McHenry County Blog

8th congressional district anti-war candidate Bill Scheurer has been churning out press releases. McHenry County Blog is probably the only place they get published.

In yesterday's release about anti-war activist Cindy Sheehan's endorsement ("Make One Democrat Pay") was a paragraph about a forthcoming negative mailing from the Democratic Party's Congressional Campaign Committee--run by Chicago Congressman Rahm Emanuel. It must have just arrived because here is what the campaign has to say about what it calls "Slime."

Democrat Mailer Slimes Scheurer

It's official. The Democrats are running scared. Despite their successful efforts to spin the media with false polls that under-report the growing momentum of his campaign, the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee (DCCC) has now unleashed a desperate attack piece against independent Moderate Party candidate Bill Scheurer.

Among its notable lies, the piece says that Republicans have "propped up" the Scheurer campaign "with hundreds of thousands of dollars." Federal Election Commission reports plainly show that Scheurer has not received a single penny from Republicans.

In fact, over half his money came from major unions that backed incumbent Democrat Melissa Bean in 2004. Scheurer has raised less than $50,000.

"I wish it was true," says Scheurer. "If we had that kind of money to reach voters, we would be winning this thing by a landslide!"

The mailer also oddly attempts to connect Scheurer with George Bush. Bean is widely regarded as a "Bush Democrat" for voting with the Bush Administration and the Republican Congress on nearly every major issue, while Scheurer is a consistent outspoken critic of Bush and agrees with him on almost nothing.

In the height of irony, the DCCC direct mail piece also accuses Republicans of "playing dirty tricks" and trying to win "by backhanded, slimy tricks." The Republicans have no connection with the Scheurer campaign.

However, it was the Democrats who carried out a series of dirty tricks and outright fraud in its efforts to try to keep Scheurer off the November ballot. His Moderate Party had to file a lawsuit in federal court against the DCCC, its chairman Rahm Emanuel, and other leading Democrats for criminal fraud to make them back off.

Asked about the sleazy ad, Scheurer could only laugh. "Abraham Lincoln once said, after being ridden out of town on a rail: 'But for the honor of it, I would have rather walked.' That about sums it up for me."

Welcome, Mr. Scheurer, to the strange and twisted world of big-time politics.

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