Already?

If there's a theme which has carried over from his 2006 campaign to his current reelection bid, it is that personal attacks play a large role in Rep. Chris Carney's campaign.

In 2006, Carney challenged Don Sherwood on the notion that he was out of touch with the district. Of course, the underling notion supporting that "out of touch" argument was Sherwood's affair. Nonetheless, Carney vowed to run a campaign that was focused on the issues and not about the incumbent's extramarital affair--even though he continually hinted to it. He claimed he wanted to focus on what mattered to the 10th District.

However, Carney quickly broke that promise and went even further. Carney went public with a commercial about Sherwood which flashed "repeatedly choking" and "attempting to strangle plaintiff" across the screen to influence voters in the crucial final weeks before the election (if you need a refresher, watch the ad here). There's an important distinction to be made here between Carney's use of the affair and his use of unsubstantiated charges for which Sherwood was never criminally charged.

As slimy as that was, fast forward to 2008 and Chris Carney is beginning to preview the personal attacks he's got in store for Chris Hackett. Carney went after Hackett for finally paying back taxes he owed. However, Carney attempted to make it seem like there was an actual issue at stake in Hackett's personal settlement. From Carney's website: "I'm fighting to lower taxes for hard-working families who follow the rules, while he's fighting to lower his own taxes by not paying them."

Of course, this comes after Carney mocked Hackett's "10 Principles" by stating that Hackett had no principles and wouldn't be able to identify them citing the 'dirty' campaign Hackett ran in the fall.

Ironically, Carney first championed that he was "Karl Rove's worst nightmare" and used such verbiage in his campaign ads. However, with his continual use of dirty political tactics and personal attacks, it's clear that Chris Carney has morphed into the Washington insider, Karl Rove type figure he sought to expel.

Therefore, when I see a comment (like the one that appeared on this blog last week) stating that Chris Carney won't tolerate Hackett's failure to use the "Golden Rule" when campaigning, I can only stop and chuckle.