Isakson Hits Back

Despite a comfortable and consistent lead in the polls US Senator Johnny Isakson’s campaign is apparently taking nothing for granted and released a commercial accusing his opponent of hypocrisy.

Notice there’s not a single accusation that Jim Barksdale is lying, low-energy crook whose father probably killed JFK. By 2016 standards, accusing your political opponent of only hypocrisy seems almost quaint. But the Barksdale camp’s response to the response was just shy of a temper tantrum worthy of either a toddler or Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump.

Tamar Hallerman got this comment from whoever is Barksdale’s spokesperson today: “This latest false ad from Senator Isakson is what we’ve come to expect from a coward who refuses to debate head-to-head and then misleads voters by taking quotes out-of-context to score political points… When Jim is entrusted with a job by folks, he works hard for them and only them, unlike Senator Isakson who double-talks voters to fill his campaign coffers.”  

Name-calling? Check. Accusations of untruthfulness? Check. Appeal for context? Check. Attempted populist connection with “folks?” Check. Pretty standard campaign fare, especially in the age of Trump. But what most clearly identifies Jim Barksdale as a political amateur is  the accusation that Isakson “…double-talks voters to fill his campaign coffers.”

Voters don’t fill campaign coffers -donors do. And voters don’t care if a candidate fills his or her campaign coffers -real candidates are actually supposed to do that, Mr. Barksdale. Not everyone can afford to self-fund a vanity campaign, so most candidates have to raise campaign contributions. The truth is that most of them really don’t like raising money, and “filling  campaign coffers” is drudgery even to serious candidates. Experienced politicians like Johnny Isakson know this.

It’s the un-serious candidates, like the one whose campaign warchest is 96% vanity and 4% individual contributions, who don’t understand that there’s no ‘fun’ in campaign fundraising. Candidates who can raise money for their campaigns have to be disciplined, persuasive, and persistent -and while self-funders can be all those things, most often they appear to be ego-driven buffoons with more money than sense.

Georgia voters know which of those they want working for them in Washington.