The Democrats likely thought they had a shot at the 10th District seat in northern Virginia, but that went off the rails when anti-tax Republican Barbara Comstock won the Republican nomination, and it really crashed when it was discovered that the Democrats’ nominee (John Foust) was married to a doctor who demanded Virginia pay for Medicaid expansion while refusing to treat Medicaid patients (Virginia Virtucon and others).
So, they did what Democrats usually do in these situations: they went for the smear. In particular, they smeared Comstock for her role in the 1990s as Chief Counsel to the House Government Reform and Oversight Committee. Her role involved numerous investigations of the Clinton Administration, which led Clinton-lackey Paul Begala to pounce (Politico):
“If she wins, she will no doubt practice the same politics of personal destruction she and her ilk practiced in the Clinton days,” said Paul Begala, a former political adviser to Bill Clinton who has assumed the role of Comstock attack dog. The Republican, he said, has a “really almost sick, sort of stalker-like obsession with President Clinton.”
Leaving to one side the horrifically sexist nature of that attack (no worries, Peter Roff slammed Begala for it in US News and World Report), Begala’s purpose was more than just garnering headlines. He is hoping that the average reader and voter remembers his line, and thus ties Comstock to the Lewinsky investigation – which Democrats are convinced was a political loser for the GOP and anyone involved with it.
Here’s the problem: Comstock didn’t investigate the Lewinsky fiasco. The investigations of which she was a part dealt with DNC fundraising (think Lincoln Bedroom, campaign money raised from foreigners including the Chinese Communist Party, Al Gore and the Buddhist temple, etc.). While the Democrats want you to link Comstock with the sex investigations, she actually focused on the money issues – issues which did not severly wound Clinton, but likely had a role in keeping the Republicans in control of Congress in 1996 (and Gore out of the White House in 2000).
In other words, voters weren’t so blase about the scandals Comstock actually investigated.
Of course, the Democrats are hoping voters lose track of that in the fog of the campaign. In other words, Begala’s despicable rhetoric was likely a verbal bait-and-switch move on the voters of the 10th District.
Nice try, but it won’t work.
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