Rep. Mark Kirk (R-IL) has now been caught on several occasions exaggerating his military exploits and service in his race for the Illinois Senate once held by Barack Obama. But state Rep. Linda Chapa La Via, herself a veteran, managed to bungle things pretty badly when she went on the local Fox affiliate to knock him around and said Kirk should “come out and apologize to all the veterans, especially the veterans during the Vietnam era since that’s when he supposedly served.”
Only problem is that Kirk was 13 or 14 (depending on when you want to date the end of the war) when the war ended. And I’m pretty sure that’s one fib he hasn’t to pull. So Chapa LaVia seems to have gone on the air and gotten Kirk mixed up in her head with Richard Blumenthal.
If there’s one campaign ad you’ll watch in 2010, make it this one from GOP congressional candidate Rick Barber. Barber is a tea-partying conservative who is in the runoff for his party’s nomination for Congress in the AL-02.
Everything you need to know about the tea party movement, the state of the Republican Party and the stakes of this election in one 30-second TV spot. Take a look.
TPM Reader NL remarks from on the ground …
I just returned from a weeklong beach trip to South Carolina, and while I was there, I thoroughly enjoyed TPM’s coverage of the state’s primary mess. Driving home the other day up I-26, I realized that South Carolina may be even more conservative than I knew (and I am a lifelong North Carolinian – please never, ever confuse the two states).
Another report from TPM Reader JE …
I am an ex-minerals exploration geologist. My experience was in Latin America and Northern Canada, but I sent the following to some friends early this morning:
“Hard to tell how earthshaking this is, given its propaganda value, the lack of publicly released data, and apparently sparse on-the-ground investigation.
It’s starting to seem like the ‘discovery’ of vast Afghan mineral reserves is mainly a discovery for readers of The New York Times. It seems like this has known by people for some time.
The Alvin Greene story is a great mystery. But maybe it’s not such a mystery? We know that Greene didn’t campaign or do anything. So there was virtually no way any voters in South Carolina could have even known who he was, let alone make a judgment about whether to vote for him. But what about the real candidate Vic Rawl? It turns out no one had any idea who he was either.
Carolinian TPM Reader BW ain’t a fan of either Carolina. (I don’t like badmouthing states and I don’t attach myself to BW’s views. But for pure rant quality I thought I’d pass it along.)
I live in SC and work in NC. I have a completely objective view of the Carolinas. I hate them both equally. Yep, NC is different from SC, but nothing to be particularly proud of – given you’re weighing varying degrees of ugly. NC is the stuff you wipe off new baby who is still on a diet of mom’s milk and mashed peas. SC is what you deal with after a full-blown introduction of steak and potatoes (or in this case, shrimp and grits).