Erick Erickson
RedState.com
6/20/2010
A few days ago, former Utah Senate candidate Cherilyn Eager, the woman who claimed Tim Bridgewater offered to pay off her campaign debt in exchange for her endorsement then denied that was a bribe before – you know – endorsing Bridgewater, came onto RedState and attacked Jim DeMint.
Eager claims that Jim DeMint and Mike Lee are both affiliated with some energy company I’ve never heard of and DeMint denies it. Best I can tell, the attack is as crazy as Cherilyn Eager is.
However, concurrent to Eager attacking Jim DeMint on RedState, Tim Bridgewater’s campaign has been using the exact same attack against Jim DeMint in Utah via flyers, emails, and phone calls. Bridgewater is claiming DeMint is shilling for the energy company. Here is one of the emails circulating straight from the Bridgewater campaign. (PDF)
The attack is a lie.
Here’s the truth: Jim DeMint has never attacked Tim Bridgewater. In fact, in each race DeMint has gone into with the exception of Rubio v. Crist, DeMint has always made the race about the guy he has endorsed, not the guy he did not.
Only after Jim DeMint’s Senate Conservatives Fund began questioning who was behind that anonymous mailer in Utah designed to hurt Mike Lee did Tim Bridgewater begin an all out assault on Jim DeMint. After Mike Lee filed an FEC complaint about the anonymous attack, Bridgewater escalated the attacks against Jim DeMint.
Makes you wonder what Bridgewater is so scared of.
Then there is this:
Cherilyn Eager’s IP address at RedState is identical to one used by an anonymous Bridgewater supporter’s at RedState.
Bridgewater’s campaign began specifically using the lie about the energy company to hurt Jim DeMint after I pointed out Bridgewater has been shilling for an Indonesian power company, sending American taxpayer dollars to Indonesia to fund energy studies using a company Bridgewater works with.
More troubling, Bridgewater has not and cannot deny that he helped secure U.S. tax dollars for a suspected Mexican drug lord to build housing no one on the planet can identify as actually existing.
Tim Bridgewater has run away from his fiscally liberal record as fast as he can and instead of addressing the issues, he’s attacking Jim DeMint.
Do we really want in the Senate a man who thinks it is okay to attack with lies the only Senator who regularly stands up for conservative voters across the country?
And what does it tell us about Tim Bridgewater that he’d attack Jim DeMint using lies that would be the truth if told about Tim Bridgewater? No doubt Bridgewater will next be saying it was DeMint who funneled tax dollars to Mexico to build invisible houses.
