The Florida Democratic Party sent out a mailer last week detailing Republican congressional challenger Allen West’s 2005 tax lien and court orders to pay delinquent credit card bills. West is challenging Democratic U.S. Rep. Ron Klein.
The document, pulled from public records, includes a column titled “Identifying Number” that shows West’s nine-digit Social Security number. Although the number isn’t specifically identified as a Social Security number, West campaign manager Josh Grodin said there is no mistaking what the number is.
West called the mailer “an unprecedented new low in American politics.”
Col. West is correct that it's a disgracefully low move; sadly, he's wrong about it being unprecedented. Staffers at the DSCC illegally obtained Michael Steele's credit report in 2005 when Steele was running for US Senate in Maryland. Question for Democrats: What is it about black Republicans that inspires you to unethically dig up and/or disseminate their private information?
Meanwhile, in a non-apology-apology statement, Florida Democrats are shrugging off the incident, saying that it was an oversight and that they made "every effort" to remove West's personal information from the mailer. Clearly, their best efforts weren't nearly sufficient, were they?
Col. West apparently had some financial troubles in 2005, the year after he returned home from defending this country in Iraq. He (of course) has an obligation to pay his taxes and bills, but since when were Democrats so mortified by politicians with tax problems? Didn't they just re-nominate a defiant tax cheat who for years wrote tax law on the House Ways and Means committee? And didn't the man at the White House charged with enforcing tax laws have a tax-related hiccup or two before winning overwhelming confirmation from a Democrat-controlled Senate?
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The gutter politics and shameless hypocrisy on the Left is a sight to behold sometimes.
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