The Party of Ideas strikes again

By Lee Russ

Wednesday, September 20, 2006 at 05:37 PM

Proving that the Republican smear machine never runs out of those ideas that the Republicans are so proud of, we now have the National Republican Congressional Committee claiming that a Democratic candidate for congress in Minnesota "didn't vote" in certain years, including the year she ran for congress.

Problem is, she did vote, in both the primary and general elections.  But the Republicans aren't backing off, staking their case on the fact that there's no record that the congresswoman, Patty Wetterling, voted in a "Presidential Preference" poll.  Not surprising, given that the poll was so informal that there are no records at all of who voted, with news reports indicating that "ballots" at some of the precinct caucuses where the vote was held consisted of "scrap paper and Post-It notes."

That doesn't deter the party of ideas, however, because they have...an idea.  The idea is that they can claim Wetterling didn't vote (at this totally meaningless poll) as long as Wetterling can't definitively prove that she did:

NRCC Press Secretary Jonathan Collegio cited Wetterling's voting record from the Minnesota Secretary of State's office, which shows no evidence of her voting in a March 2004 presidential preference ballot.
...
"If Patty Wetterling wants to produce documentation showing that she did in fact vote in the 2004 presidential preference ballot, then we will take a look at it," he said.

I've got another "idea," worthy of the Republicans: Wetterling should claim that both her Republican opponent and the NRCC guy are guilty of rape, pederasty, and murder, until such time as they can produce evidence that they aren't.