(Chuck Muth) – As if the campaign of Republican U.S. Senate candidate Sue Lowden didn’t have enough to worry about with this three-weeks-old “Chickens for Checkups” fiasco, yesterday morning’s scuttlebutt on the e-grapevine was that Lowden had been wearing an earpiece during Friday night’s “Action is Brewing” debate in Reno and that campaign manager Robert Uithoven was whispering answers to her.
Absolute, total BS says the Lowden campaign.
While Lowden’s performance, especially early on, struck many as being “overly-coached,” no one who knows Sue actual believes she or her campaign would try something that foolish. Or needed to.
These kinds of rumors are par for the course in a heated campaign coming down the stretch, usually started by desperate campaign supporters frustrated by the fact that their candidate hasn’t caught fire….or by opponents of the front-runner who can’t stand seeing the front-runner running in the front.
But speaking of rumors of cheating at that debate, word on the street is that Sarah Palin’s father helped Danny Tarkanian write crib notes on the back of his hands for the debate. Check the video! Watch how many times Danny appears to look at his hands.
But get this, you can’t actually see the writing on his hand. Palin’s dad used INVISIBLE INK and fitted Danny with a special set of contact lenses, developed by the Alaska Fish & Wildlife Service, which can detect the writing that others are unable to see with the naked eye. It’s brilliant!
So while some who watched Danny’s performance in the debate noticed a clueless, deer-in-the-headlights blank look on his face, it was really just because he wasn’t used to the contacts.
Meanwhile, Chris Simcox and his Minuteman PAC announced this weekend that they are supporting Sharron Angle….which is fine.
However, in an email fundraising solicitation on her behalf, Simcox writes: “Sharron Angle has served as a State Senator and patriot leader in the Nevada legislator. She has been endorsed by nearly every conservative organization in the country, but she’s running against two well financed leftist candidates favored by ‘the Establishment.’”
The problem is….NONE OF THAT IS TRUE!
Angle was never a state senator; she served in the state assembly.
And while Sharron has been endorsed by a number of conservative organizations in the country, it’s nowhere near even close to “nearly every.” In fact, many conservative organizations aren’t endorsing in this race AT ALL because all of the candidates are fairly good on conservative issues (although John Chachas remains the only candidate in the race who refuses to sign the Taxpayer Protection Pledge – not a very smart strategic decision by somebody so obviously smart).
And as for the “two well-financed leftist candidates” who Simcox is referring to, neither can even remotely be considered “leftist” by anyone who knows anything at all about either of the candidates.
Believe me, there are a lot of things you can say about Danny Tarkanian – and Lord knows I’ve said a number of them – but even I draw the line at suggesting he’s a bad conservative. (Being a bad Republican’s another thing altogether.)
Look, I don’t mind outside groups coming into Nevada and playing in this race. Let’s face it, the entire country has something at stake in taking out Harry Reid (politically, of course). But the least they could do is get their facts straight and not lie or embellish about the other candidates. Save that for the general election!
And finally, chew on this about the GOP primary race for U.S. Senate:
Sue Lowden has had a miserable two weeks. Absolutely miserable.
Instead of going away the way the campaign expected/hoped/praryed it would, the Chickens for Checkups brouhaha went super-nova. At the same time, the Tea Party Express endorsed Sharron Angle and Danny Tarkanian bumped up his “Screw Sue” negative/misleading campaign with a new radio ad about how Lowden had once been pro-choice 25 years ago.
And yet according to polling done for the Nevada News Bureau (for which, in the interest of disclosure, Citizen Outreach Foundation provides funding) of likely Republican primary voters Thursday afternoon/evening, Sue’s numbers only dropped 3 points – from 44 percent two weeks ago in another poll, to 41 percent. Well within the margin of error.
But Tarkanian’s number dropped as well, to 24 points. So Lowden’s lead over Tark only narrowed from 18 points to 17 points. And while Angle’s number shot up from 5 points to 17 points, she still trails Lowden by a pretty hefty 24 points.
For Angle to have a shot at knocking off Lowden – whose numbers are holding despite everything that’s happened over the last two weeks – either Lowden is going to have to pull a new boner even bigger than the Chickens for Checkups blunder (highly unlikely that anything could be as bad as that!), or Angle’s going to have to start eating seriously into Tarkanian’s support, as well as the support of the other bottom-tier candidates in the race – though there ain’t a whole lot of support down there to feed from.
Indeed, perhaps the only chance to knock off Lowden at this point might be if Danny dropped out and publicly encouraged his supporters to vote for Angle even though his name would still be on the ballot. It would be the ultimate “screw Sue” from a guy who clearly despises the front-runner for cheating him out of a nomination he felt entitled to, and would give him a “loser’s limp” excuse for losing his third race in a row.
But is Danny Tarkanian really that petty, vindictive and self-absorbed? I guess we’ll soon find out. Stay tuned, Batfans.
(P.S. Since some people don’t recognize my occasional use of absurd satire to point out absurdity, the above story about Danny Tarkanian and Sarah Palin’s dad and the invisible ink isn’t true….I think.)
