GOP House candidate accused of kickbacks?
One good way to tell an incumbent is on defense is when they go on the attack early in an election year. When they go on the attack in the middle of the summer, it's a sure sign of trouble for the incumbent.
Just ask Tyler Jones and James Island Democratic State Rep. Anne Hutto, who went on the attack against her Republican challenger Peter McCoy in recent days.
Tyler Jones, who has been paid for working for Hutto's re-election campaign, followed up a news story in which Hutto attacked McCoy for accepting campaign contributions from local attorneys by posting the following message on his Facebook page:
Corruption Alert: GOP Assistant Solicitor running for South Carolina State House 115 (Folly Beach, James Island) gives kickbacks to criminals if their defense attorneys give him campaign cash.
Jones' allegation against McCoy was removed from his Facebook page several hours later, but not before the above screen capture was made. Other have done the same and the statement has made the rounds quite a bit in Lowcountry political circles since yesterday morning.
The Blogland contacted Mr. Jones via email to get his side of the story, to which he explained:
When I posted the article, I meant to pose the question, "Is McCoy giving kickbacks?", rather than making a statement.
I soon realized that I had left out a question mark which totally changed the meaning of my post. As you know, there is no edit feature on facebook to merely change the post, so I decided to delete it to prevent confusion. This is still a very concerning story and I'm glad you're looking into further. There are still a lot of unanswered questions about this matter and I hope all the facts see the light of day.
I am doing contract work for a few candidates right now, one of which being Anne Hutto. But it goes without saying that the post was on my personal facebook page and was my error alone.
Republican candidate Peter McCoy was quick to respond as well:
I find it comical that Anne Hutto and her campaign would attempt to attack me for receiving the financial support of my friends when she has taken thousands of dollars from special interest groups whose issues she's voting on in the House. Clearly in attacking me, she's trying to distract from her terrible record.
We'll let our readers decide the truth on this one, but regardless, it's becoming increasingly clear that this race will likely be one of the most heated State House contests as the fall campaign season approaches.
I'm not sure what she's driving at, Earl.
So why didn't she pull the trigger? Because there is nothign there, and she knows it!
Clearly, Gene Platt is the only honorable Democrat in the race...
Alas here, we may have an interesing bit for case law, as hopefully the slanders are captured on line and are solidly available for Mr. McCoy to use to pursue remedy, particurlarly such an ethical lapse with the obviously developing Nixonian plausible deniability.
I seem to recall that Platt has surfaced as both a Dem and a Green party candidate in bids against Wallace Scarborough for House 115.
Nice guy, published poet, though we suspect that he will be painted as a pornographer (based on the content of his verse), most likely by Hutto, as McCoy hasn't much to gain from that line of attack.