Tim Mahoney

A couple of days back I blogged about a CT Democrat lawmaker who thought a sex abuse allegation could be swept under the rug for $100K. http://thenextright.com/ironman/hush-hush-voices-carry

Well, we did not have to wait 'til Tuesday for this guy to hang it up, he smelled the latte tonight and announced he's quitting, effective immediately 

 http://www.registercitizen.com/site/news.cfm?newsid=20171365&BRD=1652&PAG=461&dept_id=665579&rfi=6

but the damage has been done to the CT Democrats, as this afternoon Speaker James Amann confirmed that his party's sernior leadership knew back in 2004 that Rep. Wilber was being sued over alleged abuse to a girl who was 11 at the time of the incident, and blithely blessed his re-election bids and contributed heavily to his re-election bids http://www.courant.com/news/local/statewire/hc-20200022.apds.m0835.bc-ct--lawmoct20,0,3433000.story http://www.everydayrepublican.com/2008/10/20/breaking-news-wilber-to-resign-for-health-reasons/

What is even more sad is that the Democrats always had a huge majority in the state house; even though Wilber's seat leans Republican it's not like they'd have missed him had he stepped down and a new candidate lost. So much for caring about protecting children from abuse, eh?

But, the CT Democrats are really picking winners these days. Their candidate in a Bridgeport district, Auden Grogins, is representing (at taxpayer expense) the most heinous criminal in CT history, Joshua Komisarjevsky.  http://connpolitics.tv/index.php/2008/08/13/atty-for-cheshire-murder-suspect-wins-pr 

Given the moral compass of George Wilber and Auden Grogins, is there any surprise which political party traditionally opposes effective measures to protect women, children and  seniors in CT?

As for that other hush money scandal, Florida's Tim Mahoney is now out one spouse, http://www.wptv.com/news/local/story.aspx?content_id=7284e030-a7c2-461d-b456-ea593392c67f&rss=762 and one political party ad campaign http://abcnews.go.com/Blotter/Politics/story?id=6073940&page=1. Hey, there are a lot of nice tiki bars in Florida for guys in a midlife crisis looking for affection. Life could be worse. At least you won't have to worry about Rahm Emanuel anymore.

Republican Tom Rooney:

And here's why:

The Tarrance Group for the NRCC (10/15-16, likely voters, 10/9 in parens):

Tim Mahoney (D-inc): 29 (56)
Tom Rooney (R): 55 (31)
(MoE: ±5.8%)

The Democrats are toast in this district if Mahoney stays in. And I seem to remember something about the incumbent's name staying on the ballot if he does withdraw.

I have to link to Gateway Pundit on this one. While the post is specifically about the Tim Mahoney scandal, I have a more global point to make

http://gatewaypundit.blogspot.com/2008/10/dem-leaders-knew-mahoney-sex-scandal.html

Check out Mahoney's TV ad; the one where he proclaims that he is "keeping Congress clean"

Folks, Nancy Pelosi and Rahm Emanuel played us for a bunch of rubes in the last election.

Now, did we deserve our shellacking?, sure we did . But let's look at the facts.

The Democrats ran against the fiscal imprudence of the Bush administration and the lack of ethics in Washington. And what did they do-----spend money even faster and become even more ethically obtuse than the last crowd running Capitol Hill.  John Doolittle using lobbyist money to pay spouse; meet Speaker Pelosi.

Worst of it, they knew that's what they were going to do and simply scammed the angry voters into blaming it all on the Republicans.   They were going to pass a law or too they'd promptly ignore and start looting Washington themselves.

And ethics? Hey they think that's just a lever to get those faith based voters bitter at the Republicans long enough to vote for Democrats who will enact a secular agenda. 

Rahm Emanuel recruited Mahoney to run in this district and had an opportunity to knew Tim Mahoney's character or lack thereof. My guess is he knew he was a sleaze from the word go and fell on the floor laughing he had scammed the voters of Florida.  

So, what about this year?

America sees Barack Obama promising to "cut taxes for 95% of America".  It's a seductive promise, but one no more grounded in reality than Mahoney's ethics agenda.  

Neither are the claims by congressional Democrat challengers that they will "fix Washington". More support for Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid is going to fix what, exactly? 

Tim Mahoney is a window into the soul of the Democratic Party---a party that will say anything to gain power and then once it has it, use it to the detriment of the voters whom they scammed into gaining the power.

I hope Americans hear the theme song from CSI when they vote November 4.   

Promoted - an insider speculates about today's news that Tim Mahoney paid off his mistress.

Today’s breaking news about Florida Congressman Tim Mahoney paying off his mistress for $121,000 begs a very important question: What did Rahm Emanuel know and when did he know it?

According to ABC News, which broke the story online earlier today, Congressman Rahm Emanuel knew (or had heard) about Mahoney’s affair last year and confronted Mahoney about it.

Senior Democratic leaders in the House of Representatives, including Rep. Rahm Emanuel (D-IL), the chair of the Democratic Caucus, have been working with Mahoney to keep the matter from hurting his re-election campaign, the Mahoney staffers said.

A spokesperson for Emanuel, said he confronted Mahoney "upon hearing a rumor" about an affair in 2007 and "told him he was in public life and had a responsibility to act accordingly." Emanuel's spokesperson said he had not had any further contacts with Mahoney on the subject and did not know the woman involved worked on Mahoney's Congressional staff until informed by ABC News.

So what…so Rahm had a conversation more than a year ago.  Big deal.

Ya, except that we know one thing about Rahm from his vociferous denials two years ago about his involvement in leaking the Mark Foley emails: Rahm is a habitual liar.

RealClearPolitics.com flashback:

For those keeping score, Emanuel denied knowledge of the [Foley] e-mails six times, and twice declared the source of the leaks was a Republican. As it turned out, the answer to Stephanopoulos’ first question concerning whether this was a Democrat dirty trick should actually have been ‘Yes.’

It stands to reason that Rahm Emanuel wanted to protect his investment in Florida’s 16^th Congressional District and wasn’t about to let Mahoney’s tryst undo all the damage Emanuel was able to do to Republicans in 2006. 

The question to Rahm is “What did you know and when did you know it?”  Only this time, tell the truth. 

The theory is that Mahoney could have laundered the $121,000 payoff through his media vendor back in March. (For those still keeping score, that’s a major violation of the law.)  Mahoney made a $150,000 campaign expenditure to his media consultant back in March.  According to the FEC, the money was reported for a “Media Time Buy.”  Except, no media time was ever purchased.  That’s a whole lotta money for nothing in return.  (Other than the silence of a woman scorned.)

UPDATE

Mahoney's media vendor has put out a press release.  You need to read this.  Below the fold.

In 2006 Democrat businessman Tim Mahoney denounced his opponent, Rep. Mark Foley, for his role in the rather sordid House Page scandal. Mahoney forced Foley to resign and quit the campaign and then his lawyers prevented the Republicans from placing the replacement candidate's (state Rep. Joe Negron) name on the November ballot. Given all this, Mahoney eked out a narrow win in a Democratic year. http://projects.washingtonpost.com/elections/keyraces/676/

Whatever his flaws, one would have thought Mahoney would be mildly moral given his path to office. Nope. Not even close.

Congressman's $121,000 Payoff to Alleged Mistress

http://abcnews.go.com/Blotter/story?id=5997043&page=1

Guess this was all a public investment in "a world that is safer, more moral."

Worse still for the Democrats is one of their top leaders, Rahm Emanuel, is alleged to have known about this disgraceful conduct and to have counseled Mahoney on how to avoid political fallout. Of course, Emanuel recruited Mahoney in 2006 at a time when Foley looked like a shoo in, which leads one to surmise Emanuel knew about Foley's misdeeds before they went public, too, and now is merely trying to protect his political investment. 

Evidently, as per Wikipedia Mahoney has been holding himself out as a potential opponent to Senator Mel Martinez  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Senate_elections,_2010#Mel_Martinez_of_Florida

Another possible challenger is Rep. Tim Mahoney (FL-16), who defeated Mark Foley in 2006 after revelations about inappropriate relations between Foley and his staff surfaced. If he is reelected in 2008, he will have proven his ability to win in a Republican-leaning congressional district, which potentially could make him a strong candidate in a statewide run.

Perhaps Mahoney should pursue his statewide ambitions, as he can follow in the footsteps of two prominent Democrats in this part of the country who paid for sexual pleasure --Eliot Spitzer and Jim McGreevey 

I await with baited breath the pleas from Speaker Pelosi, Majority Leader Hoyer, Party Chairman Dean and Florida Democrat Senator Nelson for this sleazeball to resign from the House and quit his embarassing re-election campaign.

We forced Foley to quit. Evidently the "most ethical congress in history" doesn;t feel the need to take similar action.

We should take some action , though This should be a Republican seat, as it includes such places as Hobe Sound and Port Charlotte  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Florida's_16th_congressional_district and we have a good candidate http://www.tomrooney.com/ already running.

We ought to hang this one on the Democrats. They talk the talk, lets make this guy walk