I was far more troubled by the sophomoric nature of McGoff’s intentionally trying to embarrass Minority Leader John Boehner who was appearing at a Burton fundraiser across the street at the Columbia Club at the same time. It’s Bush League tactics like this along with McGoff’s inability to be sure exactly what job he wants to pursue that turns me off. Republican leaders will long remember showing up for the long-awaited announcement of McGoff’s candidacy for mayor only to be sadly disappointed that he was going to waste lots of Republican money on a futile attempt to advance his career. He totally misread the political tea leaves on this one. Working with dead people may have been more in line with his qualifications.

Wow Winston, way to show some class.

How did holding the press conference have anything to do with Boehner? I don’t think many people even knew he was in town, at least not until you saw him come outside the front door of the Columbia Club every five minutes for a smoke break.

Futile attempt to advance his career? Sure you aren’t referring to Greg Ballard? Frankly, McGoff has a good chance of beating that “scumbag”, and the sophomoric stunts Burton’s people pulled like having some CR’s stand around with handmade signs denouncing McGoff, as well as sending out press releases with the kind of falsehoods you see posted above are, to me at least, indicative of some serious concern.

Burton has taken this seat, and his constituents for granted for way too long, as indicated by our leasing him a new Cadillac. It’s time for him to go home and play Donald Trump.

Josh my friend, with respect, your above campaign commercial (the only thing missing was the tagline “Approved by Dan Burton for Congress”) is a textbook case of political spin, as you try to make a point in favor of your candidate without giving the relevant facts.
Your piece was the equivalent of stating that the number of American males who died violently in the U.S. in the year 1942 was a 342% increase over the previous year.
Technically correct? Of course, but something is left out, which would be perspective.
That’s precisely what you did in your attempt to smear McGoff, which frankly surprised me, even more than your posting it here did (perfect for your personal blog, but I didn’t think that’s what the theme of this site was).
I rebuffed your hit-piece with some facts in a new post on my blog, but I won’t use my power as a contributer to post it on this site, as I don’t think it’s appropriate to use this site for campaign commercials for selected candidates.

No one is really trying to smear McGoff. This is simply not his time. We need all of the experience that we can get in Washington and in the Republican Party. McGoff is forcing Burton to spend money on a campaign that could be better spent electing Republicans back in Indiana. Why? Because McGoff thinks that the name recognition that he garners in this aborted campaign will help him in the future. I haven’t talked to a single person who doesn’t think that McGoff isn’t a nice man with a future. However, now is not the future. It is quite evident that most of the Party is backing Dan Burton. You can go to his website IndianaDan.com and check it out. Dick Lugar, our Congressmen, state officials and county officials are lining up in droves to back Dan. If you follow the money, you will see that McGoff’s funds have dried up and Burton’s are flowing in. It is not too late for McGoff to say that he made a mistake and withdraw from the race altogether. I’m afraid that to carry this race into the Spring will seriously jeopardize any future that Dr. McGoff might have in the Party.

Wow, the class (a.k.a. Burton supporters) sure comes out of the closet in times like these. Just like the group of unshaven college kids who stood next to porta-johns with cheezy hand-made signs to smear McGoff’s record. For “Cadillac Dan” to resort to these types of tactics tells me a great deal about his level of concern.

For the record, Dr. McGoff was nothing more than a pre-convention candidate for Secretary of State, which is a little different then how he’s portrayed in the above comment. Also, for the record I was at the convention that day when Rokita was “chosen” and things did certainly smell a little fishy.

Also, as I recall (and I could be wrong) Hamilton county that day went for current State Senator Mike Delph. But I’m operating purely from memory over five years later.

To preface, I’m not from the 5th District and I don’t have an attachment to either candidate.

I think, first of all, that people get comfortable in their jobs. Sometimes, they get too comfortable. Dan Burton needed a swift kick in the rear. The good news (such as it can be seen) is that John McGoff has likely given him one, and Burton’ll represent the 5th District better going forward because of it.

I also think that Indiana benefits a lot from having members of its Congressional delegation who are stalwart conservatives and have considerable seniority when it comes to the distribution of committee assignments. Burton fits the bill on both counts. McGoff certainly won’t have the latter going for him, and I’ve seen very little to indicate to me that he has the former going for him either.

There’s nothing wrong with the primary process; the Republican Party should never oppose a vigorous discussion and debate of ideas. But a divisive, negative, and smear-driven primary process only benefits the Democrats.

The uglier this turns, the more it benefits them.

There is a reason that John McGoff’s press releases are the only ones that are ever touted or posted about over at Taking Down Words.

I don’t think that McGoff is going to unseat Burton. Dan Burton is not Bob Garton, and incumbent Republicans pretty much never lose primary challenges when those challenges are waged from the center and not from the right.

“The thing that interests me is this entire thing about forcing everyone to toe the party line here. Are you guys members of the Nazi party or something?”

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Godwin%27s_law

“As an online discussion grows longer, the probability of a comparison involving Nazis or Hitler approaches one.”

“There is a tradition in many newsgroups and other Internet discussion forums that once such a comparison is made, the thread is finished and whoever mentioned the Nazis has automatically ‘lost’ whatever debate was in progress.”

“In 2007, The Economist declared that ‘A good rule in most discussions is that the first person to call the other a Nazi automatically loses the argument.’”

I never thought I’d see the day when Godwin’s Law is invoked on a blog!

Nice one, Mr. Fluhr!

Commenting has been quite lively on this post and I’m quite grateful. But I think we’re starting to beat a dead horse here, so I’m closing the comments on this particular post. Time to move on people, nothing more to see here.