| Subject: Re: press release |
| From: "Val Stevenson" <val_stevenson@dennis.co.uk> |
| Date: 10/14/10, 05:07 |
| To: "Barrett Brown" <barriticus@gmail.com> |
Beloved e-mail contact-
This is Barrett Brown. As of last week, I am serving as an advisor to congressional candidate Wynne LeGrow, a retired military doctor who is challenging criminally incompetent Republican incumbent Randy Forbes in Virginia's 4th district. Attached you will find a press release that I've written for the campaign in which we make an announcement regarding Forbe's refusal to face LeGrow in a debate and the manner in which we will respond to this act of cowardice. Here also is a link to information on our newly-announced crowd-sourced advisory program <http://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/dpvak/iama_democratic_congressional_candidate_for/> by which any officeholder could potentially arrange to receive a flow of ideas and legislative proposals superior to that derived from more traditional methods.
Anyone with an interest in this campaign may contact myself or LeGrow campaign manager Antonio Elias, whose e-mail address is antonio@legrowforuscongress.com. Thanks for your time; again, press release is attached and text may be found below.
*** For immediate release, etc. ***
A few days back, The Tidewater News ran an editorial that we at the Wynne LeGrow campaign found to be of great interest. After first noting that the paper’s long-beloved incumbent Randy Forbes is a swell and honest guy, the editors go on to raise a minor but noteworthy concern regarding a mysterious decision on Forbes’ part, made all the more mysterious by the congressman’s perceived virtues:
Curiously, though, Forbes was unresponsive to an invitation by the Virginia Peninsula League of Women Voters to take on LeGrow in a debate. He’s also been unresponsive to our newspaper’s attempt to find out why he shunned the debate invitation. That’s unusual for Forbes, a straight-up guy whose re-election bids we have endorsed over the years.
We would respectfully submit that a longtime politician who refuses to debate his opponent and who ignores questions submitted to him by a friendly newspaper is probably not a “straight-up guy” at all, but rather a crooked one who would prefer that the voters not have a chance to compare their candidates side-by-side lest they conclude that it’s time to send a better, more competent representative to Washington. If Forbes wanted the voters to be better-informed on how his policies differ from his opponent, he would happily agree to a debate. The fact that he refused not only to take part in such a debate but also to explain this unusual decision to his supporters among public and press alike should alarm anyone who believes that a representative should be answerable to his constituents. Forbes’ disregard for those who have elected him is itself an answer; he wants your vote, not your input.
However much the people and press might like Forbes to face LeGrow for a frank discussion about how to bring jobs back to Virginia, reduce the budget deficit, and ensure that the U.S. stays competitive amid a fast-changing international landscape, such a debate will almost certainly not come to pass. Luckily, we have come up with a partial solution, one which we think will be even more informative to the voters than a debate would have been.
Tomorrow, the LeGrow campaign will ask Forbes a question. This question will appear on our website, LeGrowForUSCongress.com, and will likewise be sent to every media outlet catering to the 4th district, as well as to the Forbes campaign itself. The day after tomorrow, we will ask another question, which will again appear on our website and again be sent to all of the parties noted above. The day after that, we will do the same thing. Likewise for the day after that one. We will, in fact, be asking a question each day, right up until the eve of the election next month.
The wonderful part of this plan is that it doesn’t require Forbes to participate or to do anything at all. If he or his campaign would like to answer any or all of these questions, they may do so. In the more likely event that they ignore these questions lest they accidentally help to inform the voters and thus break with Forbes campaign policy, we will happily assist in getting the word out that they would prefer not to answer.
---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Antonio M. Elias <Antonio@legrowforuscongress.com>
Date: Tue, Oct 12, 2010 at 4:08 PM
Subject: Fwd: release
To: Barrett Brown <barriticus@gmail.com>
Barrett,
Here's the press release as it went out to local mainstream media. Let's get it out there!
-AE
---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Evan Feinman <efeinman@gmail.com>
Date: Tue, Oct 12, 2010 at 3:39 PM
Subject: release
To: "Antonio M. Elias" <antonio@legrowforuscongress.com>
here