cross-posted from
mnblue.com
Fighting Democrat
Tim Walz is under a smear attack of lies and innuendo in Minnesota's First Congressional District (MN-01). Republican incumbent Gil Gutknecht has been running scared for a while now ... running from his rubberstamping voting record, running from the Bush Administration and desparately hoping for something to distract voters in southern Minnesota from the real issues.
The Republicans may have found it. In 1995, Tim Walz was pulled over for speeding and arrested for DUI. The only problem for the Republicans Lie Machine is he wasn't drunk. Tim has significant hearing loss. He couldn't hear the officer who pulled him over. The judge threw the case out.
Tim's loss of hearing stems from serving as an artillery gunner in the Minnesota National Guard. Gil Gutknecht's problems stem from voting as the Bush Administration would like him to vote over 90% of the time. Call the Gutknecht Campaign and ask them to stop the dirty smear campaign:
202-225-2472
507-252-9841
800-862-8632
507-238-2835
This attack originated from MN slime-meister Michael Brodkorb and his blog MN Democrats Exposed. Broadkorb has a long (in blog-years) history of lies, innuendo and a distinct inability to check his facts.
MN blogger mnpublius has done an awesome job tracking Broadkorb's lies for a while. mnpublius documented it here, here and here.
Here's an article in the New Ulm, MN's The Journal about it:
- According to Walz's campaign staff, Walz denies being drunk the night of the incident. Walz was hard of hearing, a result of his years as an artillery soldier in the Army National Guard, and had trouble hearing the trooper, according to Meredith Salsbery, communications director for the Walz campaign. "He couldn't understand what the trooper was telling him during the field sobriety test, and the trooper refused to speak up."
Walz has been outraising Gutknecht, has been outworking Gutknecht with a strong grassroots campaign and steadily raising the profile of this race. Walz is a teacher and coach. Some of his work is amazing:
- This man has been dedicated to public service his entire adult life. From serving in the National Guard to teaching public high school to teaching in China to conducting annual education trips to China for High School students to helping kids start nonprofits. He has had a positive impact in every community in which he's lived and in Mankato since 1994.
His most recent nonprofit is really cool. What these Mankato kids started says alot about Tim. The kids thought they'd help Minnesota soldiers deployed either in Iraq or deployed somewhere else in the States as a result of the Iraq War. After sending care packages and that sort of thing, they learned that many of the troops would be allowed leave and would be flown back to Mississippi but would not be given any plane tickets back to Minnesota. At that point there were no plane tickets back to MN, because Katrina had just devastated the region. These kids ended up raising over $90,000 and allowed many soldiers to visit their families. This nonprofit organized a bus convoy to drive down there, pick up the soldiers, drive them up to MN then get them back in time to fly back to wherever they were deployed.
Walz is a natural leader and would be a great addition to Congress. Gutknecht's and the RNCC's tactics are typical. Nothing has been going right for Gutknecht and he and the Republicans are going to try and and milk this pseudo-issue for every thing they can. Don't let them get away with it.
The Big E
mnblue.com