Say It Ain't So, Joe

You did it to Clinton, too?


(We will assume from here on in that it's the real Joe Trippi corresponding with us [see below]. I'm finding my own search for plausible deniabilities at being taken in by some internet troll redundant and tiresome meself.)


I think Joe Trippi smells a winner in using the Elkridge issue against Michael Steele, and as he's a professional political consultant, I can't blame him for not wanting to let it go. But it's still what Black folks call "tomming" (as in "Uncle Tom").

I don't buy that it's about right and wrong here: it's about partisan advantage, despite Mr. Trippi's protestions, reprinted below.

Unless the (planned?) Elkridge attack ads tell the whole story, as in "Democrats have rented the hall at the all-white Elkridge Country Club, but Michael Steele's lack of concern about the Republicans doing it too makes him unqualified to be the next governor of Maryland," then I think it's race-based demagoguery.

I also find Mr. Trippi's new report of the 1992 campaign rhetoric against Bill Clinton, tying his playing golf at an all-white club with Arkansas' failure to pass civil rights legislation, as misleading and heinous, and sinking him deeper.

Even as an unsympathetic Republican, I would consider linking the two as an insult to my or anyone else's intelligence. And to return to his original quote, I still find Mr. Trippi's use of "obvious", "civil rights" and "discrimination" in reference to Elkridge as partisan, race-baiting claptrap.

(Unless Mr. Trippi's Democrat client condemned his fellow Democrats at the time for doing it, too. Then it would be very cool, fair game, and even highly principled. I might even vote for such a guy meself.)



With that said, Mr. Trippi's latest response appears prominently (unedited, too), as promised:

Tom -- I am really not trying to have a partisan argument about this -- in the 1992 Presidential Primary I ran an advertisement against Bill Clinton for his golfing outing at a restricted all white country club -- the operative language in the spot if I remember it correctly was "While Bill Clinton plays golf at a restricted all white country club, Arkansas remains one of two states that has never passed the civil rights act"

I appreciate your cynical view of me trying to use blurry language -- but I swear I spent maybe 5 minutes on the call with the reporter who said he was on deadline and just blurted out that throwing oreos and calling anyone an Uncle Tom was dispicable and repugnant.

Now on to Elkridge -- Just because Erhlich and other leading Democrats may have used the place doesn't make it right.

Even if every politician in the state used the place that would not make it right.

Now we can have a debate or discussion about why I think its wrong and Steele isn't bothered by it. That obviously is a difference of opinion that reasonable people can have an open discourse about. How much you want to bet that within a year Elkridge opens its doors to an African American member?

(That would be cool.---TVD)