Salon: Smear Artist Rove - Re: Ann Richards

[Synnical]

http://dir.salon.com/story/news/feature/2004/08/28/moore_rove_swift_boat/index_np.html

Ann Richards was a socially progressive and inclusive governor of Texas, appointing a few gays and lesbians to state boards and commissions. In 1994, Rove pinpointed this as an issue certain to help George W. Bush win election in a conservative state. Of course, Rove was not about to let his candidate broach the subject himself. Instead, he worked through Republican operatives in East Texas. Rumors soon began to circulate through coffee shops and agricultural co-ops that implied Gov. Richards, an unmarried woman, might be a lesbian. Without identifying the topic, she acknowledged she was being hurt. "You know what it's about," she told reporters, dismissively, after being asked about the rumors. "And I'm not talking about it."

But Republican state Sen. Bill Ratliff from East Texas, who was also Bush's regional coordinator for that part of the state, was quoted in newspapers as criticizing Richards for "appointing avowed homosexual activists" to state jobs. The rumors were then given a form of legitimacy and widely reported. Then just as he did with Kerry and the Swift Boat controversy, Rove had Bush step forward as a voice of understanding and reason. "The senator doesn't speak for me," Bush told reporters. "I don't know anything about what he's talking about. I'm trying to run an issues-oriented campaign."

[Webster Green]

1. Ann Richards had more class than the BFEE & all their cronies..

...put together.

R.I.P. Ann Richards...

[kurth]

2. Richards actually outspent the Bush campaign by $2.6 million

But Bush had Karl Rove and his campaign of dirty rumors.