Rep. Tierney (D-MA) "knew everything" of family's illegal off shore betting site

[Small Business Owner of Any Repute]

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http://www.bostonherald.com/news/regional/view.bg?articleid=1061142102&srvc=rss

Tierney is facing a pretty tough challenge from former State Sen. Tisei (R). This news certainly doesn't make his road any easier.

[Small Business Owner of Any Repute]

Of course for Mr. Tisei, if he wins, Massachusetts Democrats are inclined to use gerrymandering to remove him from that seat.

For 2022.

[Small Business Owner of Any Repute]

The site in question was no different from InTrade. Would some politician being found to have family members who invested in InTrade even be a joke "scandal"?

This is like saying I should get upset or vote against some local lawmaker if they were found to be a marijuana dealer.

Of course you, BRTD, will never get it. But voters generally do not like when the persons who make the laws choose to violate them for their own personal financial gain.

Really, though, that's not even the part that makes Tierney look the worst. The part that makes him look terrible is when he threw his whole family under the bus. Perhaps, to use your own analogy, you would rather vote against some local, marijuana-dealing lawmaker who let his wife go to jail for drug trafficking because he claimed having absolutely no knowledge of any of her drug deals.

The idea that Tierney knew nothing about the money his wife made off the gambling operation is ridiculous. No one believes it. Tierney is a bad person, and his district is not Democratic enough for him to get away with it anymore.

[Small Business Owner of Any Repute]

The site in question was no different from InTrade. Would some politician being found to have family members who invested in InTrade even be a joke "scandal"?

This is like saying I should get upset or vote against some local lawmaker if they were found to be a marijuana dealer.

Of course you, BRTD, will never get it. But voters generally do not like when the persons who make the laws choose to violate them for their own personal financial gain.

Really, though, that's not even the part that makes Tierney look the worst. The part that makes him look terrible is when he threw his whole family under the bus. Perhaps, to use your own analogy, you would rather vote against some local, marijuana-dealing lawmaker who let his wife go to jail for drug trafficking because he claimed having absolutely no knowledge of any of her drug deals.

The idea that Tierney knew nothing about the money his wife made off the gambling operation is ridiculous. No one believes it. Tierney is a bad person, and his district is not Democratic enough for him to get away with it anymore.

Why are you wasting your keyboard trying to reason with BRTD, which is almost as useful, as trying to reason with a concrete wall?

As I often do, I was talking over BRTD, not necessarily to him.

[Small Business Owner of Any Repute]

All Tierney needs to do to win in this D+7 district is to repeatedly say that Tisei would be a loyal foot soldier for the far right leadership(Cantor and Boehner) that is currently in charge of Congress.  Tisei will lose for the same reason that Torkildson lost in 1996 and 1998. 

This isnt like 1992 when voters here could vote out an incumbent like Mavroules(who was actually indicted three weeks before the election) knowing that it wouldnt give more power to the far right Republican leadership.

The problem with your scenario is that Tisei is not an undefined quantity in this district. He's represented over a quarter of it for years in the state legislature, where he most certainly did not act as a loyal foot soldier of the GOP. He's an openly gay, pro-choice, liberal Republican. It's not a believable charge, and Tierney is not a believable enough to make that charge stick.

[Small Business Owner of Any Repute]

Is it too late to get a new candidate? lol

Yes, actually. Deadline passed fairly recently, IIRC.

[Small Business Owner of Any Repute]

Tisei raised $568,000 last quarter, bringing his total haul up to $1.2M.

[Small Business Owner of Any Repute]

At the end of the day, this is a D+7. This would be a slam dunk for Republicans if this was a D+0, and one of their top prospects in the country if it were a mere D+3.

Still, this is a really ugly scandal. I believe Tierney will lose so long as Tisei keeps raking in the cash, though it's still pretty much a coin flip in my eyes.

[Small Business Owner of Any Repute]

Tierney's district would probably be 100% Boston media market. It's only about 15 or 20 miles north of the city.

[Small Business Owner of Any Repute]

Roll Call is now putting this race in their "toss up" column.

http://www.rollcall.com/politics/race-ratings-chart-2012-house-elections.html

[Small Business Owner of Any Repute]

Tierney needs to be running the exact same race against Tisei that John Kerry ran against Bill Weld in 1996.  Continue to pound home that a vote for Tisei is a vote to give the right wing leadership in Congress like John Boehner, Eric Cantor, and Paul Ryan even more power. 

(1) John Kerry has stronger net positives than Tierney. There was no scandal even approaching this level.
(2) This district is more Republican than Massachusetts on the whole, meaning the bar for Tisei is much lower to cross than Weld's or even Brown's.

You should look at the number of Democrats in this thread would would vote for Tisei over Tierney knowing it'll probably be a quick 2-and-out career for Tisei. It's a pretty non-offensive way to clean the House of a piece of human garbage.

[Small Business Owner of Any Repute]

Would people be demonizing Tierney if he had invested in InTrade?

There are two kinds of people voting for Tierney at this point: (1) Hyper-partisans like BRTD who cannot comprehend voting for a Republican in any circumstance and otherwise take pleasure in the GOP's failure. (2) People like "DrScholl," the blissfully unaware-by-choice 35% that likely would have supported Sen. Bob Torricelli up until his withdrawal speech.

The only difference: In 2022, the DrScholls of this world will be talking about what a good outcome Tierney's loss turned out to be. In 2022, the BRTDs of the world will be shaving parrots or whatever the hell his grungy Christian hyper-hipster groupthink mandates.