I know a little something about coffins. And I know when I'm being lied to.An email arrived in my inbox this afternoon from Missouri Secretary of State Robin Carnahan's baby-brother, Congressman Russ Carnahan (D-Missouri). In this email, Carnahan pledges to not be intimidated by Coffingate, and then asks me for money. This email may be the most despicable yet of the campaign season. After a brutal 48 hours of press retractions about an incident regarding a coffin placed near his house, Carnahan is attempting to hustle money for intimidation that did not occur.
Carnahan provides a link to a piece in Politico -- the very piece that was suggested to Politico reporter Jake Sherman by a Carnahan spokesperson, (and subsequently corrected). Here is some text from his email.
They've tried every dirty trick in the book to block critical reforms that will stop insurance companies from rejecting children with preexisting conditions or denying care to those who are sick. Try as they may, we will not be intimidated.
Help me send a message that threats and extreme tactics will not work. Please contribute $100, $50 or even $25 right now to help me fight back against those who will stop at nothing to block health care reform for Missouri families....
It must be hard to get good help these days. At the center of the controversy is Sara Howard, Congressman Carnahan's spokesperson for his re-election campaign. Howard comes from SEIU, where she spent a number of years learning the ins and outs of labor-press relations.
Among those lessons was the use of race-baiting flyers that accuse Republicans of hosing down Southern blacks to prevent them from voting. Howard defended the use of this flyer in 2004, when she worked at the Missouri office of Americans Coming Together. The flyer was placed in urban neighborhoods with the intention to foment resentment in the black populace, which, at the time, was showing insufficient enthusiasm for John Kerry.