What Abramoff's relationships were to Republicans under suspicion, is something wholly different. Abramoff wined and dined, golfed and consulted, hired and pampered his better friends. And then they immediately did really nice things for him. The tribes? They got shafted.
So when this sewer trail of sad-sack 3rd grade "everyone's guilty" justification comes down the pike from Offensive Message Central, remember what your old pal Uncle Torrid said: after good, before bad; tribes good, Abramoff bad. And if that isn't enough of a scorecard reference for you, just pay attention to the names coming from Michael Scanlon and now suddenly Ben Fitial, who have agreed to turn state's evidence and start dropping bombshells over the next few months. As said elsewhere tonight, they may make Ronnie Earle look like mama's breast milk by comparison.
--TJ
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