At a tea party rally in Kokomo, there was a confontration today between blogger Jeremy Segal of Rebel Pundit and Jim Holden, a staffer for Senate Candidate Richard Mourdock.
I viewed the video. While Holden probably didn't do the right thing, to characterize his pushing away of the camera as an "assault" on Segal is laughable. It is not clear what happened before the video started, but Segal appeared to be asking multiple questions and monopolizing the time of the candidate. Anyone who has been a candidate knows those types of people and tries to avoid extended convesations with them at political events. Holden's job is to stop individuals from monopolizing the candidate's time and ability to meet multiple people. In the case of Segal, in the video he seems openly hostile to Mourdock's campaign, so why should Mourdock spend substantial time answering his hostile questions?
Segal also complains that Mourdock made clear at the rally that he was a Republican and not the "tea party candidate." While this seems to bother Segal, the fact is Lugar would love for Mourdock to be marginalized as the "tea party candidate." If that happens Mourdock can't win the Republican primary. While a tea party rally might not have been the best place for Mourdock to make that point, he is exactly right.
Note, according to Rebel Pundit the Mourdock folks have said it was a matter of "mistaken identify" and both Mourdock and Holden have apologized.
Much ado about nothing.
3 comments:
I can clearly hear the staffer saying there was someone else who wanted to talk to Mourdock.
But what's-his-name insisted on continuing to ask questions instead of saying "thanks for taking the time to talk with me," and then went into the standard guy-with-camera-ambushing-someone routine of raising his voice and feigning surprise and indignation. They can be rude to you but don't be rude to them!
People like this haven't learned that a journalist is supposed to report the story, not be it or create it.
Looked like a pot calling a kettle black to me. Juvenile behavior on the part of the campaign manager. Still, why should I be surprised?
DI,
You have well-meaning people at these events who love to talk and monopolize the candidate's time. That's a hard thing to deal with. But this blogger wasn't just some well-meaning constitutuent. This is someone who had no interest in supporting Mourdock and meant to mopolize his time to keep him away from others. I don't have a lot of sympathy for him.
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