Mike Jacobs, Superstar
As any regular reader knows, our valued commenter "HeadUsher" is absolutely relentless and almost awe-inspiring in his single-minded desire to portray Sen. Mike Jacobs as God's own gift to the 36th district while at the same time suggesting that Rep. Mike Boland would have to undergo extensive rehabilitation to pull even with Satan himself. Those that enjoy political PR hackery taken to stratopheric extremes would be well advised to seek out his posts.
His most recent deification effort touted how much money Sen. Mike had already raised, using this to suggest as he often does, just how terribly Sen. Mike would violently crush Rep. Mike should Rep. Mike be so foolish as to go up against such a mighty goliath as Sen. Mike, who stands astride the 36th district like a collossus. (Oooops. Sorry. It's contageous.)
As HeadUsher states, "In addition, it turns out that Jacobs is a prolific fundraiser. In fact, Jacobs has another fundraiser set for May 9. Sources close to the event predict Jacobs will take in another $25,000 on Monday. If my math is right, "young" Mike Jacobs has raised approximatley $135,000 in the past 56 days."
I guess people are longing for a politican who rakes in huge amounts of cash? Though this, as many of HeadUsher's points appear to be, is likely meant as not-so-subtle attempt to intimidate any potential opponents (read Mike Boland).
A quick peek at Jacobs campaign report which covers January through March shows that this financial clout, so proudly boasted of by HeadUsher, is to a large part due to Sen. Mike's good fortune in being related to a guy named Denny Jacobs. His report lists a single donation from his Dad to the tune of a cool $75 Gs.
The only individual contributions listed in this limited report shows $500.00 from Arlington Park Racecourse, $1000.00 from Trinity Healthcare, and $250.00 from Jonathon Jarnes of Davenport, IA.
HeadUsher has, and likely will continue to give us a simply stunning account of all of Sen. Jacobs supposed magnificance and achievements though he's already polished Jacob's image to a point where it's brilliance is almost painful to behold.
I'm only baffled as to why there is an equally stunning silence from the Boland camp and supporters. While our friend continually brags about Jacobs to an embarrassing degree, and equally brutalizes Mike Boland, I don't recall a single comment in defense of Boland. I find this more than odd.
Perhaps they are reluctant to wade into the ooze, or prefer to keep their powder dry. Who knows? But for some time now as far as comments go, it's been grossly one-sided without a single peep from any Boland supporters.
I'm beginning to wonder, are there any out there?
posted by The Inside Dope @ 5/09/2005
9 comments
9 Comments:
"None", you're more than welcome to state your opinions of course, but please avoid speculating about any commenter's identity. HeadUsher may be Sen. Jacobs, though I somehow doubt it, but the fact remains that no one knows, and that's as it should be.
Everyone, including HeadUsher and yourself, has a right to their anonymity and I ask that everyone refrain from stating that so-and-so is this or that person.
The fact remains that you don't know, and it would be very unfair if you were mistaken.
You could say that you'd bet your left leg and part of your right arm and a few other body parts that HeadUsher is Sen. Jacobs, but you shouldn't state it as fact, lest someone actually believe it.
Ahhh..so much silliness, so little time.
Let's see... guess I'll start from the top and try to keep it brief. (not an easy task for me, as you know)
To anonymidget, I haven't flip-flopped on comments lately. I cut off anonymous comments to avoid dullards such as yourself. It's been a welcome success.
Cornhusker: I'm afraid your assessment of my feelings towards Jacobs is incorrect. I don't know exactly where you came up with the thought that I dislike Jacobs. I DO however find the absolute overkill of a PR attempt by HeadUsher to have reached the point of silliness.
If Jacobs and his obsessive supporters wish to display such reverent hero worship, they should establish a Jacobs website. The fact that there is none I find inexplicable, as a website is almost a requirement for any poltician these days, and especially for any campaign. And since almost bizarrely the Jacobs camp is in full campaign mode even at this far distant point from any primary, one would think they'd just go ahead and create a site, rather than attempting to hi-jack this one to post their fawning campaign boilerplate.
I kinda dislike that.
But to suggest that I don't like Jacobs is to come to a conclusion without any evidence. Have I ever taken any personal swipes at Jacobs?
Sure, I've taken swipes at the attempts to make him out to be Kennedy and Lincoln all wrapped up in one, but that would annoy the piss out of me no matter who was the subject.
I find it an insult that any politician or their supporters would expect us to take such purple prose at face value. It just leaves a bad taste in my mouth. That's all. If Boland or Evans or any other candidate was being puffed the way Jacobs is here, I'd feel exactly the same. The only difference being that no other candidate has seen fit to send minions to attempt to puff their guy up to 5 times lifesize.
I mean, it's so extreme that Jacobs and his people are beginning to sound like Huey Long. ha! Not too attractive. And I suggest that such puffery doesn't do Sen. Jacobs any real good.
Long story short, I just don't find such over-kill to be either effective or attractive.
But don't make the error of mistaking my distaste for such idolatry and ceaseless bragging for a personal dislike of Jacobs.
I guess for the interest of not going too long, I'll start my reply to our pal Head Usher in a separate comment.
To LatinV,
As always, you make sound comments.
Yes, it's true that harmony makes a stronger party. Actually, the definition of a party suggests some sort of unity of purpose.
That purpose gets obliterated when dealing with inter-party warfare, such as the B-J "situation."
And yes, I'm sure it gives pleasure and comfort to the Republicans.
For all of those reasons and more, it is definitely undesirable.
I can only observe here that by a ratio of about 99-1, any acrimony or swipes at the other party has been in the diretion of Jacobs towards Boland. "None"'s comment at the head of this thread is the rare exception of someone going negative on Jacobs and supporting Boland. I simply can't remember another, though there may have been one or two out of literally hundreds of posts bashing Boland and supporting Jacobs.
So I humbly suggest that it's not my duty to ignore this feud or attempt to alter anything to try to simply hide it.
I have never purposely sought to goad on anyone in this fight, nor have I purposely mentioned it in order to stir things up.
The fact remains this: ANY time that Boland or Jacobs name is mentioned in any way, shape, or form, it causes HeadUsher or someone else to appear and immediately engage in praising Jacobs and bashing Boland.
It's guaranteed.
This, of course is beyond my control. I don't want to simply delete such comments, and I won't.
I've tried to point out how needless and counter-productive they are, and as you see, in return I get accused of censorship, being anti-Jacobs, and of being some sort of Nazi or something. Pure insanity.
The alternative is to simply ignore every news item that involves Jacobs or Boland.
For a blog that purports to cover local politics in both their districts, this would seem to be pretty unreasonable. I won't ignore stories that simply mention Boland or Jacobs just because largely Jacobs partisans can't resist using every opportunity to jump in with overblown PR puffery and slaps at Boland.
For instance, if there is an article about the WIU project, I post about it. Then without ANY input from me, I guarantee that HeadUsher will appear and do his thing.
And then, amazingly, when I try to point out how unappealing this is, I get attacked.
It's all no big deal in the larger scheme of things. But I do appreciate the fact that some people reasonably find displays of such rancor to be detrimental and damaging to the party.
I suggest you express your feelings on this to those who are initiating such attacks on other Dems, as they are the source of this problem, not myself.
Truly, the voters of this area might do well to stand back and consider what benefit they are getting for consistently electing people who, once in office, appear to be far more concerned with some almost pathological personal feud than representing their constituents.
The twisted part of it is that, once you really think about it, no one outside their inner circle really GIVES A RAT'S ASS about the Jacob's problem with Boland and Boland's problem with the Jacobs.
They go on with this kabuki dance with each other played out in the press and other places, and no one gives a damn.
It must leave many people just scratching their heads and with a very sour taste in their mouths.
They are much like two people locked in a sort of perpetual destructive dysfunctional relationship. One could easily imagine that if one or the other of them just quit and went away, the other would be absolutely devastated and wouldn't know what to do or how to act anymore.
But the situation has gotten so sick that neither party would leave the scene even if they wanted to. They'd rather die than give an inch to the other.
It's almost an appealing thought to just ship them both off to the north woods somewhere to work it out one way or the other, and in the meantime, allow someone to serve who isn't consumed by a venomous rivalry which consumes far too much of their energy and which has absolutely nothing to do with the issues of concern to the area.
Of course two political rivals are obligated to point out the flaws or shortcomings of their opponent while touting their own virtues and accomplishments. Nothing wrong with that.
But what sets this rivalry apart is that they've devolved to the point where it's beyond rationality.
I just yanked my initial reply to HeadUsher. Upon re-reading after many hours, I realized that it was probably too harsh.
Headusher lashed out in a dishonest way like a wounded animal, and I lashed back. Not good.
But suffice to say that his accusations are pretty bizarre, and the paranoia in it is plain to see by the fact that he resorts to imagining that he's being persecuted here somehow.
Obviously, this is laughable.
I just began to find the relentless idolatry of Mike Jacobs by HeadUsher to be growing increasingly annoying and unseemly.
After all, Sen. Jacobs is doing just fine, and from my vantage point, he's certainly not lacking positive media exposure. So why anyone felt it was necessary to attempt to use this blog as some sort of free campaign site is beyond me.
Campaign hoo-ha of the sort engaged in by HeadUsher is fine, and to be expected from time to time. I expect it and to a point encourage it. But in this case, it managed to cross the line by it's sheer volume and number.
And what made it more unseemly was the fact that his statements glorifying Jacobs and smearing and bashing Boland was never responded to. In other words, it was all Jacobs, all the time and completely one-sided. It was like watching someone getting beat up that never fought back. That's never pleasant. It appeared all the more to be over-kill.
No one should presume from this that I favor Boland over Jacobs (or Jacobs over Boland, for that matter) I just wished there was at least a tiny bit of balance, just out of fairness. That's what prompted me to finally ask if there was ANYONE out there who supported Boland, as Boland supporters appeared to be non-existent, at least on this blog.
Now, if the Jacobs campaign or office wants to pay me to display such campaign boilerplate, then I'm all ears. We'll just run a line that it's a paid political message and go from there.
I'm completely open to displaying paid campaign ads on the site too, if anyone would like to do that, by all means, get in touch. I'd even design them myself.
But I did resent what I felt was an abuse of comments to post so many campaign spots.
I have nothing against Sen. Mike Jacobs. I think he's doing just swell and has every potential of being an effective and popular politician.
And that makes it even more perplexing as to just why in the heck HeadUsher feels the need to spin Jacobs so hard and so often, especially this far away from any contest.
I may be alone in this view, but it still doesn't change my feelings about it.
Prairie... thanks for your opinion, but I'm afraid you're barking up the wrong tree.
I don't know what nicey-nice world you envision, but around here I intend to deal with reality, good, bad, or ugly. This destructive and often embarrassing political feud is the elephant in the room. One simply can't just go into deep denial and pretend it doesn't exist.
How is it ever going to end if everyone just turns and looks away?
But to suggest that I'm somehow responsible for all this dissention and infighting is nothing short of ridiculous.
The fact remains that I've never lifted a finger to stir up any of this anamosity you read in comments.
I think you're making the fatal mistake of confusing the numerous comments of HeadUsher and my subsequent reaction to them with my somehow starting it all.
Every one of my posts to do with Jacobs or Boland have been due to published news items, period. I have never posted gratuitously just to try to stir up this feud.
The above post was not an attempt to stir up fights, but rather an attempt to explain the situation and to wonder aloud why it is that there has been a 99 to 1 ratio of Boland bashing and Jacobs praising to Jacobs bashing and Boland praising. I had hoped that perhaps it might cause HeadUsher to chill out a bit on the relentless Jacobs promotion and Boland smearing. (not because I favor Boland, only due to the fact that it was just getting to be way too much.)
As I've said before in another comment, if you don't like this battle, GO TALK TO JACOBS AND BOLAND, and if you dislike reading about it here, then talk directly to HeadUsher and the other other commenters who never fail to bring it up. Maybe they'll listen if you explain things to them.
But you're barking up the wrong tree by trying to pin it on me.
As to my thoughts on the conflict, please read my opinion on this in my reply to Latin V above. If you had read it, you'd know that I agree that it is not productive, and is harmful to the party.
My posts are most definitely NOT of the tabloid variety. They are not personal, nor are they focused on personalities, nor are they gossip.
I have absolutely no control over what direction the comments go in reaction to my posts.
For instance, I'd actually prefer if I could post just once a news item that mentions Jacobs without the rock solid certainty that HeadUsher will appear and take the comments off into PR land with a lengthy and over-the-top screed praising Jacobs and beating Boland every which way but up.
Hell, why do you think I made this post and other comments? I was trying to get him to tone it down a little.
So please restrain yourself from thinking that I somehow am responsible for the dissention, or that I contribute to it somehow.
If it weren't for HeadUsher alone, almost none of it would have appeared, and that's a fact.
And finally, for you to suggest that a blog devoted to the politics of "36th, 71st, 72nd Districts" should somehow bury its head in the sand and pretend that Boland and Jacobs don't exist is goofy.
I guess you'd prefer if I was more like Sergeant Schultz and every time there's a story in the media mentioning Jacobs or Boland I would simply close my eyes and bellow, "I see NOTHING!"
If all this in-fighting offends your sensibilities, then I suggest you direct your comments where they belong, namely to HeadUsher and others who fan the flames, not me.
News is news and comments are comments, whether they polish the image of the Democrats or not.
If you feel the Jacobs/Boland feud is harmful and does damage to the Democrats in the area (which it no doubt does), then make your opinion known to Boland and Jacobs and their supporters here.
Just don't try to pass the blame onto me or suggest that I just sweep it all under the rug.
Lege gal, welcome!
Don't know how long you've been reading, but you're off the mark on the first part of your comment. I refer you to my reply to Prarie Dust. I wonder if you're reading a different blog.
I did a check just to see how "tabloidy" I've gone on Boland and Jacobs.
Out of the last THREE-HUNDRED posts, which is all the further back I can go, exactly ELEVEN posts have been about either Jacobs or Boland, and two of those was about Denny Jacobs' short hospitalization and two about Boland's.
A little over 3 percent of my posts.
Yep, I'm really going nuts.
You're simply blaming the wrong person, though I appreciate that you at least acknowledge that the source of it all, at least here in comments, is primarily Head Usher.
I reject any suggestion that I'm trying to turn this into a tabloid of any sort, let alone Boland/Jacobs.
Again, how does posting legitimate news stories about either men constitute trying to turn this into a tabloid???!! I just don't get how you could come up with that. It's simply unfair to try to make that accusation.Of course, no one can point to any specifics where I've gone out of my way to stir things up. So why make the charge?
And if you have been reading the comments for any time, you would have realized that all of my comments on the matter were simply attempts to get HeadUsher to chill out on what I felt was excesive Boland bashing and Jacobs bragging on the site. (again, not that I favor either)
My opinion is exactly the same as the second part of your comment, and I've stated it almost the same way.
How is that somehow turning this into a "tabloid"??
What would you do? Just never mention either of them again?
Yep, look for it in a check-out aisle near you.
Really? Jealousy of WHAT????
That would be nice to know. Just a suggestion.
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