Huntsman: Worse than a Manchurian candidate!

TUESDAY, JANUARY 10, 2012

Rachel lets it fly: As you may know, a deeply stupid “ad” appeared on-line concerning Jon Huntsman’s adopted daughters.

The “ad” purported to be from unnamed supporters of Ron Paul, though there was no way to know if that was true. Paul himself denounced the ad. Last night, in the heart of an inane opening segment, Rachel gave us more, so much more.

Warning! The first statement we have highlighted is just plain flat-out wrong:
MADDOW (1/9/12): Here’s the thing, though—this is kind of amazing. The Ron Paul campaign now says that it commissioned a study, an audit, I guess, of where this anti-Jon Huntsman ad came from, and who has been circulating it. The Ron Paul campaign says it has looked into where this campaign ad came from and who is circulating it and they think it’s Jon Huntsman.

Seriously.

Here’s the quote from the story about this. "After researching the available evidence, we believe it is likely that the video came from a source within or closely tied to the Huntsman campaign." The study they commissioned says the Huntsman campaign Web site Jon12.com, linked to the video a day before it was picked up on Facebook, on Gawker, on RedState and elsewhere.

So is the Jon Huntsman campaign so nails that they would use this disgusting ad against their own candidate both for the attention and to give him the moral high ground? Give him a very, very, very moral high ground way to talk about his own family background? Could they even have created this horrible ad themselves?

That is what the Ron Paul campaign appears to be suggesting. The Huntsman campaign absolutely denies that.

But in the history of campaigns, weirder things have happened. Things this outrageous do happen in campaigns. They happen when campaigns are brutally, aggressively, tactically ruthless.
“In the history of campaigns, weirder things have happened?” We’re not sure that’s true.

If you simply look at her text, you will see what's wrong with Maddow’s first highlighted remark. But we’d say it’s a sign of amazing bad judgment that this topic was pimped last night at all. The bulk of Maddow’s report was inane, as her political work often is; included was some golden-oldie bullroar about Huntsman’s kick-off speech last summer, mixed in with newer complaints about the look of his campaign signs (see below). But given the highly speculative nature of this “story” from Paul’s campaign, we think Maddow showed very weird judgment presenting this topic last night.

And no—the Paul campaign hasn’t said that “they think it’s Jon Huntsman.” Though that did build excitement! And interest!

Like Maddow, we have no idea where that “ad” came from. To follow Maddow’s trail of links, click here. To watch an inane report about electoral politics, just click this.

Jon Huntsman has lousy campaign signs. No one else will tell you!

Them signs: Maddow has given a great deal of thought to Jon Huntsman’s signs. Did we mention that this was part of last night’s opening segment?
MADDOW: Also, and I know this is petty but has to be said, Jon Huntsman has had lame campaign signs in New Hampshire. He’s got at least three different ones in the Granite State. This one, where it sort of looks like the Halliburton logo? Kind of? That’s the Halliburton logo on one side of your screen, the Jon Huntsman slash Halliburton logo on the other one. But at least that one sort of looks tough. Usually this is on a big black background with a big red H. So it sort of looks manly, or something at least.

The campaign sign that you see the most for Mr. Huntsman all over New Hampshire is a red one, all the other candidates have these sort of various blue signs. They all look like sort of different types of blue blazers. Jon Huntsman has sort of one that’s in a nice red wine color.

Jon Huntsman has another sign with his campaign Web site on it, Jon2012.com.

I follow Mr. Huntsman’s campaign really closely and when I saw a Jon2012.com sign, I didn’t even know that was for him, let alone that it was a campaign sign. I thought it was an ad for a sale at a discount clothing retailer I’ve never heard of that maybe only existed in specific parts of New Hampshire.

This is not good.
Gaze on corporate liberal greatness. Is there real hope for the world?

3 comments:

  1. This is really, really destructive of democracy.

    ReplyDelete
  2. What a silly segment by Rachel Maddow. Is she so committed to a particular cause that she can't see the forest through the trees?

    ReplyDelete
  3. Maddow has reached the "I feel stupider after watching" contentlessness that only the Sunday morning shows seem to deliver.

    ReplyDelete