Nothing like hanging the ole "Joe McCarthy" card around my neck just because I pointed out a single event that for me, personally, was the 'lost my vote' tipping point.

"Smear a candidate".

All I said is this is why I, me personally, Lauren Sabina Kneisly, will not be voting for Ben Cardin in today's Maryland primary.

I think there are GENUINE issues about a candidate's judgement when he decides to share an event with the likes of John Hagee AND I think his choice to go ahead with the event deserves consideration by Maryland voters, not that many will event see this diary, I had expected it to scroll off well before morning.

Lets put it this way, if- and this is purely a hypothetical- Cardin had shared an event with Jerry Falwell would you or would you not at least raise an eyebrow?

I sure as hell would.

I certainly wouldn't be caught dead sharing a podium with the man.

Yet Falwell is exactly who Hagee has on his CUFI board (And quite normative of the cast of characters who round the board out).

See this;

Board members comprise an evangelical who's who, including Jerry Falwell, Benny Hinn, Jack Hayford, George Morrison, Rod Parsley and Steven Strang. Televangelist Pat Robertson is to attend the summit, but is not on the board.

I'm not "smearing a candidate" I'm saying for me, this was enough to lose my vote in the primary. It was embarrassing as hell, speaking as a Marylander, to have our elected officials participate in an event with Hagee, and that's not the kind of thing I want to see my elected officials doing in the future.

And yes, I am putting it here on dKos, because it's a day of making hard and deeply personal choices when one steps into the voting booth. I would hope we each search out consciences before voting for a candidate- any candidate. I would also hope people would research candidates carefully this is some of the research that was helpful to me in making my choices. This event is most likely not already in the consciousness of many democratic voters. It's a detail I found useful in my own descision making.

And no, we're not discussing "degrees of separation" here, I'm talking about two people at the same event.

To me this was not just a lapse in judgement, it lost my vote in the primary.