They can only “win” by cheating …
“They can only “win” by cheating …,” Homeless on the High Desert, Ten Bears.
October 7, 2022 in g’da said
Your Daily Chaos, Morning Digest: Elections ~ Here’s something you don’t see often—or ever: Republican Mike Erickson released an internal poll showing him leading his Democratic opponent, Andrea Salinas, the very same day that he filed a lawsuit demanding Salinas take down an attack ad by citing a law that he recently threatened to use to overturn the election should he lose.
To pick apart this strange turn of events, we’ll start with Erickson’s survey from Cygnal, which shows him beating Salinas 44-39 in Oregon’s brand new 6th District, a seat Joe Biden would have taken 55-42. The last polls we saw out of this district, which is based in the Salem area and Portland’s southwestern suburbs, were both from mid-August: The GOP firm Clout Research gave Erickson an even larger 43-34 advantage, while a GBAO internal for Salinas had her up 48-45.
Despite these optimistic numbers for Republicans, however, both the Congressional Leadership Fund and the NRCC have so far avoided spending here, even though their opponents at the DCCC and House Majority PAC have together dropped over $1.4 million. Given the district’s lean, it’s exceedingly unlikely that the GOP’s two biggest House groups have steered clear of this race because they feel supremely confident, especially since a conservative organization called Take Back Oregon PAC just launched a $300,000 TV buy this week.
Salinas’ side has run several commercials focusing both on allegations that Erickson paid for a girlfriend to have an abortion in 2000—years before Herschel Walker did the same—as well as stories around his 2016 arrest. The latter is the focus of his new lawsuit and a cease and desist notice he recently sent to Salinas. In that letter, Erickson threatened to invoke a state law that the Oregon Capitol Chronicle writes “prohibits knowingly making false statements about a candidate, political committee or ballot measure.”
Reporter Julia Shumway explains, “If a judge determines that a candidate made a false statement that cost their opponent an election, the law states that the candidate will be removed as a nominee or elected official.” But she adds, “Over several decades, Oregon courts have interpreted that law to exclude opinions or statements that could reasonably be interpreted as true.” It’s also not clear whether this law has ever been successfully employed to reverse the results of an election, and Erickson’s attorney, Jill Gibson, cited no such examples in her letter.
In his newly filed lawsuit, Erickson didn’t actually present any demands regarding overturning the upcoming election but instead asked a state court to order Salinas to stop airing the ads in question and “to retract the false statements by airing correction advertisements with the same frequency and broadcast location as the false advertisements.” He is also seeking $800,000 in monetary damages, which he claims would cover the cost of “commercials to correct the false statements.”
The complaint insists that Salinas’ ads are “false” because Erickson “has never been charged with illegal possession of drug.” To that end, Gibson’s letter cited a recent story from The Oregonian in which Hood River County District Attorney Carrie Rasmussen said that the court documents that those allegations came from were incorrect.
Instead, Erickson’s attorney from that case, Tara Lawrence, insisted that she’d made a “mistake” by filing a plea agreement stating that the Rasmussen’s office had “agreed to dismiss felony possession of controlled substance upon tender of guilty plea.” An attorney for Salinas, however, cited that very statement in support of the ad’s truthfulness in a letter and argued that “a charge is a charge, whether or not the DA files it.”
Before Erickson filed his lawsuit, Salinas’ campaign shrugged off his threats, saying in a statement, “Mike Erickson’s threats to overturn the election if he doesn’t win should raise major concerns for Oregonians who cherish democracy.”
Related? You decide…
Trump’s Mussolini roots
Boston Globe – HDS Greenway – Oct 21
Mussolini succeeded on Oct. 28, 1922, unlike Trump 100 years later. But the poison Trump has injected into America’s political bloodstream with his lie of a stolen election is still doing its work and it is too early to say that Trump’s march on Rome has failed.
Dobbs
Thanks for the reminder.
But neither Mussolini nor Trump invented this. They just made use of a human tendency to get what they want by force if they can get away with it. Discovering that you have “friends” who will help you get away with it is what Trump and Mussolini and every “great leader” has given these people since we were living in trees.
Even here, among “liberals” who understand the need for a wider sense of community and limitations on the use of force can quite easily be provoked into demanding use of force methods to get what they want. No one ever seems to think the bad guys might be thinking the same thing.
There’s no accountability, we keep letting them get away with it.
I’ve been harping on this at my place all the way back to Palin painting targets on democratic congresspeople, and the subsequent murder and mayhem. What was that, ten years ago? We let her get away with it. Both the Bundy Bois incidents, first Nevada, where they were scoping on federal agents with high-powered hunting -sniping- rifles, and then again when they broke into a tourist kiosk that was closed for the winter and called it an “armed insurrection” in the little town I went to high school in … we let them get away with it. I was calling on the governor two years ago and more when they were using the Oregon capital as a test run for the 1.6 insurrection to break out the firehoses, wash that shit into the gutter and out to sea. Legions of lawyers twisting shit so’s there’s no “law”, just some bimbo’s “interpretation” of the law.
That’s the point of this, he knows he can’t win. I don’t why he’s dumb enough to give us a heads up, but he’s gonna’ twist shit on the letter of the law to overturn his loss and “win” by cheating. And I’m fairly confident he’ll get away with it.
Ten Bears
” he knows he can’t win. I don’t why he’s dumb enough to give us a heads up, but he’s gonna’ twist shit on the letter of the law to overturn his loss and “win” by cheating… I’m fairly confident he’ll get away with it.”
now you know why he is doing it.
“Reporter Julia Shumway explains, “If a judge determines that a candidate made a false statement that cost their opponent an election, the law states that the candidate will be removed as a nominee or elected official.””
If this law were enforced, there would be no one in any elective office in the country.
Yes sir, perfect. Thx for the grin.