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EDITOR OF REDSTATE

Is Tim Bridgewater Crazy?

By: Erick Erickson (Diary)  |  June 22nd, 2010 at 11:30 AM  | 

RESIZE: AAA

Robert Costa has an article at National Review about today’s race in Utah and I come away with the distinct impression that Tim Bridgewater must be crazy.

Why?

Well, there is this bit:

Bridgewater doesn’t hide that he has little love for the Palmetto State senator. “It will take me a long time before I feel comfortable working with him,” he says. “If I’m elected, there are going to be some problems that will need to be reconciled. I don’t know what Jim DeMint’s underlying agenda is, and I’m not happy with his involvement in this race. It’s fine for him to endorse, but for him to run attack ads against me is uncalled for. . . . An outsider like Jim DeMint ought to focus on his own state.” If he makes it to the upper chamber, Bridgewater says he’ll want to work closely with Sen. Tom Coburn (R., Okla.) and Sen. Jon Kyl (R., Ariz.), among others.

Um, you can go look at the FEC reports yourself for the Senate Conservatives Fund. Jim DeMint has spent exactly zero on “ads against [Bridgewater].”

Nothing. Nada. Zero.

Meanwhile, Bridgewater is dropping thousands in the state attacking Jim DeMint. The man must be nuts.

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COMMENTS

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  • acat

    Bridgewater can’t run on his record.
    Bridgewater can’t slam Lee’s record.
    Bridgewater must, therefore, “invent the devil” – shift the focus of the campaign to someone else pulling the strings.

    It’s becoming rather transparent – and the passel of sock puppets on Red State are not helping Bridgewaters’ case.

    Mew

  • utah_cares

    running on what he believes, and what he plans to do.

    He has been the most positive of the 8 candidates running since March and was the most positive until this last week.

    After weeks of Redstate.com, Jim Demint and Freedomworks trying to smear Bridgewater with the “temple” mailer for fundrainsing for Mike Lee and the really disgusting and offensive adds attacking Bridgewater from Common Sense, and then the Lonsberry (father and son) firing at KNRS, obviously some at Bridgewater’s camp had enough and fought back. How smart that was, we will see.

  • pirate55

    Mr. Bridgewater may not be the conservative leader Utah requires, so it is good to know now, rather than later. Hopefully, Utah’s voters will see through a politician that while “talking the talk”, has not closely done anything akin to “walking the walk” as Senator Demint has,

  • eburke

    (Anybody But Bennett). I didn’t care if Lee, Bridgewater or Eager won the primary (if anything I was actually leaning toward Eager)

    By the time all the shills, one-note nellies and sock puppets got done, I had sent 3 contributions to Lee and last night decided to email my entire sizable distribution list of politically active friends back in UT with my opinion on the whole gig and links to 3 of the RS articles written on this race.

    So to arc_ut, utah_cares, and the rest of you recently signed up, don’t contribute anything to the site except the same old retreaded hash about Lee’s connections to EnergySolutions, I’d just like you to know that not only did every single person who acknowledged my email say they were voting for Lee today, several of them said they had been leaning toward Bridgewater but, alas for your side, no more.

    So…nice job of taking a bunch of people who were ambivalent toward your man and being such horse’s patoots as to energize them to do everything they could to defeat your establishment clod. Never have I seen such a pathetic attempt at astroturfing. You clowns were obnoxious and obvious, even before your IP addresses got busted.

  • rdelbov

    I don’t get this point in this post.

    1. An email to people on DeMint’s mailing list from Utah -attacking him and supporting Mike Lee-would certainly qualify as an ad and yet would slip through an FEC report. In this internet era are we defining “ad” in such a way to exclude an email communication with people on a list in Utah?

    2. Does DeMint’s FEC report go through today? No I doubt it.

    Does this surprise anyone? Can’t the author of this post see how human nature works? DeMint has endorsed Mike Lee-contributed money to Lee and has urged all of his supporters or like minded people in Utah to vote for Lee and not Bridgewater. So is it shocking to this that Bridgewater would be a little cool when dealing with DeMint?

    I do question DeMint underlying agenda in supporting Mike Lee over Tim Bridgewater. He is making a decision as to who the more conservative candidate is without a lot of communication with Tim Bridgewater.

    I might add–yet one more time-that the very conservative teaparty dominated Utah convention went for Bridgewater 57-43. The conservatives on the ground looked over both candidates and picked Bridgewater. Maybe DeMint’s view from SC is a little too far off.

    I love Jim DeMint but his choice of Mike Lee is more about senate politics then conservative politics. He is hoping to line up a vote for majority or minority leader and not elect a more conservative senator.

  • NeoKong

    to participate in that race.
    The race is for United States Senator and not for the local school board.
    The decisions and votes any one Senator can make will affect the whole country.
    The sixtieth vote for health care is a perfect example.
    Bridgewater needs to stop whining and Lee himself says it best.

    That anger about DeMint is ?not merited,? Lee says. ?There is no one more tea-party than Sen. Jim DeMint. He is a living embodiment of the movement in the U.S. Senate. My opponent is just upset that he is on my side and not his side. Believe me, you wouldn?t hear him complaining if [DeMint] was helping him.?

    Ka-pow !

  • utah_cares

    Look at the top of page 2 of the pre-primary FEC report

    http://images.nictusa.com/cgi-bin/fecgifpdf/?_29844+10020402922.pdf

    If that link doesn’t work, try this one:
    http://query.nictusa.com/cgi-bin/fecimg/?C00473827

    As of 6/2/10 Friends of Mike Lee Inc had received $45,531 in connection with the Senate Conservative Fund.

    They send fundraising letters to likely voters, 4 pages, 2 sheets of paper double sided, with the following at the bottom.

    Paid for by Senate Conservatives Fund PAC and Not authorized..

    So you must have missed the FEC filing, or are you saying SCF didn’t file when they should have?

  • conservativecrusade

    boring with your regurgitated rhetoric in support of Bridewater. In fact your entire premise is laughable. But at least you enjoy where your head is. Just don’t ever fart to hard, may cause some damage to your hairline!

  • utah_cares

    It is OK, SCF did file

    See
    http://query.nictusa.com/cgi-bin/fecimg/?C00448696

    http://query.nictusa.com/pdf/640/10930843640/10930843640.pdf#navpanes=0

    As of 6/19, they had spent $81311.86 helping Mike Lee.

  • streiff

    that’s a rhetorical question. Obviously you can’t because nothing you posted has anything to do with the story.

  • utah_cares

    https://senateconservatives.com/mikelee

  • streiff

    read this carefully

    It?s fine for him to endorse, but for him to run attack ads against me is uncalled for

  • diesirae

    Bridgewater has been running ads for weeks saying that Lee is attacking him, which I’ve found puzzling. Neither I nor my circle of friends have heard any of these alleged Lee attack ads. Bridgewater strikes me as very thin skinned and sees anything that’s not direct praise as an ‘attack’.

  • utah_cares

    http://archive.constantcontact.com/fs096/1102115604578/archive/1103454066628.html

    http://smartgirlpolitics.ning.com/profiles/blogs/breaking-news-on-utah-senate

  • gekster

    I know you have seen my question from yesterday and today.
    Why are you afriaid to answer.

    Seems you will shill for Bridgewater, but not defend him.
    One more time,
    where is this webpage wrong.
    http://www.bridgewaterfacts.com/

    At least tell me you don’t want to or just won’t answer.
    At least give me that.
    Prove you are not the sock puppet you have been called by others.
    Or remain the Tribble in the sock.
    The choice is yours.

  • utah_cares

    http://timbridgewater.com/get-the-facts/

    http://timbridgewater.com/get-the-facts/setting-the-record-straight-mike-lees-ads/

    http://timbridgewater.com/get-the-facts/straight-talk-about-raser/

    http://timbridgewater.com/issues-2/faqs/

  • utah_cares

    You missed the 2 flyers Lee sent out, or the TV ads, or the radio ads?

    I realize the worst ads have been from Common Sense but you really missed them all?

    As far as SCF

    http://archive.constantcontact.com/fs096/1102115604578/archive/1103454066628.html

    http://smartgirlpolitics.ning.com/profiles/blogs/breaking-news-on-utah-senate

    As noted above, they filed donating money to and spending money on Lee.

  • deano64

    http://www.bridgewaterfacts.com/

  • deano64

    Where is your proof Jim DeMint spent money attacking Bridgewater? Wait.. there is no proof because he didn’t. He spent money supporting Lee.

  • gekster

    Site #1.
    Bridgewater web site

    #2.
    Same site

    #3
    ditto

    #4
    and ditto

    Got an independent web site?
    I didn’t go to Mike Lee’s web site for my info.
    Question remains unanswered

  • diesirae

    I’ve heard the recent stuff not claimed by the Lee campaign, but yes, I missed it all. I’ve been getting at least 2 robocalls per day for weeks from both candidates (I’ll be happy when that stops). The Lee ads and calls I’ve received are all endorsements — nothing even mentioning Bridgewater. All the Bridgewater related ads and calls I’ve heard and received are all about bashing Lee, or lawyers, or complaining about Lee’s negative ads.

    I think of myself and my group of friends as some of the more informed people around. I listen to numerous local radio stations (mostly tuned to 3 news/talk radio stations) and read dozens of online blogs, and browse both local newspapers. I guess it’s possible we’ve missed the Lee attack stuff, but we’d definitely not missed Bridgewater’s attack stuff (flyers, calls, ads). Maybe he’s a victim of having a bigger ad budget(?)

  • Joshua Persons

    I can’t get to the second link from here at work, but the first example is not an attack ad at all.

  • Joshua Persons
  • Joshua Persons
  • streiff

    is an “attack ad.”

    I’m going to require a retraction of this or you’re gone. If I’m going to be lied to I demand the respect of being told a good lie.

  • Darin_H

    Getting worse than the Paulites

  • eburke

    And then blames….nobody in the first link and Tim Stewart in the 2nd link. In fact the only time your boy Bridgewater gets mentioned in the 2nd link is when DeMint mentions that Stewert has donated to both Bennett and Bridgewater. Of course, the fact that the person who put the mailer together has financially supported Bridgewater and Bennett has *no* significance whatsoever :rolling eyes: (well, except to pretty much prove that Lee didn’t put it out)

    I can’t tell you how much I can’t wait for today to be over so that we never have to see another post from you because it’s pretty certain that you have no desire or intent to actually become part of the RedState community but are here solely to be a shill and sock puppet for Bridgewater. If you ever actually replied to the substance of a post critical of your POV, I think beckers dead white cat would come back to life.

  • Joshua Persons

    (Let’s see if I remember how to post images here…)

    [img]http://www.truthaboutit.net/pictures/LeBron-James-Likes-To-Flop.jpg[/img]

  • Joshua Persons

    A Preview button would be nice …

  • acat

    What I don’t get is why a Republican is using the Democrat book to begin with.

    Bridgewater seems confused. Maybe it’s from being around all these multiple-personality-disorder supporters…

    Mew

  • Bill S

    That kind of markup does not work.

  • utah_cares

    Tim Stewart, Saddle PAC
    was going after both Lee and Bridgewater prior to convention.

    Saddle PAC, a political action committee, was behind those calls, though its director Tim Stewart, a former Bennett staffer, says the effort wasn?t a push-poll or an attack, but an effort to raise Bennett?s profile on public lands and energy issues.

    There has and is no connection to any of the candidates and Stewart said so himself after he was caught.

    The FEC investigation that Lee requested isn’t back yet as Lee requested it yesterday.

  • Joshua Persons

  • mattmillburn

    You guys always just attack Bridgewater supporters instead of responding to what they say. Bridgewater shouldn’t have said attack ad, he should have said attack emails and blog posts. Big deal. It didn’t change the point of what he was saying. Erickson is so petty. This makes someone crazy? Erickson has some irrational hatred towards Bridgewater and has continually made dishonest posts about him throughout this campaign. I wouldn’t say that Erickson is crazy though, I think he is just dishonest and willing to write anything to help Mike Lee.

  • rdelbov

    There aer people spreading stories about Tim Bridgewater is dealing with Mexican Drug lords–why in the world would he respond to that attack?

    Who throw the 1st dirt?

    I think Lee went negative because he has a weak resume.

    I might add that the conservatives in Utah who actually went eyeball to eyeball with the two candidates went for Bridgewater by 57-43.

    Apparently the teaparty folks and other conservatives in Utah made Bridgewater #1.

  • eburke

    but for no other reason but just to humor us, could you at least pretend to address the points raised by posters disassembling you ramblings? I mean, could you put the canned talking points down long enough to realize that when you just spew the same talking points on every post you just look like an ass?

    Let’s review: *You* said that DeMint had attacked Lee and posted links that supposedly proved that.

    *I* said that one of the links didn’t even mention Bridgewater’s name and the other mentioned his name only to reference that Tim Stewart contributed to his campaign.

    So *you*, of course rebut that little fact by repeating (for the umpteenth time) the talking point that Saddle PAC went after both Lee and Bennett.

    I realize that you’re too busy cutting and pasting your replies from your talking points to bother to read what you write or what anybody pens in reply but are you cognizant of the fact that what you wrote doesn’t have diddly squat poo to do with what you were talking about originally.

    I really hope the Bridgewater campaign isn’t paying you very much, if at all, because you really suck at what you’ve been assigned to do.

  • eburke

    only provided him with 6 talking points and he’s got to try and make them fit to whatever issue’s raised whether they bear any resemblance to them or not.

    Good help is hard to find these days.

  • gekster

    I think he’s gone (not saying banned) for now.
    But I’m sure he or one of the other tribbles will pop up latter.

  • conservativecrusade

    your head shoved up in stinky land too! Amazing you can see through the colon in order to type your crap!

  • utah_cares

    eburke – your comments:
    “2nd link is when DeMint mentions that Stewert has donated to both Bennett and Bridgewater. Of course, the fact that the person who put the mailer together has financially supported Bridgewater and Bennett has *no* significance whatsoever :rolling eyes: (well, except to pretty much prove that Lee didn?t put it out)”
    –
    All we know about the “temple” mailer

    (there were two flyers, one printed in Maine and one printed in Ohio that didn’t really say who they were from. the Ohio one got nicknamed the “temple” mailer or flyer)

    is that Stewart hired a group, that hired a group that hired the printer. We don’t know who hired Stewart. He isn’t saying.

    We do know that Stewart said he was not doing it for any campaign, he had worked for Bennett for 7 years and was ticked at Club for Growth and others going after Bennett.

    Stewart’s group targeted Bridgewater prior to convention with “push” polling. That was figured out prior to convention but we didn’t know who was involved, at least layers of it, until more recently.

    Jim DeMint getting tied up in the finger pointing, especially when he tried to connect Stewart to and the flyer to Bridgewater, when it is obvious to anyone with facts that Bridgewater wasn’t behind the “temple” flyer.

    reminder, the “temple” flyer was seen by 1/2 of the state delegates prior to convention and 1/3 of those (1/6 total) thought Lee was behind it. About 85% of those that saw the flyer were offended. It was designed to make Bennett look bad on a religious level and people around here don’t react well to that.

    It was condemned by about everyone, State Party, candidates – everyone.

    Both Lee and Bridgewater have spoken out against the flier, saying they had nothing to do with it.

    –
    Dave Hansen, chairman of the Utah Republican Party, harshly criticized Stewart for his involvement.

    “I don’t know Tim Stewart and I don’t ever want to know him. The guy is an idiot [who] deserves to have his butt kicked all the way out of Utah politics for two reason. First, that he would be a part of this kind of cheap political trick and, second, because he actually thinks it was a ‘brilliant… game-changing political play.’

    “Mr. Stewart — it was neither. I am sure neither the Bennett nor the Bridgewater nor the Lee campaign knew anything about this. It was the childish product of Tim Stewart and his childish friends. Now stay out of Utah politics.”

    http://www.ksl.com/?nid=148&sid=11178066

  • conservativecrusade

    but how about typing the same thing a few more times, it may become believable. Too bad doctors have found no way to fix stupid. Had they found a cure, you and utahcares may have stood a chance in life!

  • utah_cares

    Where DeMint really stepped in it, was not his first statement that Mike Lee was unfairly treated by the flyer – as at that time we didn’t know enough about who was behind it,

    It was after Stewart was found out, Demint’s group going one step further and trying to connect Bridgewater to the flyer.

    Lee could choose to make that mistake, but an outside group like DeMint’s doing it just ticks almost everyone off at him.

  • eburke

    time after time whether they have any bearing on what is being talked about is nothing short of amazing.

    I’d invoke the Hinz Rule on you but since you’re only purpose on this site is to shill for Bridgewater, after tonight you’ll disappear and it won’t matter.

  • gekster
  • redware

    the most clearly principled conservative in the United States Senate for majority or minority leader,but Mike Lee would?Living in South Carolina I am thrilled to have at least one Senator whom I never have to be worried about doing the right thing for the conservative agenda.If Lee sees how great it would be for us to have Jim DeMint as our Majority leader it speaks volumes to me about justr who is the more conservative candidate.By the way,better watch your step or we’ll send some prime South Carolina good ole boys out there(just to get rid of them) and pretty soon there will be news reports that you are a “raghead”,and slept with Bob Bennett.

  • eburke

    for that or any other points that have been brought up.

  • utah_cares

    It took me a while to find it.