Donner and Radtke lament Kaine’s main attack on Allen
By JR Hoeft | Wednesday, December 7th, 2011 | PoliticsJamie Radtke and Tim Donner – two of the four other Republicans running for the GOP U.S. Senate nomination against George Allen – lamented Allen’s debate performance today against Democrat Tim Kaine.
Both candidates, who have been telegraphing Kaine’s pitch for about a year, once again made clear their primary concern with Allen:
“George Allen has no credibility barking conservative themes, when even liberal Democrats like Tim Kaine can so easily prove his hypocrisy by pointing to Allen’s record of trillions in deficit spending, supporting massive expansions in the size and scope of government, and backing government subsidies to some corporate interests,” claimed Radtke.
Donner also seized upon Kaine’s criticism of Allen on spending.
“In consistently hammering Allen on his record of profligate spending during his six years in the US Senate, Kaine sounded like a tea partier in pointing out Allen’s votes in favor of the Medicare prescription drug program and other massive federal programs, along with raising the debt ceiling four times to the tune of $3.1 trillion,” wrote Donner in a statement. “If the Democrat in this race can position himself to the right of George Allen on the issue of runaway spending and the size and scope of government, what hope is there of winning this US Senate seat?”
Donner went on to compliment Kaine by saying the former governor “was sharp, comfortable and confident, while Allen, in my view, looked stiff and rehearsed, and lacked any semblance of passion.”
It is not surprising that both Donner and Radtke, who fail to break 10 percent and are more the 50 percent behind Allen in the polls, were critical of Allen’s performance. But we are certainly in the silly season when both of them come across as cheerleaders for the Democratic party’s presumptive nominee.
It’s a decent warning for Allen – and one he should take seriously and remedy. But the criticism is hardly unexpected from his challengers, given the state of their campaigns.
But we are certainly getting to desperate times and desperate measures for these challengers. It will be interesting to see how long they last and how long they attempt to destroy the one candidate standing between Tim Kaine and the U.S. Senate.
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Conservative to the core; liberal with his opinion! J.R. has been involved in politics for over a decade and has worked on several campaigns in Hampton Roads. He has served on the Executive Committee of the Republican Party of Chesapeake and the Central Committee of the Republican Party of Virginia. He is also the director of “Blogs United” in Virginia. E-mail J.R.. Follow J.R. on Twitter.
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16 Responses to "Donner and Radtke lament Kaine’s main attack on Allen"
Your quote: “But we are certainly in the silly season when both of them come across as cheerleaders for the Democratic party’s presumptive nominee.”
Please clearly outline the reasoning used to establish your claim that Radtke was cheerleading for Kaine.
I don’t have to. Because:
1) It’s my website
2) You have a pseudonym &, ergo, have no credibility
3) I’m tired and am going to bed – some of us have to go to work
But I think if you have been giving ammunition to Tim Kaine for over a year and he is effectively using your talking points to go after the man who will be the GOP nominee given his level of support in Virginia, than, yeah, you’re a pretty damn good cheerleader.
Or should I just say “McSweeney’s girl”
@VA Patriot, the only outline you need is the headline of Jamie’s post debate press release:
“Press Release: Even Kaine can prove Allen’s hypocrisy on debt, spending
Kaine easily exploits Allen’s support for higher debt, spending in debate”
At the risk of also being called out for using a pseudonym, it is clear that Radtke and Donner are cheerleading for Kaine, even if indirectly. Should one of them find a way to get ahead of Allen and become the nominee, Kaine will easily be able to point out these words and show how Radtke or Donner thought Kaine would have cross-over appeal and be a better candidate than Allen. If they will support Kaine over Allen now, then how would they combat that in the future, and how would that convince anyone to vote for the Republican candidate in the race?
also, it doesn’t seem to register with Radtke that Kaine is the Virginia embodiment of Barack Hussein Obama, being his chief spokesman & cheerleader on Obama’s anti-capitalist & anti-freedom agenda. Because Kaine is so closely tied with Obama & OFA he must be defeated. & because Obama will also be running, be must work doubly hard to defeat both of them.
so any comments that Radtke makes that might “help” Kaine also helps Obama. Anyone who views the big picture will remember her for this.
Yeah, how dare Allen’s primary challengers criticize him. They should just shut up about what a horrible candidate he is and do like everybody else -next support Allen then wonder why Kaine and Obama won Va.
Ebenezer Scrooge
Compared to Barry, Timmy, and the democrats; Senator Allen looks like a skinflint.
criticizing a Republican primary candidate for US Senate is the same as criticizing a Republican primary candidate for US President.
while I have doubts about several of Republican presidential candidates, I don’t give voice to them because beating Obama is the priority.
by this reasoning, what is Radtke’s priority?
Old greezer: Really? As governor, Tim Kaine cut $5 billion out of the state budget. State revenues were rising when Allen was governor and he spent it all every year. In his last year, he took a pre-Senate race tour around the state handing out checks to non-government agencies (the kind of appropriations A.G. Ken Cuccinelli ruled last year were unconstitutional).
Desperate measures, JR? So desperate, front men for Allen can’t stop talking about Jamie Radtke even though she is allegedly not even on the radar and Allen has it locked. Hehe, ok.
“McSweeny’s girl”? Wow. Very classy. Just name the name. You won’t look so badly.
I will be glad when this is over and I can see you in a better light. Still love your blog though.
I do not feel that Radtke or Donner have been “cheerleading” in the least for Kaine. I have worked with Donner and spoken at length with Radtke and that is the least of their concern or thrust of their strategy. For those that don’t comprehend, there are two races, the Primary and the General–Allen is their immediate opponent and battling Allen’s name recognition and money in and effort to win the Primary is the focus. Within this focus both Donner and Radtke have different strategies but ultimately neither have a chance to win the primary by concentrating on Kaine. Both have to overcoming the Allen name by demonstrating what Kaine effortlessly brought forth yesterday on a national platform; Allen is not all that conservative, is for greater federal regulation and massive spending and will say one thing and vote another way.
Kaine did not need anything Radtke or Donner has platformed with to make Allen look establishment, over-spending, over-regulating, etc. Allen’s record and performance along with being unable to successfully match wits with Kaine yesterday was a tell-tail sign that something is [still] amiss with Allen. Neither Radtke nor Donner have jumped on the Allen bandwagon and yesterday was a perfect indication of why–besides name and money, Allen is not as electable as folks think.
Allen’s largest mistake proven yesterday was to accept a general election debate when the primary has yet to occur. It was disrespectful to the other GOP candidates, the RPV and the primary process itself, i.e. voters. Awesome for Allen if Allen was unstoppable in his pitch against whatever Kaine toss at him, detrimental is what occurred. Allen’s team’s sole strategy in accepting that debate was to demonstrate he and Kaine were the only two candidates… but this backfired on two levels. Now, instead of any of the other GOP candidates believing Allen can win in the General, Allen just proved that he, regardless of his name and money, could hand Kaine the race all by himself–and he proved this to many supporters who watched that debate and now have doubts.
Had Allen clearly walked away with a win or a strong showing in yesterday’s debate, no doubt that the discussions would be made in many camps to pull out and support Allen as unstoppable. But, to do so now is akin to what Allen has done to get himself into this mess with his voting baggage, that is, be establishment and go with the flow, regardless of how right or wrong it is.
Don’t blame Donner or Radtke for anything that happened in the debate yesterday or saying anything Kaine can use or pulling votes away from Allen… votes for Radtke or Donner are not votes that will ever go to Kaine and both will support whomever wins the Primary. However, the result of the debate is exactly why both of them are running in the first place–regardless of name and money, Allen’s history has caused a great deal of this federal mess.
Why hasn’t Cuccinelli jumped on the Allen bandwagon–same general reason (although there are many), he is not establishment, Allen is, and anyone who is not just memorized by Allen knows that he votes with the wind when it really counts.
Brian, that is the best analysis I have read anywhere. That belongs in every publication throught this state. Thank you for taking the time to share your observation.
This is laughable how people some people assert anybody gave material to Tim Kaine. Like he can’t come up with the obvious on his own. He was smart enough and organized enough to be governor and DNC chief. I think he and staff didn’t need our help. What? We’re that good? Hire us then. Too funny.
This isn’t a case of handing unknown secrets to Kaine. This is a case of “you wsere warned and didn’t listen”. This is a case of, “I TOLD YOU SO!”
Many people who do not hate George Allen (including myself) have had longstanding concerns about his inability to think on his feet and plan ahead. When this is coupled with the typical Repub floundering when a far left Dem puts on his Reagan mask and launches facetious attacks from the right, the result is either humma humma humma or sheepish looks. It apparently is too hard for Peanuts to figure out that Lucy is going to snatch the football away too. So maybe I’m being too hard on the Repubs flopping wheezing responses no matter how many times the Dems play this joke on them.
Allen wil be on with Mark Levin. You do not want to miss this..
http://player.streamtheworld.com/_players/citadel/?sid=826&nid=2920
Who? What? When? Where? and most of all WHY?
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