Politics: Schock campaign calls farm-wife opponent ‘nasty,’ then complains about dirty campaigning

First, a personal story:

I might have been 10 or 11, maybe 12.

It was a Saturday morning, and my little brother was doing something to annoy me. Probably arguing with me about what cartoons to watch. Then he said something that sounded like it might have been something he had been warned to not say. So, I got of from the couch, walked into the kitchen and told Mom: “Eric keeps saying the F-word.”

I walked back to the living room as my sibling was called into the kitchen. The next sound I heard was a loud “smack.” He walked back to the look on his face was one that can only be found on a child who has been unjustly punished. He then repeated what he said, and I thought, “Oh, OK. That’s not dirty.”

Sometimes I think about that and I feel bad. But most of the time, I just laugh. I remind Eric of the story every once in a while. Sort of a payback for the time he shot me in the ass with a B.B. gun.

Gee, I don’t know WHAT made me think about how I exaggerated something someone said to make it sound more of a slur than it really was, just to make myself sympathetic and get what I want.

And in a completely unrelated matter, Aaron Schock is complaining about someone turning negative. Actually, it’s Schock’s campaign manager who’s complaining. Schock isn’t quoted once and the article doesn’t say why not.

It seems that Colleen Callahan, the Democrat running for the 18th Congressional District job, recently pointed that it’s a little inconsistent, in her opinion, for Schock to market himself as being for “change” while attaching himself to President Bush as a fundraising tool. Bush is, after all, what most Americans want change from.

To which Shearer replied:

Shearer said Schock is like Obama in that he represents change and people are inspired by him. Callahan, he said, is showing she’s more of a Hillary Clinton supporter.

“This is a Hillary Clinton, throw-the-kitchen-sink blistering negative attack playbook that Sen. Obama has railed against as the broken part of politics right now. Is (Callahan) running because she has a vision for what this country should be or is she nitpicking on Aaron and constantly being nasty?”

Really? Is “nasty” the word Shearer (and by association, Schock) wants to use about this well-liked, well-regarded broadcaster, farm wife and mother?

Comments like that might cause guffaws among some Rush Limbaugh/Sean Hannity listeners, but out in the rural parts of the 18th District — those counties that rejected Shearer as Republican State Central Committeeman — that remark seems a little too vulgar.

But then, that is Shearer’s  talent. He twists ordinary, run-of-the-mill criticism by Schock’s opponents into “negative campaigning.” It’s usually done by sending Shearer out to do the dirty work. And this is the first, most blatant example of that since the primary.

And as for Schock being like Obama … I’m still sore from the laughing jag.

I’m fairly certain that Colleen Callahan would gladly surrender to Aaron Schock 100 percent of the votes from people who find some sort of similarity between he and Barack Obama, provided she gets all the votes of every single 18th District resident who finds some similarity between her and Hillary Clinton.