Bush Lie about Air Force and How I saw the Repubs use the same strategy

[bleedingheart]

There was a campaign in my area during the 2002 congressional race that involved a fellow named Jack Machek (D) and his opponent Tim Murphy (R).

Jack Machek had a campaign flier that stated that he had attended West Point but that he had graduated from the University of Pittsburgh. Jack was very proud of his West Point acceptance but he had been honorably discharged after he had suffered a hearing loss due to an extended illness.

This was an open congressional seat...and Tim Murphy wanted to win so he wanted to demonize Jack so his campaign staff went about saying that Jack had LIED on his campaign flier because he hadn't graduated from West Point and he had no right to put it on his flier...

In fact they got this veteran (whose son graduated from West Point but was paralyzed in an auto accident) to follow Jack around to public events to bring up this topic over and over and over again.....so that no one paid attention to the issues.

Now I don't know how much influence this had on the campaign but Jack lost and I know that a number of Democrats brought up this issue.

edit: Here is a link which mentions some of the hoopla over this...

http://www.post-gazette.com/election/20021106congress1106p4.asp

In retrospect I have to say that Jack's campaign advisors should have not mentioned anything about the military but then again Tim Murphy got out of Vietnam by attending college....so really I think it was just plain old vanilla nasty politics...

[AmerDem]

1. your link doesn't jive with your post

[bleedingheart]

2. If you read the post...

"Bill Priatko, a Democrat in Machek's hometown of North Huntingdon, was one of them. Priatko said he voted Republican based on Machek's biographical claims, which he considered suspect.

Machek described himself as "an active duty" veteran of the U.S. Army and regularly mentioned his appointment to the U.S. Military Academy in West Point, N.Y. Critics such as Priatko said Machek implied in campaign fliers that he graduated from West Point.
"

[AmerDem]

3. with all do respect

I'm juggling reading over DU as much as I can, reading as many online articles as I can and trying to write to others with new info I have come to know. I really don't have time to sift for 1 paragraph out of dozens for info you started your thread with.

Sorry, like I said no disrespect intended!