Chris Matthews goes over his list of Decision '08 Biggest Losers with Johnathan Allen and Michael Crowley.
#5-Sarah Palin
#4-Joe Lieberman
#3-Elizabeth Dole
#2-The Bradley Effect
#1-Karl Rove
By now most of you have seen or heard about Republican Elizabeth Dole's disgusting and desperate "Godless" commercial attacking her front-running opponent, Democrat Kay Hagan.
Not only has Hagan fired back with an ad of her own (posted above), her campaign has now filed a defamation lawsuit against Dole and fiercely punching back against what has to be the lowest of campaign smears in the 2008 campaign cycle. From The Hill:
Democratic challenger Kay Hagan has filed a defamation lawsuit against Sen. Elizabeth Dole (R-N.C.) for questioning Hagan's faith in what is shaping up as the nastiest campaign of this cycle.
Hagan announced the lawsuit after Dole refused to remove the ad, which suggests Hagan is an atheist and has become the subject of tough criticism from several newspaper editorials in North Carolina. Several polls show Dole trailing Hagan, a state senator.
“Elizabeth Dole would love nothing more than to distract from the issues and her record for the last five days of the campaign,” Flanagan said. “In filing this suit, we’ve made clear that these kind of despicable tactics will not be tolerated, and our campaign is moving forward with the most important task at hand: defeating Elizabeth Dole, and giving North Carolina’s families a voice in the U.S. Senate that they’ve been sorely missing.” Read on...
From The Situation Room Oct. 30, 2008. While discussing the response of Kay Hagan to the Elizabeth Dole ad calling her Godless, Wolf Blitzer actually asks Donna Brazile and Bill Bennett if it's okay for candidates to be associating with atheists. I'm not sure what's more disturbing, his question, or their answers.
Blitzer: But did she make a mistake Donna by going to that fundraiser at the home of the woman who professes that there is no god?
Brazile: You know Wolf there are a lot of believers. I'm one of them. And there are people who just don't believe in an existence of a god. I don't know why because clearly there's strong evidence that there's a god but I believe that you serve all the people. Not just those that profess to have faith but those with little or no faith. That's how you convert them.
Blitzer: Is it a problem Bill to associate with atheists?
Bennett: Well this is an active atheist. This is a woman, ah, people who are campaigning to get "In God We Trust" off the currency. You know it would have been sensible for Kay Hagan or Kay Hagan's advisers to say let's just pass on this one. That's just going to get you into the association game. You know the "house of" like Barack Obama's been tagged with for the last six months or six years.
This is just so wrong on so many levels it's hard to know where to begin. First of all Donna Brazile, yes if you hold a public office you should serve all and not just those who profess to have faith, but that's not how you convert them!! Are you kidding me??!! There are plenty of people out there who don't care to be converted thank you. I know George Bush and the GOP have blown a hole right through this but we are supposed to have separation of church and state in this country, and we don't need to have two theocratic parties. One is one too many already. And Wolf, there is nothing wrong with being an atheist or heaven forbid associating with them. There's nothing wrong with atheists that might want to..gasp.. run for office. Just like there's nothing wrong with Muslims who want to run for office, or agnostics, or Jews, or Catholics. And Bill Bennett, we do still have a thing called free speech in this country and if someone doesn't like the words "In God We Trust" on the currency, they have every right to express that view without being treated like commie pinkos. Shame on all of you for this interview.
People for the American Way has created an ad that is now playing in potential Democratic-pick up Senate seats, targeting Susan Collins (Maine), Norm Coleman (Minnesota), Elizabeth Dole (North Carolina), John Sununu (New Hampshire) and Gordon Smith (Oregon).
As part of People For the American Way's Save the Court campaign, we're running ads in key states targeting senators who voted against their constituents' interests by supporting George W. Bush's extreme judicial nominees.
The ads below call out senators who sided with Bush when it came to judicial nominees whose decisions had very real — and negative — impacts on families in their state.
I'm a member of PFAW. You can join as well, and your donation will help buy ad time and hopefully help us increase the Democratic majority in the Senate.
By the way, one of the reasons that Dole faces such a tough race? The perception that she is nothing more than an empty suit. In 2006, she only spent 13 days in her state and was rated by Congress.org as 93rd most effective senator. In a field of 100, that's gotta hurt.
