Virginia Dems Playing Race Card Early

August 12, 2009 by Cato  
Filed under Blogging, Democrat Campaigns, Race, Virginia, Virginia Politics

When you’re behind in the polls far enough, I guess there is nothing that some won’t do.  With the Democrat ticket behind by 8 – 14 points, certain members of Virginia’s blue blogosphere are willing to stoop pretty low.

Not Larry Sabato posted that the Bob McDonnell campaign was displaying a battle flag (a Confederate flag for you Yankees out there) in their booth at the Virginia Outdoor Sportsman Show last weekend.  Then Joe Abbey, Creigh Deeds’ campaign manager, started spreading the same story on Twitter.  There’s just one problem – It’s Not True!

As noted by both Bearing Drift AND the Washington Post, the manager of the show stated that the flag was on display in the booth NEXT TO McDonnell’s by a vendor who sold “Confederate T-Shirts”.

Rather than admit that he was wrong,  Ben Tribbett of NLS decided to up the ante.  First, NLS ran a post showing then Sen. Bill Bolling wearing a sticker with a battle flag in the background under the headline “So Republicans Don’t Use the Confederate Flag?”  Unfortunately for Tribbett, viewing his own picture shows that the sticker was in support of Confederate History Month.  Sorry Ben.  It’s our history.  I can only infer that Tribbett and his ilk would prefer that we simply ignore civil war history – other than the expected punch lines about slavery.

Now Tribbett is attempting to deconstruct the photo from show and still claim that it WAS the McDonnell campaign displaying the battle flag.  The part that I find do sad is:

Clearly that is a table the Sportsman for McDonnell placed in THEIR booth for THEIR flag.  If the flag wasn’t in their booth as they claim, why can’t they come up with a photograph to prove it.  Over a multi-day gun show, not a single McDonnell supporter took a picture of their booth?

Ben.  Simply go over to Shaun Kenney’s site.  I don’t know who took the picture.  I don’t really care.  However, unless you are going to claim that the photo was altered, it’s pretty conclusive.

Even the Deeds campaign is backing away from this one.  While unwilling to admit that NLS was wrong, and refuses to correct the mistake, they are disavowing their own campaign manager.  These guys can’t even play the race card right; and I thought that was an inherited skill for Democrats.