Whats your complaint about Wendy Davis? She's running a classic Karl Rove campaign, turning her opponent's strengths into liabilities.
He is a wheelchair bound man who is married to a latina. He likes to very proudly display both of those in all his campaigning because they are strengths that will get him votes. Its cynical exploitation.
Wendy Davis's campaign, in turn, attacks his strengths by pointing out his very own comments where he says he's unsure if he would have fought a ban on interracial marriage if he was AG during the 50's, as well as calling him out for suing after the accident that put him in a wheelchairs for millions despite already being well off, and then working against the rights of other disabled.

Are you going to cry foul over the cynical game being played by one side when both are doing it?

refer to post #3 regarding your question.

One of the campaign managers was pushing to do a "Why isnt ---- answering the question about whether or not he has pedophile based allegations against him by an underage female".
Luckily, it was shot down, but unfortunately they still went along with a more mild "asking questions" campaign, so I left.

From the OP:




So... when did either of those things actually happen? Because what you've linked here only shows that the Davis campaign is saying that Greg Abbott is refusing to answer whether or not he would defend a ban on interracial marriage, either in the case that one was law now or previously, and that's true. The Abbott campaign is refusing to answer that question, and the candidate doesn't deny that fact. He was asked the question in an interview by the San Antonio Express-News editorial board [See: http://www.expressnews.com/news/news_columnists/peggy_fikac/article/Is-there-an-echo-of-the-past-in-the-ban-on-gay-5833451.php] and he twice declined to definitively answer whether or not he would/would have or wouldn't/wouldn't have.

Going from there to Davis saying that Abbott would ban interracial marriage, or Davis saying that there's a threat to interracial marriage, is a big stretch. For the moment the campaign is simply noting, correctly, that Abbott is choosing not to answer what should be a pretty easy hypothetical question.

Take my example from the GOP. They imply that because he won't answer if he voted for Obama, he obviously voted for and supports Obama.

We all know how the allegation game works. You imply that because A is their stance, or lack of, that B is the case. You can take your spin bullshit elsewhere. You've got extra special threads just for you to bubble away in, hurry along now.

My equilibrium just got shot all to hell for some strange reason...

if they can't answer a question it means the answer would be more damaging to his/her campaign than not speaking on it and getting smeared by their opponents

their silence is all that's needed to assume the worst even if it can't/hasn't been proven

it's like romney's taxes

...the weird thing about this post is that you've used this very same tactic on PaRD for years

Oh no... it happens. Just not to the extent that it does in the US... I mean Al Gore ran a whole campaign based around his opponent having extramaritals... There's a few jibes here and there in brit politics but anyone trying to run a serious campaign entirely based on smear would be laughed off.

I think our media helps a lot though. They tend to do some really good reporting on things that actually matter... because john dogsbody is aware of what their potential PM's stance is on the NHS, Education funding etc... things that affect the everyman... they actually have to fight their campaign at least partially based on policy.

e/ the problem is - much like in America - they tend to poll and work out the most popular opinion on particular issues, pretend to go along with it and then do whatever they want anyway once they're in power. Like Cameron's Austerity cuts and top-down reorganisation of the NHS. Hopefully the conservatives will lose next general so we can keep our healthcare as is. Privatised healthcare would seriously suck...

This post was edited by Scaly on Oct 21 2014 03:46pm

I don't know that feel