GOP claims Democrats are 'monkeying' around
Posted at: 09/13/2012 7:30 PM
| Updated at: 09/13/2012 7:37 PM
By: Stuart Dyson, KOB Eyewitness News 4
They say that politics makes strange bedfellows. That's true enough, but sometimes it's even stranger when you're awake.
Republicans invaded Democratic territory in Albuquerque Thursday, marching up to U.S. Senate candidate Martin Heinrich's campaign headquarters with a guy dressed in a monkey suit.
The idea was to express displeasure with his voting record in the House of Representatives, but somebody had to ask the obvious question. What's up with the guy in the monkey suit?
"Well, the guy in the monkey suit is to represent two things," said protest organizer Marita Noon. First, he's to represent that we're tired of politicians like Congressman Heinrich who are monkeying around in Washington. But the other thing he's to represent is specifically some of the foolish money that was spent for the $800 billion stimulus bill that was spent to observe monkeys fighting."
This is apparently a $496,000 appropriation in the stimulus bill for a study in Lawrenceville, Georgia.
But it works both ways. Earlier this summer Democrats inflated a giant "fat cat" balloon to criticize big oil contributions to Heinrich's opponent, Republican heather Wilson. And last month they delivered a gold-painted broom to her campaign headquarters. It had something to do with health care for women.
So there are messages in there someplace.
Question: are they messages that will resonate with undecided voters and persuade them to vote one way or the other?
Answer: it's hard to see it working that way. But do they motivate the base of loyal party supporters and call attention to the fact that an election is coming? Probably.
So the guy in the monkey suit may serve a purpose.
This stuff goes back a long way. In the presidential election of 1840, Whig supporters of William Henry Harrison marched through towns and villages carrying small scale log cabins on their shoulders and clutching jugs of hard cider in their fists.
It all seemed to make sense at the time. At least to some people.
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