This seems like sound advice from one conservative to another:
Lynn Chapman must immediately and forcefully denounce such activity. He must likewise come completely clean with whether or not these questions were actually asked in a poll authorized by his campaign or any other political body working with his campaign to get him elected. If some agency working on his behalf actually did ask these questions then he needs to cut that agency off at the knees, publicly and loudly. He needs to make a very visible break with such an agency. Nothing less will do. Anything less will show he was either in agreement with such a tactic and authorized it, that he has no general problem with the use of such a tactic, or (at the very least) that he’s completely clueless about what’s going on in his name during this campaign and that someone else is pulling his strings. [Emphasis in original]
Instead, the response has been less than informative. From the Connection:
BILLY KIRKLAND, a spokesperson for Lynn Chapman’s campaign, said he did not feel comfortable releasing the poll to the press. However, the types of questions asked were your “standard issue questions.”
“There were no derogatory or incendiary questions about either candidate. There were no attacks,” he said. “They were standard politics, polling questions.”
Chapman did not return numerous phone calls as of press time.
What does this mean? Is he denying that the poll took place as reported? The questions have been corroborated by several independent sources at this point. Is he claiming that the question “Would your vote for the House of Delegates be affected if you knew that Delegate Poisson is a ‘closet homosexual'”? is neither derogatory nor incendiary? Is this a “standard issue question”?
No clarification has been forthcoming, and feeble, contradictory attempts at spinning this story are making an appearance in the form of anonymous blog comments. This suggests that someone connected with the campaign actually was stupid enough to insult the electorate this way, and now they don’t know what to do about it. The question is, who was behind this?
Update, 7:12 pm: The Chapman campaign was kind enough to send the press release reproduced below to Equality Loudoun.
An apparent press release from the Chapman campaign is making the rounds, a statement that actually raises even more questions. Here it is, as posted:
First of all, the attempt to pin the exposure of the poll questions on his opponent is distasteful, and raises the question of whether this was part of the plan all along. It’s just a little too precious.
According to the Connection article, Delegate Poisson was contacted by the reporter, informed of the reported poll questions, and asked for comment, which he provided. I haven’t seen any indication that his campaign was the source of what this press release calls a “completely false and untrue rumor,” or that he has tried to use it for anything – yet the release contains five separate instances of this allegation.
As for the categorical denial of responsibility, it sounds as if they are claiming that the calls never took place, when it is a virtual certainty that they did. Numerous individuals have reported receiving them, and corroborated the nature of the questions. The idea that this could have been a story made up by Poisson supporters doesn’t make sense on its face. The information has primarily appeared on Republican and non-partisan blogs. The folks at Too Conservative have been Chapman supporters since he declared his candidacy; Ric James is hardly a friend of the GLBT community – no offense, Ric, but we have one of your letters up in our Hall of Shame – and clearly wants Chapman to recover from this gaffe, if that’s what it was. Why would these people start a rumor against the candidate they are supporting based on the word of his opponent’s supporters? These are the people calling on Chapman to come clean about this, not Mr. Poisson or his supporters.
This press release does nothing to shed light on who made these calls, if it wasn’t Chapman, and his attempt to further smear his opponent in the course of his denial just looks more suspicious.
The mystery continues.
Tammi Marcoullier has an update, here. She also received the press release, asked some follow-up questions of Chapman, and spoke with Poisson.
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