Posted on 06/26/2006 1:25:47 PM PDT by Dane
Posted by Chuck Muth June 25, 2006 at 4:46 pm
JOHN JACOB DINGLE-BERRY SCHMIDT
The old axiom that Republicans never blow an opportunity to blow an opportunity has never been more in play than in this Tuesday’s GOP primary race in Utah’s 3rd congressional district.
Challenger John Jacob had the money to credibly take on incumbent Rep. Chris Cannon. And he had the hottest of red-hot issues: illegal immigration. Cannon, after all, is well known as a champion of amnesty for illegal aliens and Jacob has been successfully pounding him on it. In addition, Rep. Tom Tancredo’s Team America PAC, led by fire-breathing pit-bull Bay Buchanan, has been hammering Cannon unmercifully in radio ads urging voters to support Jacob.
On issue after issue, Cannon and Jacob, both conservative Republicans, generally found themselves in agreement. But on the immigration issue, they were polar opposites. The entire race, with national implications, would likely turn on this one issue. And the tide was running in Jacob’s direction.
And then the wheels started popping off the apple cart…
IS THAT MY FOOT? HERE, LET ME SHOOT IT
First came the story about how Jacob had unlawfully given money to an immigrant family. Oops. There are details and explanations to the story…but what kind of voter pays attention to details?
Then there was the story about Jacob’s “gambling problem.” Jacob, a Mormon, eventually admitted to gambling in Las Vegas during the Nationals Finals Rodeo…a no-no according to the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints. Oops, again.
Then Jacob was forced to admit he had his figures regarding the number of illegals in a Utah prison all wrong. On the campaign trail, Jacob had been telling audiences that 40 percent of prisoners in the Central Utah Correctional Facility were illegal aliens. This week, he had to admit that it was only 8 percent. Oops.
Then last Tuesday, Tad Walch of the Deseret Morning News reported on Jacob’s “FastPass” idea for illegal aliens based roughly on Disneyland’s ticket program which allows some people to go straight to the front of the line. Apparently, Jacob is thinking that illegals who can prove they’ve been in the U.S. for 10 or 20 years would return to the their home country and obtain a FastPass which would put them at the front of the immigration line and allow them to return to the U.S. legally.
To which The Amnesty King responded: “It sounds like what some supporting you call an amnesty.”
Um, yeah.
THE DEVIL MADE ME DO IT
But punting away the winning amnesty issue and all the rest could likely be the least of the Jacob campaign’s worries. On Friday he went off the deep end, likely scaring the be-jeepers out of even the most religious of conservatives in Utah and around the country. Here’s the campaign-crushing Associated Press story from Friday…
“Republican congressional hopeful John Jacob believes the devil is impeding his efforts to unseat five-term Representative Chris Cannon. He says there’s another force that wants to keep him from going to Washington and the devil is what it is. Jacob says that since he decided to run for Congress, Satan has disrupted his business deals, preventing him from putting as much money into the race as he had hoped.”
What the…?
And this wasn’t just a one-time slip of the tongue in the middle of a bad Timothy Leary-like acid trip. Jacob first blamed devil for his campaign troubles at an immigration event on Wednesday, and then reiterated the claim in front of Salt Lake Tribune editors the very next day. And already the story has traveled halfway around the world.
“A candidate seeking the Republican nomination for a Congressional seat in Utah has blamed the devil for problems with his campaign,” reports London’s The Independent newspaper today. “John Jacob, a businessman aiming to oust Republican incumbent Chris Cannon in a party primary this week, told The Salt Lake Tribune that since he had decided to try for Congress, the devil had disrupted his business deals…” The paper added that “Mr. Jacob asked the (Tribune) not to quote him about Satan because he would be marked as ‘one of those screw-loose people’.”
Gee, do ya think?
Now, I know Mormons are very religious folks, but even the most devout must be scratching their heads this weekend wondering if Jacob might be a few fries short of a Happy Meal. As one fellow Mormon close to this race wrote to me after reading about this bizarre charge: “He’s toast. Extra crispy.”
DO YOU BELIEVE IN MIRACLES?
The Jacob campaign is now in full panic mode, with the candidate trying to explain away the unexplainable. “I think the way I tried to explain it was in the last ten months I’ve had more adversity than I’ve had in the last ten years,” Jacob is now saying. “So chalk it up to whom you’d like.”
Um, how ’bout the Tooth Fairy?
The supreme irony here is that Cannon is every bit the “loose screw” that Jacob now appears to be. He once told me face-to-face after the impeachment hearings that he believed the Chinese had implanted a chip into Bill Clinton’s head and that the former president was completely under the control of the ChiComs.
OK, OK. Maybe that’s NOT quite as bizarre as the devil stuff. But it’s close.
In any event, it now appears that the best opportunity to take out the Provo Prevaricator has gone up in smoke. Then again, if the devil can mess up Jacob, maybe the Big Guy upstairs - who, after all, does work in mysterious ways - can still pull out a miracle on Tuesday. Let us pray…
All I knew about Cannon, 'til recently, I learned of during impeachment of Clinton in the House.
If he's as bad as they say on illegal immigration issue, he needs to get wake up and get real.
On the other hand, if Jacobs is even a fraction of what this article says, then here's what he sounds like to me...somebody who posts on FReeRepublic that goes wild against the President over something, but in truth he or she has bigtime issues within themselves and their own lives...
(the) illegal immigration issue
get wake up and get real
(Sorry for the mistakes...it's late!)
All THAT for just a harmless BTTT, used as a place finder?
Your post was so recent...I hoped to find someone still awake and posting, and also someone I KNEW something about.
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