Gloves off
August 7th, 2008
At Monday’s House candidates debate Democrats Ethan Berkowitz and Diane Benson were asked if they’d smoked pot (affirmative in both cases), while Republicans Don Young, Sean Parnell, and Gabrielle LeDoux were asked what sport they’d participate in if they were Olympic athletes.
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Benson said that she didn’t care that Berkowitz was a San Francisco trust fund baby—a not-so-clever way to repeat a well-worn accusation—she wanted to know why he was taking money from untoward contributors. Berkowitz countered that Benson was making something out of nothing. He may be right.
The political action committee Our Common Values (Democratic Illinois Representative Rahm Emanuel’s PAC) has given money to Berkowitz’s campaign, and Benson and her supporters cry ad nauseam that it’s dirty money, contributed to the PAC by neocon hawks. That point is somewhat moot. Federal Elections Commission records show that Benson’s received contributions from a PAC (Woolsey for Congress, Democratic California Representative Lynn Woolsey’s PAC) that received funding from Our Common Values as well—it’s virtually the same money, Berkowitz just got considerably more of it.
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In the Democratic primary, 15.9% of the respondents were undecided; Berkowitz scored 54% while Benson had 25.2% (Don Wright of the Alaska Independence Party was included, and got 4.9% support). Among Republican voters, 10.1% were undecided, while Young was up top with 46%, Parnell fairly close behind at 38.3%, and LeDoux with 5.6%.
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