Mystery of Christine O’Donnell’s Rent

How about the “Reimbursements” to Brent Vasher that are suspiciously like rent payments at 518 N Lincoln St?

Brent Vasher paid for a great many expenses out of his own pocket for the 2008 campaign. Brent Vasher put all of the hotel expenses for the May 2008 convention on his credit card. So, Brent Vasher was legitimately owed reimbursement of actual 2008 campaign expenses from the 2008 campaign.

It appears that under pressure to pay back those expenses, the amounts and timing were what was necessary to cover Brent's obligations on the mortgage.

However, the payments were for legitimate 2008 campaign expense reimbursements.

There is insufficient evidence to make a judgement here.

But if you want to bring an accusation against someone, you need to have the proof. You cannot bring an accusation without any proof. If critics cannot prove what they are claiming, then don't they need to admit that they are just spreading hogwash and horse feathers?

It also seems that if this explanation was available, the campaign would have used it, rather than all the explanations they did use.

No, that is false. If you grow up politically, and learn how the media works, you will discover that you can have a 45 minute interview with the news media and only have 5 words actually printed in the newspaper or used on TV.

I was interviewed for about 45 minutes by Gannett. They used about 5 words out of that interview, and indirectly referred to one other point I made.

The fact that you don't read something in the newspaper does not mean the point was not made to them repeatedly.

You can never be a grown-up in politics until you realize that what you read in the newspaper ain't necessarily so.

I would like CharlesWayneCT to prove that Charles did not personally create the AIDS virus as a military experiment.

Or would it be *MY* burden of proof to prove that he DID?

Can I just make a wild accusation, and then demand that Charles prove it false?

The campaign put out it’s own press releases. This is the internet age, you know. It is absurd to argue that we, in the conservative movement, at Free Republic, didn’t have access to every argument the O’Donnell campaign chose to make.

If they had an argument and we didn’t know it, that’s there fault — all they needed was a logon, and they could post whatever they wanted.

Which goes back to our previous argument — who is to blame?

Which I should say I don’t entirely disagree with you — I certainly wish I lived in a world where it was different, and certainly all the roadblocks against conservatism hurt. But they are what they are — we change what we can, we overcome what we need to. In the end, that is what we can do.

Technically, you can accuse people with no evidence at all. The question is whether the accusation should be taken seriously.

I find “evidence” to be a better word than “proof” here, because there is so rarely “proof” of anything. There is conflicting evidence, and we decide how to weight the evidence.

For example, we wanted proof that Obama was born in the USA. His campaign put out a “birth certificate” which it claimed was proof. But people analysed the paperwork, and many think it was bogus, or that it didn’t show he was actually born here — it was evidence, but not “proof”.

Anyway, there was evidence that the campaign was paying rent on the townhome. They didn’t make up the accusation our of whole cloth — they had the FEC filings. I don’t know when the burden should shift from the accuser to the accused — but I know that when it’s a conservative, they better well jump to it, because the media isn’t fair.

Being involved in politics as you seem to be, you should know as much as anybody that politics isn’t about proof, or evidence, or facts. It is about perception — the perception of the voters. If you can’t convince 50%+1 voters to pick you, it makes no difference WHY. It makes no difference if you can prove charges against you were false. You need to win over the voters. Nobody is going to win the voters over for you.

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