Richard Moore responded to the latest attack ad — with a poem.
Campaign manager Jay Reiff sent out a parody of Clement Clark Moore's "A Visit from St. Nicholas" this afternoon in response to a YouTube video from Democratic gubernatorial rival Beverly Perdue.
The video says that Moore should not have approved the Randy Parton theater as a member of the Local Government Commission. The poem retorts that "Perdue's attacks were all tarnished with ashes and soot / A coalminer’s daughter, she'd been breaking her back / To contrive and twist while ignoring the facts."
After the jump, the full poem.
—————
'Twas four days before Christmas, when all through the state
Not a politico was stirring, because of the date;
The campaign contributions were being deposited with care,
In hopes that election day soon would be there;
The candidates were nestled all snug in their beds,
While visions of Blount Street danced in their heads;
And mamma in her 'kerchief, and I in my cap,
Had just settled down for a well-deserved nap,
When on my computer there arose such a clatter,
I sprang from my desk to see what was the matter.
Away to Youtube to watch a video in Flash,
An attack ad at Christmas seemed awfully rash.
Baseless vitriol filling the monitor’s glow
Gave the lustre of Jesse Helms to objects below
When, what to my wondering eyes should appear,
But a Perdue contributor, and eight tiny reindeer,
With a stupid old letter, so grouchy and quick,
I knew in a moment it must be a trick.
More rapid than eagles the attacks, they came,
Trumped up and untrue, they tried to name names;
"He did it, he did it, It’s all Moore’s fault!
Though it’s my supporter who took the cash from the vault!
To the top of the porch! to the top of the wall!
Don’t vote for him, don’t do it, never at all!"
As dry leaves that before the wild hurricane fly,
A whirlwind of rhetoric appeared to my eye,
So up to the web, my fingers they flew,
To find out the answers and see what to do.
And then, in a twinkling, I heard on the roof
The sound of a sprinkling snowfall of truth.
As I continued my research, and surfed all around,
Down the chimney the truth came with a bound.
It was dressed up in facts, from its head to its foot,
And Perdue’s attacks were all tarnished with ashes and soot;
A coalminer’s daughter, she’d been breaking her back,
To contrive and twist while ignoring the facts.
The truth’s eyes—how they twinkled! The facts simple and merry!
And the attack suddenly seemed a lot less scary!
The Perdue campaign’s mouth was zipped shut like a bow,
Zack, Mac, Fred and Saul looked as white as the snow;
There was nothing they could do but clench their teeth,
And the smoke coming from Bev’s ears looked like a wreath;
For the facts from Roanoke Rapids might have been a little smelly
But they seemed to be pointing to the Perdue campaign’s belly.
Rick Watson was a supporter and well-connected old elf,
And I laughed when I realized the connections myself;
With a wink of its eye and a twist of its head,
The Perdue campaign misdirected what’s been done and been said;
Richard Moore wasn’t worried, but went back to his work,
He laughed it all off, on his face a little smirk.
For Moore has the experience and already knows,
That nobody would care about the Perdue campaign’s throes;
He sprang from his desk, to his team gave a whistle,
And to the work of the people, they flew like the down of a thistle.
But I heard him exclaim, as he drove out of sight,
Merry Christmas to all and to all a good night.
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Re: A visit from Richard Moore
After perusing the websites referred to in the dome blog articles, I am now completely disgusted with both Moore and Perdue.
As these candidates are very well aware, the REAL goal of negative campaigning is to keep people from going to the polls at all.
Yes, that's right--the goal of these candidates is to influence people to give up their CIVIC RESPONSIBILITY as free citizens of a democratic society.
In my book, that makes negative campaigning a sort of civic terrorism.
Negative campaigning is especially offensive to young new voters. The kids who had just started highschool when 9-11 happened haven't yet had a chance to vote in gubernatorial or presidential elections. So perhaps for the first time, these kids are tuning in--and THIS is what they find????
Of course candidates don't really want younger folks to vote, because they are an unknown--they don't know HOW they will vote--so they are secretly pleased to turn them away. Making negative campaigning Civic Terrorism of the Next Generation.
The NC Democratic Party should put the lid on all this, because this sort of intra-party mud-slinging weakens the entire party, because voters end up thinking, I don't want EITHER of these two. (This is especially true of younger voters.) If the state party doesn't reign them in, then it too is guilty of this civic terrorism.
(Before someone comments on why this is a reason to vote Republican--the Republican party is even MORE guilty of using negative campaign tactics--which is why this independent voter started tuning them out long ago.)
The bottom line is that our Democracy, and Our Kids, deserves better that this political campaign crap.