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Mitch considered attacking Judd

I don't need a fainting couch. I could use a disappointment chair.

I grew up in Chicago, so perhaps I am too much into the school of treat-every-room-as-if-it-were-bugged. If I were in a room with people I could not trust with my life and those things were said, I would respond "You guys have misunderstood what I consider valid and invalid targets. I am going to have a talk with my senior aide here and later on he will describe to you the kind of issues I wish to run on." I'd then pull the aide aside and say that we'll let the super-PACs handle religion and mental health while we take the high road; no one is to ever mention those issues again while I am in the room.
 
sarge said:
Or I could accept that the behavior is relatively common and choose other criteria for selecting who to vote for. I have dozens of reasons for not voting for McConnel - none of them related to his campaign integrity.
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I don't know that much about McConnell but when I read the actual transcript I did not see where he was going to distort the truth.
 
sarge said:
Someone in the meeting might have illegally taped the conversation. The remedy: investigate and prosecute.
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If somebody in the meeting taped it, then no law was broken. It would only be illegal if it was taped by someone who wasn't part of the meeting.
 
steve s said:
Apparently their not aware of smart phone technology. He's making himself look like a fossil.

Steve S
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I agree that there likely was no "bugging" or complicated surveillance (although someone in McConnell's camp said that such things were obvious). More likely, someone in the room had a humble cell phone recording the proceedings.

And I don't necessarily think that what was said in the meeting was all that awful, but McConnell is squealing like a child caught with his hand in the cookie jar, making what was said at the meeting seem more scandalous than it actually is.
 
BenBurch said:
Depends on where you are.

In Illinois, tape a meeting without consent or a court order and it's a FELONY.

In Kentucky, only one party to a conversation needs to have consented.
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What! Different laws in different jurisdictions! That's crazy!

/Mock Outrage!!
 
thaiboxerken said:
Could it be, instead, that maybe one of your staffers found it totally disgusting and was the leak?
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That would be the most telling thing. Even the people you trusted to discuss this with were not impressed.

The email rule* now applies to speaking, and I don't think that is a bad thing.

*Don't put anything in an email that you wouldn't want printed on the front page of the newspaper. (May need to update as the print media becomes less relevant . . .)
 
BenBurch said:
Depends on where you are.

In Illinois, tape a meeting without consent or a court order and it's a FELONY.

In Kentucky, only one party to a conversation needs to have consented.
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I had assumed that the taping was at McConnell HQ in Louisville, and while that appears likely (the YouTube tapes are titled "Sen. McConnell Headquarters"), I don't know it for a certainty.

I particularly like this bit:

I call it the American anesthesia. You know, I come back to this country. I freak out in airports. The colors, the sounds, all those different ways of packaging the same snack but trying to, you know, make it look like it's distinct and different and convince consumers that they have to have it. I mean all of that. The last time I came home from a trip, I absolutely flipped out when I saw pink fuzzy socks on a rack. I mean, I can never anticipate what is going to push me over the edge.
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Not the pink fuzzy socks!
 
It's not surprising what Mitch and his goons were talking about.

What makes this "news" is Mitch's insistence that there was illegal activity going on. He's using that as a distraction method to take the heat off of him for what was discussed in the meeting. Why is the media and public falling for it?!
 
Ladewig said:
From the cited article:
The aide also suggests they should go after Judd's religious beliefs with an aide saying, "She is critical…of traditional Christianity" as well as being "anti-sort-of-traditional American family."

I want to live in a country where I expect the ninth most senior senator in congress to say "you know, if we cannot beat a candidate with absolutely no political experience without bringing up her religion, we should just give up now."

Yes. It is absurdly naive of me to say that, but I have no problem criticizing anyone of either party for not taking hold of a strategy meeting in that manner.
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First off, your own quote contradicts your characterization of their contemplated criticism. It's not that her personal beliefs are non-traditional, it's that she's hostile to traditional beliefs. And there's nothing wrong with informing an electorate about a candidate being hostile to the beliefs of that electorate. Oh, and her views on family are whacked.

In addition, your desire is not simply impractical, it's unreasonable. Whether or not a politician can win using a particular strategy, you cannot expect them to pass up alternatives which are easier wins just because the strategy includes negative campaigning. And at the end of the day, that's all this was: run-of-the-mill negative campaign strategy discussions. None of it relied upon sensitive personal information, all of it was already in the public sphere, put there by Judd herself. You can find negative campaigning distasteful all you want to, but it works, and because it works, politicians will use it. Wishing it were otherwise is as useful as a frog wishing it had wings so it wouldn't bump its ass when it hopped.
 
Dr. Keith said:
What! Different laws in different jurisdictions! That's crazy!

/Mock Outrage!!
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Except Illinois' law is blatantly unconstitutional, and a suit filed by the Illinois ACLU is slowly making its way through the courts.

Mostly pols passed it so corrupt government officials couldn't be caught demanding bribes or other illegal activities.
 
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