From the Georgia Teen Republicans, an organization I had no clue existed, but does, complete with a website:
The Georgia Teen Republicans strongly condones Treasurer Kyle Constable’s actions regarding his post about Commissioner John Oxendine. Kyle stepped over the line by personally attacking a respected state-wide Republican official, as well as violated his word by going public with an off the record phone call.
Actions are being taken by the Executive Board to resolve this situation from the interior. The Georgia Teen Republicans encourage free speech, but all Republican Party elected officials are held to a higher standard regarding their speech than an average citizen.
They condone Kyle Constable’s actions. But he stepped over the line.
Nonetheless, all Republican Party elected officials are held to a higher standard regarding their speech.
This is fatuous nonsense.
Tim Echols and I had a talk about this earlier this afternoon. He and the campaign are under the belief now that they can never go off the record with bloggers, though they want to treat bloggers as journalists.
That is actually reasonable. Unless they know otherwise, with a journalist or anyone else, they should always presume everything is on the record.
But let’s keep our perspective about this — we’re talking about a 15 year old.
He’s not a journalist. He’s a 15 year old.
And when a 15 year old likes a candidate a lot and then feels like that candidate’s campaign bullied him, a 15 year old is going to do what all 15 year olds in similar situations do — expose what happened.
It doesn’t matter if it was John Oxendine, Hannah Montana, or Jerkweed who sits next to him class and was his friend until last week when cheated off the 15 year old’s test.
All the comments about Kyle Constable hurting “the profession” of blogging or hurting his future as a journalist or whatever are really, really ridiculous. Remove this fact pattern from a heated campaign season and no one would be sending out idiotic statements that “condone” his conduct when they clearly meant to “condemn” his conduct, etc.
Dare I guess who Kyle’s “buddies” in the Georgia Teen Republicans are supporting?
Oh, and a note to everyone: you don’t get to turn the 15 year old into a bad guy in these situations.
I’m with Kyle.
[updated]:
I guess they just don’t know the word “condemn”. They’ve resent their announcement to say this, “The Georgia Teen Republicans is strongly opposed to Treasurer Kyle Constable’s actions regarding his post about Commissioner John Oxendine. ”
Have I ever mentioned how much I loath these sorts of groups? Every molehill must be a mountain in them. And I say this as the first Chairman of the Georgia Association of College Republicans.
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I think they meant “condemn” instead of “condone.”
I once lived in a condoned house. Man, was that place falling apart.
Nouraee, you’re one of the things (people) I miss about Atlanta.
Someone with more free time than me should go pull up the disclosures and see how much the Ox campaign donated to the Ga Teen Republicans.
This is unconfirmed, but I’m hearing that the TRs were going to be asking for money from Ox within the next couple of weeks, and that is why Trey decided to come out against Kyle.
Self interest is a powerful motivator.
Unconfirmed?!
Jeff, are you that desperate to fill the Andre niche?
I trust the source. If the source ever lies to me, I’ll out it in a hearbeat and condemn it as strongly as I possibly can.
Well then you can bet your bottom dollar there are some of us who will remember this and remind you if it turns out to not be true.
Jeff, you play fast and loose with with stories and that’s fine. To each his own. Everyone has their own standards and the market will judge them as it sees fit. And that means if you do play fast and loose, sometimes things blow up in your face.
Grift:
I do my own research and report what I believe to be the truth at the time I publish it. If I am shown to be in error, I publicly correct it and apologize.
Really, what more can you ask for?
How about not throwing crap out there like this which make you look like nothing more than a rumor monger?
Saying something is “unconfirmed” is not a karmic band-aid.
Look Grift, just because you got all caught up in who was the daddy of Palin’s baby rumors, doesn’t mean the rest of us have to stop making crap up to see what sticks.
Last I checked Jeff isn’t getting paid for these posts. Its not like his candidate has any money.
He posts here so much because his home life sucks.
Yea!… wait,… Watch out Chris before I have to “Condone” you.
You and your friends could “Change” that Chris
http://tinyurl.com/lrrvr8
My change is better spent deflating in a jar.
I suppose home life would suck if home were Albany GA.
My change is better spent deflating in a jar.
With that attitude and with people continuing the insanity of allowing themselves to be accomplices to the back and forth spiraling downward status quo,…. your change will continue to do so… or you could Invest in “smaller government, lower taxes and more opportunities”… otherwise known as MORE FREEDOM!!!
Daniel – I believe in return on my investment. 100 pennies deflating in a jar to be worth 50 pennies (at today’s rate) still leaves me with 50c. Giving it to an LP candidate leaves me with nothing at best.
Chris, do you know the similarity and difference between donating to a libertarian candidate and peeing while wearing a dark suit?
No one is likely to notice either act, but at least peeing will give you a warm feeling for a few minutes.
I heard that the TRs use an IP address that points to the Twin Towers
0$
Blogging is a “profession?”
About as much as journalism is a profession. I know people who make a decent living at it.
I haven’t eaten in four days.
You should get CL to start paying you in Eats & Bites coupons.
Wait. They do pay you, right?
“Have I ever mentioned how much I loath these sorts of groups?”
Now that’s funny.
So now anyone who defends Oxendine for any reason is probably supporting Oxendine? Bringing your witches hammer to Georgia, Erick? Should I walk with care lest I am touched by you brand?
Walk whichever way you want.
He only loathes these kinds of groups because they haven’t given an open endorsement to Handel. Come on Erick…Grow up!
Actually Grit, I’ve had that position for a while. But thanks for playing.
Have I ever mentioned how much I loath these sorts of groups?
For someone who gets confused by convoluted statements, you appear to have an issue of your own with not knowing the difference between “loath” and “loathe.”
Here, let me help you out: Right now, you, Erick, are thinking “How I loathe Bill Simon’s incessant browbeating on my spelling errors…but yet, I am loath to say anything about it for fear I might lose the battle with him.”
And one more thing.
“Oh, and a note to everyone: you don’t get to turn the 15 year old into a bad guy in these situations.”
Yet, you just picked on an entire organization of teens and their hasty little press release.
Erick, you’ve gotten so use to peddling hypocrisy, you don’t even notice as it slits your own tongue.
… and on a slitted sheet he sits.
Here’s the long and short of it:
The Kyle kid was out of line. He should not be making those kinds of posts as a Teen Republican officer.
Secondly, the Teen Republicans had a typo in their statement: normally, that wouldnt be a big deal, if the typo hadnt been on the critical word in the thesis of the text. So lets scrutenize that instead of the 15 year old who thinks he can cause trouble in the GA political field
FACT: if Congress had been in session, this kids blog would have gone unnoticed
FACT: If the Oxendine campaign would not have contacted Kyle his blog would have gone unnotice.
I just wonder in what way did the Oxendine camp think that by approaching this boy and his blog it would help them in the least bit. There has to be some common sense button in the back of the head that says “This is a fifteen year old boy’s blog. This great misrepresentation of a web site will be on many other blogs crosshairs, so I am going to let the boy slide and go after some of the BIGGER blogs if I am going to go after any at all.” In what strategy session did they sit down and think “An adolesent male has wrote something true yet offensive about our new site. Let’s nip this in the bud.”
I am beginning to believe that the Ox’s new strategy is to get any PR at all, good or bad. This was a no win situation Ox campaign. You guys are professionals. You should have know better then that.
FACT: If the Oxendine campaign would not have contacted Kyle his blog would have gone unnotice.
I just wonder in what way did the Oxendine camp think that by approaching this boy and his blog it would help them in the least bit. There has to be some common sense button in the back of the head that says “This is a fifteen year old boy’s blog. This great misrepresentation of a web site will be on many other blogs crosshairs, so I am going to let the boy slide and go after some of the BIGGER blogs if I am going to go after any at all.” In what strategy session did they sit down and think “An adolesent male has wrote something true yet offensive about our new site. Let’s nip this in the bud.”
I am beginning to believe that the Ox’s new strategy is to get any PR at all, good or bad. This was a no win situation Ox campaign. You guys are professionals. You should have known better then that.
Wierd. What was it when I was a state board member back in the early 90′s? I think you were still in diapers
“Have I ever mentioned how much I loath these sorts of groups? Every molehill must be a mountain in them. And I say this as the first Chairman of the Georgia Association of College Republicans.”
Kind of like how you’re making this story a mountain out of a molehill? The organization must have taught you well considering you make a living making mountains out of molehills.
For someone who claims to want to fix the party you do a whole lot of spitting in the faces of everyone who devotes their time and energy to helping the party. I guess you get pretty busy telling people how “influential” you are. It must be tough being so super duper amazingly awesome.
Hey, I’m going to get back to my volunteer efforts and you just continue trash talking everyone and making money for it.
I type this as the current Chairwoman of the Georgia Association of College Republicans and the past Chair of the Georgia Association of Teen Republicans. I usually don’t have the time or the will to post here but since I was told you were kind enough to bring us into the conversation I figured I’d chime in. Grow up Erick. Trey and I along with our organizations, weren’t even a part of this whole matter until you brought us into it.
As I unserstand it, this 15 year old was speaking for himself and not for the organization he serves on. As such, he is free to say anything he wishes. And from what he says, he was correct. Any campaign that disguises their attempts to mine email addresses SHOULD be called out for it. It may be how the Republican party has done things in the past. LOOK AROUND. The reason why the GOP has suffered has been because of such stunts. A real professional campaign uses legitimate campaign activities and true legwork to get the names and email addresses they need. They do not have to play tricks with phony web sites attacking wedge issues that have no true meaning in a Governors race.
The GA Teen Republicans then made things worse by making a statement on behalf of the GTR condemning one of their board members. Of couse, they were not speaking for the Georgia Teen Republicans, but only a plurality of the board members (Kyle was apparently not asked to vote on this matter — so it wasn’t even a authorized statement). No one polled the actual membership of the GTR. Had they done so they would realize that most are not as nutty as their leaders.
“Don’t shoot the messenger” is quite appropriate here. Fix the problem and shut your mouths. Oxendine and the GaTR look like idiots and political hacks here. Another word from either on this matter and it actually will attract the attention of mainstream press… and I would be glad to help make that happen if it knocks some sense into you guys.
Every comment on this story and the other kyle stories feeds this little kid’s ego, and makes him feel like a “big boy” blogger.
So what, he is a kid. Do you enjoy picking on children?
It says a lot about a man when his campaign goes ballistic against a 15 year old… It shows lack of maturity and judgement on the part of his staff…
Then secondly, this Teen Republican group has to be a joke. Any credibility any of them had in politics is absolutely gone now, especially their Chairman who sent out the blundered press release.
Oh, give them a break. The chairman, not the group, was in a hurry and used the wrong word. If you don’t make any mistakes, it means you aren’t doing anything.
If you think about it, you are going ballistic on a group of teenagers. Is that a lack of maturity and judgment on your part?
I’m guessing that the fact that they are teenagers trying to play ball in a grown up world is lost on everyone. I think that they have a slightly larger margin of error then say, oh I don’t know, a gubernatorial candidate who has been in statewide office since 1994.
How could anybody be suprised a group exists?
I can pay for a website to be made stating that a group called Social Security Now! has existed since 1999! I will post a multi-candidate PAC with the FEC and start contributing an extra $10k per cycle just to say I am around.
Fact is…not even most “grown ups” get politics. heck, there are people that still think the fair tax is a good idea.
I will say I am glad to think there are teens getting involved…afterall they are inheriting the problems created/not solved by the baby boomers (ie. education, healthcare, energy, fed deficit, etc).
Its your fault 35-60yr olds. My generation paid our debt off and solved our problems for you. Time to step up or be relegated to a status worthy of defamation by the ages.
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