Democratic Party Message To Log Cabin Republicans: we play for keeps.
Posted on 02/10/2005 11:26:38 AM PST by KidGlock
2/10/2005 Meanwhile, in other places on the Hill, former aides to Sen. Tom Daschle, who lost a bruising election against now-Sen. John Thune, gloated over the ouster of Talon News’ ‘reporter’ Jeff Gannon.
Former aides to ex-Senate Minority Leader Tom Daschle (D-S.D.) were among those cheering Wednesday’s abrupt resignation of reporter Jeff Gannon
from Talon News, a Web site affiliated with the conservative-activist site GOPUSA.
Daschle aides are elated because Gannon wrote extensively about the South Dakota Senate race, and former Daschle aides claim that the writer was essentially carrying water for Sen. John Thune’s (R-S.D.) successful campaign. Gannon fired away at everything linked to Daschle’s campaign, even writing a spate of articles attacking the dean of the state’s political writers, Sioux Falls Argus-Leader columnist Dave Kranz, for allegedly shilling for Daschle.
“He and Thune’s campaign worked hand in hand,” said one former Daschle aide. “This guy became a dumping ground for opposition research.”
Too bad he quit---he must have had something in his background that he didn't want the dems to find out about and exploit---
That's how to win a War of Attrition.
Should read former aides to former Sen. Tom Daschle, both losers.
Don't you love when losers gloat.
The Dakota Blog Alliance didn't require the services of Jeff to attack Kranz. They did quit well on their own. Kranz is such an obvious party hack.
and also:
current SD residents continue to reveal glee over outing of socialist Senator Tom Daschle.
you lost Dasshole get over it..
It hardly takes any special insider information to know Kranz's pro-Daschle leanings. Simply reading his columns pretty well confirms that.
Gannon?
Turns out he was a gay man who ran gay porn sites. His webpage had his picture up with him in boxers welcoming other gay men.
Or at least there's a picture that looks lke him and a pseudonym traced back to him.
As South Dakota Politics has noted, Beck did not address the specific criticism of the bloggers, which deserves serious consideration. About one year ago, the blogger Sibby Online discovered that Kranz and Daschle were close in college. They organized a mock Democratic political convention together at SDSU in 1968. Daschle was the President of the Political Science Club and Kranz was his "Publicity Chairman." Kranz then wrote about the event for the college newspaper and lauded Daschle's "tireless" efforts, but did not disclose that he was also involved in the event. Both Daschle and Kranz also supported Eugene McCarthy for President in 1968. When confronted with this information, Beck responded "He works for me and I'm not going to allow Dave to get into a pissing match with a guy who makes this stuff up." Beck did not explain what was "made up." None of the 1968 information, which was unknown until Sibby's discovery, has been disclosed by the Argus.
When Daschle and his first wife, who were both staffers for former US Senator James Abourezk, moved back to South Dakota in 1976 in preparation for Daschle's run for Congress in 1978, Kranz was the managing editor of the Mitchell Daily Republic and noted their return. The Daschles took over the Senator's state operation, were aggressively reorganzing the Abourezk office, and were improving their press outreach. According to one of the memos uncovered in recent weeks by SDP, one of the Abourezk staffers dispatched to Mitchell reported back that the Senator had received "good coverage" the previous week and that the paper's "Managing Editor is Dave Kranz, 30, formally of Austin Minn, and Watertown S.D. Went to SDSU (Mu U. with Tom D. [Daschle] and Tom Klinkel [Daschle's brother-in-law] Very much a strong Demo. and have been attending county demo. functions together." The memo also said that "Dave Kranz of paper is checking out some of the local biggees in Mitchell to see how much support we have to do something." Kranz was also helping to undermine Republican Congressman Jim Abdnor: "Mitchell paper is going to expose Abdnor on rating by National Alliance of S. Citizens next week."
A second memo disclosed last week indicated that Kranz was giving the Abourezk organization advice on how to improve press coverage and win votes, such as by doing more "hokey things": "In addition, Dave feels Jim is not doing the hocky [sic] things necessary to be elected again. Like sending out calendars, X-Mas cards, birthday, marrages, weddings, and other hocky [sic] letters to SD people. The question is not if its hocky or not--but rather for many people its the only chance they will ever receive a personal card, greetings, or thank-you from someone they will or have voted for." The staffer also designated Kranz a "friendly editor." The memo also noted that Kranz wanted to remain confidential.
When Kranz left the Mitchell paper for the Argus in 1983, he wrote in his final column that "Provoking thought is a must in a community that is searching for ways to grow. In those provacative [sic] terms, I have heard the disatisfaction [sic] and the allegations of bias. Yet I do not apologize for any one position I have stood for." SDP recently recounted these complaints:
Later, in 1986, the lieutenant governor of South Dakota wrote a piece for the Argus Leader excoriating Kranz for his Democratic bias. In 1990, the New York Times noted that the Democratic Senate candidate that year "seemed to take his campaign script from The Sioux Falls Argus Leader," a phenomenon observed this week with Kranz' piece and Hildebrand's subsequent mass e-mail. In 1990, Kranz was the managing editor of the AL, and a piece in Roll Call reported that it was Kranz who was behind the "hysterical bashing" of the Republican Senate candidate. In 1999, Senator Larry Pressler wrote a letter to the editor of the Argus Leader stating that Kranz is "my longtime nemesis.... He is a good writer, but intellectually flawed in that he lets his biases show through." Last summer, Jeff Gannon ran a series of articles revealing Kranz' bias.
When Kranz was City Editor of the Argus from 1986 to 1989, his assistant City Editor was Steve Erpenbach, who went on to serve as the Democratic press spokesman during the 1990 Senatorial election. Erpenbach is now Senator Daschle's state director.
In 1997, Daschle's media advisor Karl Struble explained how his media operation used the Argus in the 1996 Senate campaign: "The press ate it up. Our campaign systematically doled out the information piece by piece to reporters in D.C. and South Dakota. The result was a series of damaging articles. ... We used the headlines generated as validators for our ads." As SDP noted above, this pattern was precisely repeated in recent weeks--after a blatant example of pro-Daschle shilling from Kranz, the Daschle campaign reprinted the Kranz piece in a mass email fundraiser. Even though Beck has denounced such practices in the past, he did not say anything about the Daschle campaign's maneuver.
In the 2002 Senate race, the Democrats actually printed up professional stickers which said "We Love Dave Kranz" and distributed them. Despite such blatant gestures, Kranz has been ready and willing in the past to criticize other South Dakota newspapers for bias and for being a “partisan Republican voice” and a “glory and praise pamphlet for Republican policy.”
As this blog as others have noted, as literally dozens of articles critical of Daschle have appeared nationally, they have been systematically ignored by the Argus. As a result, voters don't have all the information they need to make an informed decision this November. In short, the Argus Leader is strangling democracy. Since the stakes of the South Dakota Senate race are so high, all the citizens of the republic should be concerned.
The core question at present is whether the allegations of bias deserve attention or should be dismissed as "crap," which the Argus editor advocates. Are bloggers justified in raising questions about the ability of Dave Kranz to objectively report about Tom Daschle? It seems to me that such questions are legitimate.
I should say in closing that I personally like Dave Kranz, in part because we both share the same dorky interest in the history of South Dakota politics. But for the sake of the democratic process and the basic legitimacy of our elections, we need to seriously consider whether he should be writing and interpreting news related to Tom Daschle. It's a difficult thing to say, but the reporting style of Dave Kranz should not determine the outcome of this election. It should be determined by voters who have all the necessary information at their disposal to make informed judgments.
I disagree; the left didn't "get" Talon News. So they ran off one guy who hurt them. Big deal; it's over. SeeBS is still trying to cover up their outright lies (not proven against Talon, definitely proven against SeeBS). The SeeBS liars are still at their jobs.
I see lots of differences here, and much more stain on SeeBS than on Talon.
Attrition? Yeah, like the way the Iraqis "attritted" our forces in Gulf War 1.
I thought the libs loved gay men?
Also pedophiles? (Scott Ritter)
Is that how the story ended up?
Last I heard, his site was owned by a company that sold to gay porn sites.
I keep hoping someone posts an article with the summary. Last I looked, the official "gannon" thread had 855 replies.
There is another thread going right now regarding this subject---
I'm not saying you are wrong, but THAT thread says that Gannon said he set up the porn websites when that was what he did, help people set up websites.
I don't know the REAL story, so I guess I can't comment on that part, but it IS a shame that one reporter that has asked questions favorable to the President has this happen.
Oh, I'm not saying what I said is the truth. That's simply what the word is on what happened.
Where's that thread btw...
The thread is in News/activism under the title "Problems in the Press Corps (Jeff Gannon) by QQQQQQ
I would post the link, but, alas, I don't know how yet, sorry!
Democratic Party Message To Log Cabin Republicans: we play for keeps.
Oh for crying out loud! "He picked on us! The bad man picked on us!" The left needs to get a grip.
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