To recap from my earlier post:
- The Prequel – April 15, 2010 – TEA Party event in Portsmouth.
- The Reminder: (7/16) Local paper article – "presser" (maybe 2 reporters?)
- The Claim: (7/17) I’m with the TEA Party!: "…having attended and spoken at many of its events around New Hampshire…"
- The Call: (7/19) Call to the campaign office.
- The Email: (7/19) Having been effectively called a shill, I sent a "clarifier" email – it’s not about the campaign; it IS about making an unsubstantiated claim about being a mover and shaker in the TEA Party movement – and no back up for that claim. And yes, I respond to a "challenge".
and I ended the post with this:
I never heard back from the staffer – but I certainly did from the "friend"! It brought back memories of the McCain campaign ("McCain seemed tired…") – for the calls started up again.
And then it got interesting….
Indeed. Having been on a blogger call for McCain, my write up of that call included that line. I thought nothing of it – look, McCain wasn’t a spring chicken than (or now) but had a lot more energy than most people a third his age; that said, sooner or later with the schedule candidates keep, ya gonna have a "power outage" sooner or later. Well, given the calls that came in ALMOST immediately (who knew that the campaign was gonna monitor the ‘Grok??):
"Why did you say that? What gave you that impression? He wasn’t tired – he was fine; WHAT ARE YOU TRYING TO DO?"
Whoa! Get that last part? I was immediately at fault – fix it. At the time, I thought "OK, perhaps I did get it wrong"…but was surprised at the vociferous nature of the immediate pushback. I filed it for future notation.
Glad I did; the attitude returned – with a vengeance!
- The "YOU’RE IN THE WRONG" Emails
Within a half hour of sending The Email, I received no less than 6 emails on the idea that I had to talk to campaign NOW, that I was to stop harassing the staffer, and that they were quite and tremendously disappointed in me. Oh yeah, I was wrong too.
Gee, sounded like my Mom yelling at me when I was five years old. That’ll win friends and influence people (those old jokes dealing with second ex-mother-in-laws floated into my conscience too).
You know, I have made more than my fair share of mistakes over my lifetime; still making them too. But I’d like to think that I’ve learned a tad over my time on this mudball, and it was now clear that the Mahoney campaign, or at least this Sr. Staffer (while I’m interested in who works for whom in campaigning, I don’t watch THAT closely – the "friend" was now an "employee"), was trying to act like a steamroller and I was the asphalt; my role in all this was to just lay down and get rolled.
Well, I eventually learned to ignore Mom’s rants (sometimes; she still had The Paddle); after dealing with her, this was going to be easy. Actually, I was wrong – "easy" is the wrong word…but I digress.
Smooth move, schmuck. I fell for it once – not again. So when the emails came in for an off the record call, my response was to the effect of "Sure – here’s the number but not until after work, and:
Acceptance of such agrees to off the record material in as much as it does not comingle or conflate what was in the email or the prior conversation with <redacted>
Formal language? Stilted language? Hey, when in Rome and all that – just responding in kind. Well, a few more back and forths, and more and more the "tone" was like that fifth grade teacher who actually ran her fingernails down the blackboard to get our attention.
The insistence of still having the call ASAP and that I was still in wrong (think: how DARE you ask such a question!") right from the get go. My response was:
My calling back is now contingent on you not trying to overpower the phone conversation.
Yeah, now I’m back to the phrase "Smooth move, schmuck." Remember – I’M not the Candidate that decided to make it look like he and the TEA Party movement here in NH were BFFs – but root causes don’t seem to matter much with political operatives – it is simply about the win. And this wasn’t helping.
So, what did YOU, my reader, think was going through my mind upon being told of "being upset with me", and that *I* had to be ready to start explaining my actions as if I was a simpleton of a petulant child?
YOU BETCHA! I was thinking "where can I buy that Mission Accomplished banner that was on that aircraft carrier???".
So my next answer was:
I guess I should take that to be a "no".
And that’s when the threatening started…like for real. So when this comes in:
I strongly urge you to call me. It is in your best interest.
Given the previous tone, there was only one response (especially having just talked to the Youngest earlier):
>> It is in your best interest.
Am I to take that as a threat, Pat? You’ve now crossed a line you should not have; you are now making it personal; you REALLY want to go there?????
You’re not making a case that I can expect that my call with you will be civil – and I have enough worries on my plate to even want to bother calling you back (like my son being in Kanduhar with the 101st and is getting shot at every day). TRUST ME – NOTHING you can threaten me with comes even CLOSE to my worrying about him!!!
Let me be clear here – I’m generally laid back and would rather be smiling, ripping off a riposte here and there, and in a good mood. Life has not always been easy – in fact, there have been a LOT of REALLY scary times…I don’t need any more drama. But when push turns into shove, when my buttons get pressed, and when I think a wrong is being dismissed for the wrong reason, I get like this again:
I don’t do "get bullied" well anymore – but that is for tomorrow.
OH yeah – I forgot – the TimeLine! The emails above were 7/19. Later that night, I put this up as a warning shot across the bow. Too bad it was ignored.
Next – The Calls
