With big-ticket Senate primary contests in Kentucky, Pennsylvania and Arkansas fueling speculation about November's critical midterm elections, the last thing either major party needed was a breaking scandal to reinforce stereotyped voter images of Democratic and Republican weaknesses.
But that was the ugly specter greeting national party leaders as they faced the day's political news.
The front page of the New York Times Tuesday featured an explosive piece on presumptive Democratic U.S. Senate nominee Richard Blumenthal, Connecticut's attorney general. The Times reported that Blumenthal has misled voters into believing that he served in Vietnam when, in fact, he received five deferments and joined the Marine Corps Reserve to avoid fighting. Possibly with the help of a Republican candidate, the paper tracked down one occasion in which Blumenthal said he had served in Vietnam and others in which he implied it. At a news conference this afternoon, Blumenthal admitted that he has "misspoken" in claiming that he served in Vietnam but said it was "totally unintentional." Backed up by a group of military veterans, he said he meant to say he served "during Vietnam" instead of "in Vietnam."
Before Tuesday's story, Blumenthal was one of the few bright spots for Democrats coming into an increasingly bleak election cycle. He was the strong favorite to win the seat of retiring longtime Democratic Sen. Chris Dodd, and before this story he has had a sterling public reputation. The controversy reopens old wounds over Vietnam and the draft and gives life to old stereotypes of Democrats as weak on military issues.
Meanwhile, GOP strategists awoke to the news that another prominent social conservative is embroiled in a sex scandal. Mark Souder, an eight-term Indiana congressman long allied with the GOP's social-conservative base, announced that he is resigning Tuesday after admitting that he "sinned against God, my wife and my family by having a mutual relationship" with a staffer.
[Video: Souder resigns]
Liberal critics seized on Souder's conduct, noting his hard-line opposition to abortion, contraception and same-sex marriage in the name of "family values." The liberal news site TalkingPointsMemo.com (where I was previously employed), for instance, has already posted footage of Souder speaking out in favor of abstinence education in a video co-starring his mistress.
It's doubtful that either scandal will have much of an effect on today's voting. Both stories broke too late to reach most voters, and state primary balloters are choosing nominees for their own parties — not choosing between Democrats and Republicans.
But with the political media already in overdrive, ready to try to interpret the national mood based on the results of Tuesday's voting, neither major party wants to be reminded of how its standard-bearers are prone to misbehave.
Source: http://news.yahoo.com
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