Club for Growth: Never Underestimate the Stupidity of the American People
Check this out. And it's not from the Onion. What are these people thinking???Well if the French are opposed to tax cuts for the rich, huge deficits, underfunding education, cutting back on health care for children, the poor and the elderly, and defunding workplace health and safety and environmental enforcement agencies, then all I can say is Viva la France!Conservatives Attack Two GOP Senators With Electronically Doctored Images
Washington Post
Sunday, April 20, 2003; Page A05
Politicians generally are happy to pose with a flag. But not the French flag, especially these days.
With the help of a little digital wizardry, the conservative Club for Growth is airing ads showing Republican Sens. Olympia J. Snowe (Maine) and George V. Voinovich (Ohio) in proximity to French flags in order to disparage their resistance to President Bush's tax-cut plans.
Snowe and Voinovich have said they will support only $350 billion of Bush's $726 billion proposal, and their critical votes in the closely divided Senate this month led to a deal aimed at limiting the tax cut to $350 billion. This raised the ire of the Club for Growth, an anti-tax advocacy group with a penchant for throwing political rocks at moderate Republicans.
The TV ads, which will run for 10 days in Maine and Ohio, recall France's opposition to the U.S. invasion of Iraq. They go on to say "some so-called Republicans," naming Snowe in the Maine ads and Voinovich in the Ohio ads, "stand in the way" of Bush's tax-cutting plans at home. Digitally inserted French flags flutter beside the senators' images.
"It's hilarious," said Voinovich spokesman Scott Milburn. "It reminds me of the Iraqi information minister's daily briefing. It's so incredible that it barely deserves a response."
The Republican Main Street Partnership, representing about 65 moderate GOP lawmakers and governors – including Snowe but not Voinovich – is responding with newspaper and TV ads that defend Snowe and describe the Club for Growth as "misinformed New York City elitists."
As for the French flag, it may not have been such as good idea in the Maine ads. A good number of Snowe's constituents are of French Canadian ancestry, and they rather like the French flag.
By the way, you can see the ads yourself at the Club for Growth's web page.
Their mission is to run conservative Republicans to the right of the moderates. Seems to work pretty well. Either they pick up a more conservative congressional seat (or at least a nomination), or they at least force the Republican moderates to always be looking over their right shoulders.
Now why can't the left do that? When a bunch of Democrats (Lincoln (D-AR), Hollings (D-SC), Breaux (D-LA), Landrieu (D-LA), Miller (D?-GA) and Baucus (D-MT)) betrayed the people who elected them by voting to overturn OSHA's ergonomics standard in 2001, the AFL-CIO jumped up and down and screamed and yelled and then worked their asses off to get them all re-elected. And given the situation, it was the only thing we could do. Given the situation.... But maybe we need to change the situation. Start our own "Club."
