Serial party switcher and current Democratic primary candidate in CO-04, Eric Eidsness, paid a visit to SquareState last week. His post, "Winning CD-4" should be screensaved and shown to every campaign this cycle as the paradigm example of how not to interact with progressive blogs.
The former Republican and Reform Party member probably should have recognized that the audience at SquareState, the progressive community blog of Colorado, would be skeptical at best about his recent switch to the Democratic Party, and should also have recognized that many people view him as a third party spoiler responsible for the fact that Marilyn Musgrave managed to survive the 2006 election as the Republican member of Congress elected with the lowest percentage of votes. He addressed the issue of his effect on Angie Paccione's campaign with all the grace of the proverbial bull in the china shop:
Even my service to the Reagan Administration where I enforced three national laws was as a envrionmental professional in the engineering field, not a political hack circling Washington D. C. looking for a position of power and influence. That service seems to be a black eye for me among some die-hard Democratic activists.
I know that there are a vocal few who are mad at my entrance into the race last year as a Reform Party Candidate. Some "blame" me for "spoiling" the race for Angie. That is speculation and really not that relevant to next years race in the CD-4.
However, I will say this, it is interesting that I earned the endorsements of four conservative daily newspapers east of I-25 (Lamar, Sterling, Fort Morgan and Greeley, as well as the Fort Collins Coloradoan.
It is for this reason, along with my water, envrionmental, business and national policy experience in the "Reagan Administration", that if I were to earn the Democratic nomination, I would defeat Marilyn Musgrave.
(The typos are genuine, by the way.) Someone must have told him that the netroots only care about winning, but if Eidsness thought bringing up his Reagan administration experience would be well received at SquareState, he was mistaken. I should mention that there are a number of very active and committed Angie Paccione supporters at SquareState, I'm not one of them (leaning instead to Betsy Markey), and I myself have gone a few rounds in the comments with Angie's supporters. I'd like to think I handled myself better than Eidsness did in this exchange:
Ya think? (4.00 / 7)
"That service seems to be a black eye for me among some die-hard Democratic activists."
Eric, you were #2 to EPA head Anne Gorsuch, who was found in contempt of Congress and forced to resign. You were an administrator when James Watt ran the Dept. of the Interior. Your own EPA was hard at work ensuring that it had no budget and no authority to actually oversee environmental protection.
You wonder why being a proud member of the worst wing of the worst executive staff ever...until Bush Jr....is "a black eye?" Your surprise is feigned. So is your newly minted Party affiliation.
by: lalo @ 06/12/07 @ 02:17:01 PM MDT
[ Reply | ]
Are you too lazy to do your homework? (1.33 / 6)
As supercilious and tinny as American contemporary politics can be, I am awed at comments like yours that are so totally uninformed, that reflect a genuine lack of intellectual curiosity, indeed, laziness, and as a consequence, marginalizes people who have the guts to serve their country, regardless of their political affiliation or motives.
Would that we all choose to become a another nameless political junkie blogger who contributes absolutely nothing constructive to political discourse, or try and make a difference? Wow. Let’s give one to "freedom of speech", even mine.
by: eeidsness @ 06/12/07 @ 07:59:01 PM MDT
Wow indeed. Note to all campaign professionals: If your candidate shows up on a blog and gets a lot of "1" and "2" ratings for his comments, you've got a problem. When I read this I really had to ask myself, is this how Mr. Eidsness would deal with a tough question in a live public forum? And if not, and Eidsness felt contempt for his questioner because the questioner is someone who reads and comments on a blog, why did Eidsness bother to come post on the blog in the first place?
Eidsness, of course, was called out for his rudeness, and in a long response to one of those comments, dug himself in even deeper:
I suppose I have been trolling for folks who are interested in the candidate, not just ideology. Thanks for your comment.
It is really difficult for me to dignify "ad hominem's" wildly unsubstantiated assertion questioning my being alongside two of the must corrupt and reviled federal employees in recent memory. Ann Burford and Jim Watt, I learned after my confirmation, were clearly right-winged ideologues, but that doesn't make them corrupt. Look at my original entry and you will see that the job sought me, although I did clearly agree with Ronald Reagan’s belief that a big, intrusive and unaccountable government was bad for America – yo, the Bush government.
At this point, it was so bad that it could not be ruled out that the Eidsness campaign was being victimized by a really sophisticated ploy to discredit him among progressive bloggers. Two days later, the campaign verified that indeed, this was an authentic Eric Eidsness blog post.
I think Mr. Eidsness succeeded in clarifying the choices in the Democratic primary in CO-04 this year, but not in the way he intended.