How dare he treat Ashley Judd this way?
"Mitch McConnell aides had strategy for Ashley Judd" Associated Press, April 10, 2013
FRANKFORT, Ky. — Campaign aides to Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell proposed using actress Ashley Judd’s past bouts with depression against her if she had decided to challenge him in his reelection bid next year, according to a secret recording posted by a magazine.
Mother Jones released a recording Tuesday along with an article about a meeting in which the aides discussed opposition research into potential Democratic challengers. Aides talked and laughed on the recording about Judd’s political positions, religious beliefs, and past bouts of depression.
Related: Jerry Brown Just Lost the Governorship of California
No, he won, so misogyny must not be a problem.
The FBI is looking into how the recording was made after the McConnell campaign accused opponents of engaging in ‘‘Watergate-era tactics.’’ The magazine reported that the recording was provided last week by a source who requested anonymity.
‘‘She’s clearly — this sounds extreme — but she is emotionally unbalanced,’’ a McConnell aide said of Judd during a February meeting at the Louisville campaign headquarters. ‘‘I mean it’s been documented . . . she’s suffered some suicidal tendencies. She was hospitalized for 42 days when she had a mental breakdown in the ’90s.’’
Judd spokeswoman Cara Tripicchio criticized the McConnell campaign for considering making depression a campaign issue. ‘‘This is yet another example of the politics of personal destruction that embody Mitch McConnell and are pervasive in Washington, D.C.,’’ Tripicchio said in a statement. ‘‘We expected nothing less from Mitch McConnell and his camp than to take a personal struggle such as depression, which many Americans cope with on a daily basis, and turn it into a laughing matter.’’
Judd has been open about her bouts with depression. She spoke to the American Counseling Association’s national convention in Cincinnati in March, telling more than 3,000 counselors from across the country about her experiences.
McConnell was asked several times at a news conference Tuesday about the propriety of attacking Judd over depression. He did not directly answer, but brought up an incident last month, when Progress Kentucky tweeted an insensitive remark about his wife, former labor secretary Elaine Chao.
‘‘As you know, my wife’s ethnicity was attacked by a left-wing group in Kentucky and apparently they also bugged my headquarters,’’ he said. ‘‘So I think that pretty well sums up the way the political left is operating in Kentucky.’’
The McConnell campaign asked the FBI to look into whether the Louisville office was bugged.
McConnell campaign manager Jesse Benton alleged in an e-mail to supporters that ‘‘liberals and their media allies’’ were ‘‘wiretapping our field office to spy on us.’’ Benton used the issue as a fund-raising appeal, asking supporters to send donations ‘‘to help us spread the truth.’’
Oh, is that what you guys are spreading? I didn't know the truth smelled like horse shit.
I gue$$ tax breaks for race horse owners were gospel.
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Now you know who sabotaged his campaign from the inside.
‘‘We’ve always said the left would stop at nothing to attack Senator McConnell, but Watergate-style tactics to bug campaign headquarters are above and beyond,’’ Benton said.
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Related: Ashley Judd comments on Senate run
Democrats face rough Senate terrain
Actress Ashley Judd won’t challenge McConnell
But why, Ashley, why?
UPDATE: Liberal group being tied to McConnell aides’ recording
[If the Democratic Party activist, who spied on McConnell had actually recorded malicious plans to lie about the "flaky" Hollywood actress, rather than simply catching the politicians discussing the known negatives about the little "briar-hopper," (Ohio slang for Kentuckian, Tennesseans are "ridge-runners"), then this all might have turned-out differently. There was no slander, if they were telling the truth.] -- “I mean, I can never anticipate what is going to push me over the edge.”–A. Judd
