March 19, 2019

So the Club for Growth, learning the lesson that attacking Democratic candidates from the left is most effective, has a new ad out PRAISING BARACK OBAMA and attacking Beto O'Rourke for his "white privilege" and not going to jail over a DUI while black people "languish in jail." Morning Joe invited CFG president David McIntosh to talk about the ad, and the reaction was probably not what he expected.

I especially liked this reaction from Mike Barnicle.

"Dave, given the level of discourse in American politics, the level of lying, manipulation, personal attacks, avoidance of history, lack of character in the president of the United States, how, how can you put out an ad like that and further take this into the sewer?" Barnicle said. (Concise, to the point.)

"First of all, I don't think it further takes the system into the sewer."

"You don't?"

"Just watch. You're gonna see ads more in the sewer. This is about a guy who said 'I'm for the people' but his whole record shows he's not. He's for himself. He was for his father-in-law."

"You're talking Trump now."

"No, I'm talking Beto O'Rourke."

"It sounds like Donald Trump."

"Why don't you face Beto O'Rourke?"

"Why don't you face Donald Trump?"

"We're talking about you and the ad. That's what we're talking about."

"We can pretty much assume the Club for Growth will endorse the Republican nominee if it's Donald Trump. We know you're not -- the Club for Growth is not reaching out to Democratic primary voters. The purpose of this ad is to take down somebody who, I'm asking now, do you believe is the greatest threat to Donald Trump?" Susan DelPurcio asked.

"I think he's a serious threat. I mean, we watched what he did in Texas in the race against Ted Cruz. He came out of nowhere. He's got charisma. You've got to give him that. But what we're pointing out is what he is selling is not the really authentic person he claims to be," McIntosh said.

"Politifact said the claim about his father and father-in-law is mostly false. They said the claim about city council and the real estate issue is half true. So in some ways you're trading in the very thing we have been kind of awash in," Eddie Glaude said. "I want to echo something that Mike asked. What do you see as your responsibility for the current state of our democracy? It seems to be simply that is deeply, deeply disturbing to me."

"The responsibility is to tell the truth and I can tell you the ad is completely backed up by the facts. The records there. Go look at the city council record. Beto O'Rourke fought over and over again to take away that neighborhood and turn it over to his father-in-law's development company. That's the facts. He can't avoid that," McIntosh said.

In addition to being the president of the Club for Growth, McIntosh was a Republican congressman (the son of a judge) who fought to roll back environmental laws and food and drug regulation. He's also the co-founder of the Federalist Society, who gave us such stellar legal giants as Neil Gorsuch and Brett "Beers" Kavanaugh.

So you know you can trust him.

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