Creative Campaigning

Ooooh lookie here, Darrell Issa has figured out this neat little trick, it’s called the “Congressional Field Hearing” but, it sure looks an awful lot like a campaign event to me:

MURFREESBORO, Tenn. — Gov. Bill Haslam and U.S. Senators Lamar Alexander and Bob Corker are to testify Monday in Murfreesboro, Tenn. at a Republican dominated Congressional field hearing.

U.S. Reps. Scott Desjarlais, Diane Black and Marsha Blackburn, all Republicans like the other three, also are scheduled to attend. The subject is “Tennessee Job Creation: Do Federal Government Regulations Help or Hinder Tennessee’s Economic Development?”

The hearing will be conducted by the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee. Chairman Darrell Issa, R-Calif., said the federal government has yet to grasp the effects of what he called burdensome regulations that obstruct job growth and economic recovery.

The hearing will be at the Business and Aerospace Building at Middle Tennessee State University.

By “testify” they mean repeat GOP talking points, of course. Funny, the news media never even asked what the point of this “Congressional Field Hearing” is. Other than attacking President Obama and the Democrats, of course. Oh well, shut up hippie. What do you know?

Now, what do you suppose our Republicans concluded about federal regulations and job creation today? Two guesses!

Senator Alexander said, “During the last three years, an avalanche of regulations from the Obama administration has thrown a big wet blanket over the American economy.”

Umm, here:

Look: if we didn’t have idiot Republicans insisting that we have to shrink the size of government, our unemployment rate wouldn’t look like it does right now. Even Murdoch’s Wall Street Journal admits that. But, whatever. It’s the same ole song and dance from these idiots.

Anyway, Mr. Beale wondered why they were having this thing here in the first place, it’s not like Tennessee is in play for the Democrats, right? My guess was that this was a big ol’ piece of political theater designed to prop up Scott Desjarlais, who hasn’t exactly been a stunner in his first two years in Congress. And it looks like I was right.

Word is Eric Stewart, the Democrat running for Desjarlais’ seat, is actually surprisingly competitive. So here come the big guns to stage a phony “Congressional Field Hearing” stunt before the news media and give Desjarlais some much-needed good PR, since he’s currently making headlines as the U.S. House’s junk-mail king.

I headed over to Stewart’s website and sure enough, he responded to the Desjarlais campaign event “Congressional Field Hearing” thusly:

Prior to Stewart meeting with small business owners, his opponent, Congressman Scott DesJarlais, was joined by Washington politicians and representatives of special interest groups that have donated to DesJarlais’s campaign to discuss ways to improve the economy. The panel did not include a single person who actually lives in Rutherford County, or owns a business in Rutherford County.

“I don’t think the people in Rutherford County need D.C. politicians and special interest groups coming down here and telling them how things should be,” Stewart said. “They need someone that will sit down at the table with them and discuss what’s going on in their community and that’s what I did today and will continue to do all across the 4th Congressional district.”

Stewart’s campaign event didn’t get any press coverage because it wasn’t a “Congressional Field Hearing,” and the media doesn’t seem to mind getting pwned on this stuff as long as nobody complains. But I’m complaining because I’m tired of us being treated like rubes here.

You know, if Democrats were to hold a phony-baloney “Congressional Field Hearing” like this there’d be hollering about campaigning on taxpayer money — you know, like how the Republicans are always saying about Obama? But, IOKIYAR.

About these ads