GOP candidate Carl Demaio tells his campaign not to identify black people as possible trackers http://t.co/wmGkNO4j8E pic.twitter.com/dqGiEFmbqK
— Tim Mak (@timkmak) October 17, 2014
From TPM:
The campaign manager for Republican congressional candidate Carl DeMaio (CA) once offered a set of tips for identifying opposition research trackers looking to catch DeMaio in a gaffe or compromising moment: if the person in question is young or black they could very well be a tracker…
The emails are the latest revelation in a campaign that has gotten national attention mostly for a former top staffer accusing DeMaio of sexual harassment and DeMaio’s staff, in response, accusing that staffer of breaking into a campaign office and also saying he was fired for a plagiarism scandal.
The email exchange reported by the Examiner on Friday started when DeMaio said he saw two trackers at an event…
Knepper has since apologized. Guess they did learn something from George Allen’s fate…
Of course, there’s still hope for 2016! [warning: Politico link]…
Sen. Rand Paul tells POLITICO that the Republican presidential candidate in 2016 could capture one-third or more of the African-American vote by pushing criminal-justice reform, school choice and economic empowerment…
Exit polls showed the GOP’s share of the African-American vote in the past six presidential elections ranged from 4 percent for John McCain in 2008 to 12 percent for Bob Dole in 1996, according to the Roper Center. Mitt Romney got 6 percent in 2012.
When pressed on his ambitious goal, Paul upped the ante: “I don’t want to limit it to that. I don’t want to say there’s only a third open. … The reason I use the number ‘a third,’ is that when you do surveys of African-American voters, a third of them are conservative on a preponderance of the issues. So, there is upside potential.”…
Pounding a message he has delivered in interview after interview, Paul said President Barack Obama and his administration have “underplayed the danger and transmissibility” of the Ebola virus and have had a “bossy, arrogant attitude.”
“Because they haven’t been really forthright about the disease, people suspect their leadership, their motives,” Paul said. “They … don’t feel like they’re being told the truth about this. … Because they so much don’t want to alarm people, I think they’ve … undersold the danger of this thing. … When you read their description [of how it is transmitted], it makes me think that they’re talking about AIDS.”…
“A month ago, I said that we should consider restricting commercial travel and visas to our country from West Africa,” Paul said.
“We should consider rescheduling international conclaves that include bringing leaders from West Africa until the contagion dies down. … Think about what happens if this gets into Third World countries in the Southern Hemisphere, it gets into countries that have no ability to stop this, how it could become a contagion in those countries.”
I do believe this falls under Mr. Pierce’s Five-Minute Rule, because I’m thinking that’s how long it took for Rand to pivot from counting up potential African-American votes to explaining that the first African-American president and his “bossy, arrogant attitude” is permitting leaders from West Africa to spread AIDS-like “contagion” in our personal hemisphere.
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Apart from being thankful (as always) that you’re not on Rand Paul’s team, what’s on the agenda for the day?