Muldoon keeps pushing the smear machine in his effort to bump off Bolling
It was just a bit over a month ago that I’d even heard someone was trying to take the Lt. Governor’s nomination spot from incumbent Lt. Governor Bill Bolling at the RPV Convention in Richmond at the end of the month. My experience with Patrick McSweeney is extremely limited so I have to admit not even knowing who he was, initially, when the e-mail about his proposing Patrick Muldoon for the Lt. Gov. nomination arrived in my inbox. Someone who makes the claim that Bill Bolling just isn’t conservative/pro-life/family values enough to be the Republican nominee is facing an uphill battle with me, but I’m certainly not going to just dismiss them out of hand. No, to do that requires that they demonstrate they’re not worth listening to.
Apparently, Mr. Muldoon is up to the challenge. Not only has he decided upon a nearly hysterical tone to his e-mails he’s also proving to be possessed of sloppy reasoning and communication skills. Both of those are not good features in a candidate for the 2nd highest office in the Commonwealth. In his e-mail of 3 May, Muldoon seeks to smear Bolling over the issues of accepting campaign funds from a pharmaceutical company and his perceived stances regarding the “Plan B” contraceptive and the Gardasil HPV vaccine.
This e-mail does not appear on the Muldoon web site. Curious. I note that the others – notably his “30 reasons to vote for me” series – are showing up in their entirety. It’s curious that this e-mail does not. I’ll copy the entire text of the e-mail into the comments section of this post for full reference but will deal with specifics right here. First up: to the Muldoon campaign I’d like to introduce the well-known Internet maxim that TYPING IN ALL CAPS LOOKS LIKE YOU’RE YELLING. The title of the e-mail is “GIVE THE MONEY BACK, BILL!” The exclamation point serves just fine, guys. Not a critical issue but, given the tone of the rest of the e-mail, you could do without it.
In this reaction to Senator Mark Obenshain’s reply to Muldoon’s early post, Muldoon attempts a “claim – response as ‘Fact’” approach. You know the kind: my opponent says such-and-such. In response I say, FACT: (insert fact counteracting opponent’s claim here.) Here’s the 1st such example:
Senator Obenshain says that Bill Bolling voted as a state senator to keep Plan B from minors.
FACT: Bill Bolling has received nearly $40,000 in contributions from Barr Pharmaceuticals, the maker of the Plan B “morning after” contraceptive.
FACT: The bulk of Bill Bolling’s Barr contributions from Barr – more than $27,500 – came after his votes as a State Senator to keep Plan B from minors.
FACT: Bill Bolling has yet to respond to the FDA recent decision to make Plan B available to minors without a prescription.
The key to making this kind of approach work is that the facts have to actually address the claim. The claim is that Bill Bolling voted to keep Plan B from minors. How does the fact that Bolling took money from anyone or that he has not had a public response to a federal agency make that untrue? It doesn’t, that’s how. It doesn’t even address it. It’s a smoke screen, a badly executed sleight-of-hand. Muldoon wants us to believe that Bolling’s lying about his record but the fact is that Senator Obenshain’s response, in this point, is completely accurate. It’s Muldoon trying to obscure the truth.
Senator Obenshain says that Bill Bolling has never supported mandating HPV vaccinations for grade-schoolers, or anyone else for that matter.
FACT: Bill Bolling sent out a press release at the end of the legislative session containing the following language:
“Lieutenant Governor Bolling worked on the following bills that passed the House and Senate during the 2007 General Assembly session:
“* HB 2035 – Hamilton – Human papillomavirus vaccine; added as required vaccination with parental opt-out; “
“Requiring” sounds a lot like “mandating.” And despite the opt-out, parents are reporting that they are coming under enormous pressure from pediatricians to allow their daughters to receive the vaccine, thanks to the mandate and a multimillion-dollar saturation advertising, public relations and “physician education” campaign by Merck, which included providing funding for the “End Cervical Cancer in our Lifetime” that Bill Bolling spearheaded in Virginia.
PS — Senator Obenshain voted for the HPV mandate too. No wonder he was in such a rush to defend Bill Bolling on this one.
Does not the fact that Bill Bolling was a part of the legislature mean he worked on all of the bills that came out of the House and Senate in 2007? Even granting that Muldoon must mean he worked on this bill to some degree that he did not on the others then what, precisely, did he do on the bills? Muldoon wants to make hay out of the words “requiring” and “mandating” but what if the Bolling emphasis was on the opt-out? And for a political party that prides itself on personal responsibility I find it bizarre that Muldoon is moaning about how parents are “coming under enormous pressure” to allow someone to stick a needle into their daughters when they really don’t want that. When the day comes you may rest assured that no one will be pushing me past whatever lines I’ve drawn so long as an opt-out is available.
Concerns about the HPV vaccine are understandable especially given how new it is. The polio vaccine was viewd the same way in its day. However, to say that something is “mandated” when a clear process to avoid doing it is available makes no sense. At that stage, it’s more accurately called “strongly recommended.” With that opt-out in place no Republican should have a problem with that bill.
Unless, of course, the vaccine isn’t the issue at all. We’ll get back to this.
Senator Obenshain says that Bill Bolling has never encouraged anyone to get the HPV vaccine, and that the Merck-funded “Ending Cervical Cancer in our Lifetime” initiative did not encourage anyone to get the HPV vaccine.
FACT: Bill Bolling sent out a press release at the beginning of the General Assembly session spelling out his “legislative agenda,” including the following language:
“Provide Cervical Cancer Vaccine – Governor’s Budget Amendment – Lieutenant Governor Bolling supports a budget amendment to make the cervical cancer vaccine available to low income women in Virginia. This amendment calls for an additional appropriation of $1.4 million.”
What’s the problem, here? Making something available doesn’t, by itself, encourage use. I make coffee at the office when there isn’t any in the pot. I’m not encouraging anyone to drink it. It’s available, that’s all.
FACT: In a speech promoting the “Ending Cervical Cancer in our Lifetime” initiative – an initiative funded by Merck and Glaxo SmithKline, makers of HPV vaccines – Mr. Bolling said:
“The best way to prevent cervical cancer is sexual abstinence. If you are going to be sexually active, the use of a condom can help reduce the chance of contracting the HPV virus…. [NOTE: Mr. Bolling did not promote monogamy or say that people should not be “sexually active,” and his suggestion of condom use is right out of the Planned Parenthood playbook.]
Ah, here we go. Muldoon’s rhetoric starts to crack and expose what his real beef is with Bolling’s position. One thing at a time, however. The vaccine is aimed at teen girls, specifically 12-year-olds in the Virginia context. Just exactly how is “monogamy” applicable, here? The very first sentence in that 2nd paragraph is Bill Bolling saying that sexual abstinence is the best way to prevent cervical cancer. Newsflash for the Muldoon campaign: that’s achieved by being “not sexually active.” As for the condom use comment, it’s an undeniable fact that the use of a condom reduces the chance of contracting the HPV virus. It doesn’t matter who said it first or who says it most often, the fact remains and the repetition of that fact by anyone proves nothing about their preferences in how a certain issue is handled. The only reason to imply so strongly that it does is to obscure evidence to the contrary.
The letter concludes with more suggestion that Bolling’s efforts to “eliminate cervical cancer in our lifetimes” are really just efforts to send a message to young people that it’s ok for them to have sex. You can read his conclusions for yourself.
I have a much larger problem with someone who would willingly allow the exposure of our children to a known pathogen scientifically proven to cause cancer so as to, somehow, get them to not have premarital sex that with anything Bill Bolling has done. I wrote about this kind of attitude when I first heard of it in 2006:
Opposition to this vaccine that’s based upon a fear that it might encourage women to have sex out of wedlock is irrational. It’s a desperate grab at anything to advance a moral position and it’s both disgusting and embarrassing to the rest of the conservative side of political thought. If the vaccine is otherwise safe, there is no reason to oppose it from a conservative perspective. Any conservative who would stand against the availability of this vaccine and yet innoculates their children against all the various diseases we vaccinate for today is a hypocrite and nothing more.
A hypocrite has no business being our nominee for Lt. Governor and if this is the kind of face Muldoon intends to display to the Virginia electorate, then he’s dreaming when he thinks he can carry the day in November. To my fellow delegates I say, let’s not let his pipe dream become our nightmare. Bill Bolling for Lt. Governor!
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