John Sweeney, the Miami Mob Leader, came up in Rensselaer County, then NYS, Republican politics by being a bare-knuckled, spare-no-smear operative.
So ordering a mob of DeLay thugs to violently "shut down" legal vote recounting in Miami-Dade was just another day's work for a veteran election-thief.
While some of his gang spout even worse McCarthyite smears on local blogs, Sweeney clearly showed where the negative smear stuff comes from in a front-page story in Sunday's Troy Record (which presumably also ran in The Saratogian and The Independent, since they're all owned by the cheapest newspaper chain in the country).
Sweeney the smear leader, below the fold.
Here's a selection of how Sweeney took the low road in The Record article:
You can't manufacture your residence or manufacture your background. You can't adequately represent people when you have no history of doing it.
The Democrats are desperately trying to gain control of Congress and I think they picked the wrong fight in the wrong place. You can't take talking points out of Washington and use them in the 10 counties I have served and make them relevant to the residents' lives.
You can't take a resume and a pretty face from New York City and say to people this is good for you simply because we can spend a lot of money and raise a lot of money.
She will always vote for New York City first because that is all she knows.
She is too close to (national Democratic Party Chairman) Howard Dean.
Given her father is one of Albany's most notorious lobbyists, it (Gillibrand's criticism of the Republivan Culture of Corruption) seems rather hollow.
Those are pretty much all his quotes in the story.
The NYC smear is standard for upstate Republicans -- a barely concealed racist, anti-semitic message that anyone remotely related to NYC, like by being a Democrat, or worse, a Democrat that has lived and worked there, is "not one of us."
And, in a Rovian move, Sweeney also smears Gillibrand for having a lobbyist for a father.
This is ironic on so many levels -- Sweeney has raised a ton of money from lobbyists, and generally done their bidding; he will himself become an influence-peddling lobbyist when he loses or retires, just like his late, unlamented predecessor, Gerry Solomon, the congressman from GE who retired to become a millionaire GE lobbyist; and his new-model, former "exotic dancer" wife "worked" for an Albany lobbying firm run by Sweeney's mentor, D'Amato buddy Bill Powers.
Gillibrand, so far, has not responded in kind by noting that Sweeney's new-model, former "exotic dancer" wife was in no way qualified to skim 10 percent of his fund-raising as a "consultant." Sweeney is evidently one of only two members of Congress (the other is CA Republican John Doolittle) to use campaign funds to enrich himself in this way.
Sweeney did not talk about issues at all, especially not about his slavish support for unpopular Bushite policies like the lousy war in Iraq, gutting Social security, the Medicare D(isaster) program written by Big Pharma lobbyists, unconstitutional and illegal spying on Americans, tax cuts for rich people that have caused a fiscal catastrophe, etc., ad nauseam.
In fact, he apparently didn't mention Bush at all, because he wants the race to be about pork and smearing his strongest challenger ever as a liberal NYC-type, and not about his support for Bushite policies that have been terrible for all but the few rich people in the district.
Nor about how he's been a reliable vote for the most unpopular president since Nixon, the most unpopular vice president ever, and the most disgraceful House majority leader ever.
Gillibrand has been keeping her powder dry, waiting for the election season after Labor Day for a big media push to remind voters that Sweeney is a Bush-enabler.
She could use some help for that; please show some Kossack love here.