Jason Sandford
Jason Sandford is a reporter, writer, blogger and photographer interested in all things Asheville.
A mailer recently went out attacking Asheville City Council candidate Cecil Bothwell, the top vote-getter in the recent primary election. You can see the letter above, and you can download the PDF by clicking here.
Next, you’ll find Bothwell’s response. More soon.
Writers who reveal uncomfortable truths about public figures are used to getting splattered with mud—it goes with working in the trenches. When I was reporting on Bobby Medford’s crimes I received death threats, but that didn’t stop me and he’s spending 15 years in prison. I’m not surprised that Medford’s supporters decided to attack me now, and I stand behind the factual accuracy of everything I have written.
Bending the truth is a typical propaganda tool. For instance the local swiftboaters claim I want to show your neighbor your electric bill. The policy I suggested is one used elsewhere that tells you the neighborhood average electric bill, a practice which has successfully encouraged voluntary conservation.
I’m pleased that my critics have apparently read a few pages of one of my books, but disappointed that they haven’t read Billy Graham’s autobiography which was the direct source for the material they criticize me for publishing. However, this same group has a track record of distortion, inuendo and outright lies in past Asheville elections and to expect better of them this year would surely lead to dashed hopes. As in all my reporting work, I have to consider the source.
So, we decided to fight falsehood with facts. If you’ll donate $25 to the campaign now, you can have your choice of a signed copy of either Pure Bunkum: Reporting on the Life and Crimes of Buncombe County Sheriff Bobby Lee Medford or The Prince of War: Billy Graham’s Crusade for a Wholly Christian Empire. ($50 for both). If you want to pick them up at the election night party on November 3, I’ll inscribe it to you with that date.
" . . .I have never been asked to leave any function, anywhere, due to anything I have ever said. Ever. . ."
Fact Checker, it was apparently a Young Democrats event, not a Buncombe County Democratic Party meeting.
Can anyone confirm (or clarify) Politics Watcher’s remark about Bothwell and the Buncombe County Democratic Party?
Is it possible that Cecil Bothwell is Carl Mumpower’s long-lost twin?
I suppose I may be deemed to be proving your point(s) by replying, but misinformation is misinformation.
I have never been asked to leave any function, anywhere, due to anything I have ever said. Ever. In 59 years. Anyone who says otherwise is either misinformed or willfully misinforming.
Your framing of the question "Wasn’t he even …" is classic, as it imbues the supposition with an air of certitude. No.P.W. That never occurred.
Equally, I have never roared back at anyone. I have built coalitions of hundreds of people who have worked together to get projects done. Yes, I defend myself when slandered, but with reason and persuasion, not bombast. And yes I am a little weary of people who have never met me or interacted with me positing me as some sort of radical ideologue. Let’s see the evidence.
At least if you insist on discrediting me by inuendo, you ought to cite your sources for your tales. It makes it easier for people in the reality based world to check for accuracy.
Susan’s got it. Can Bothwell hold his temper and his tongue and work effectively with council members and constituents of varying viewpoints to actually get ordinances passed and decisions made? Wasn’t he even asked by his fellow Democrats to leave one of their meetings because of his attacks on another party member/candidate? Will he roar back at citizens at council meetings when he disagrees them? Will he and Mumpower be the two naysayers at the extreme ends of the table, leaving the real work to be done by the other council members sitting in the middle?
Bothwell may be the "front runner" among the 3,000 or so "progressives" who voted for him in the primary, but is he the front runner among the majority of moderate voters who don’t yet know who he is? It may not be just the conservatives who vote against him but the centrists who want a pragmatic council who can figure out the compromises needed to get things done.
Good point, Susan. I may well be too eager to defend at times. On the flip side, of course, the Kerry lesson (well understood by Obama) was that if you let a news cycle go by without refuting lies, you lose. Admittedly this is a smaller stage, and you’re correct that discussions about letters to the editor are pretty marginal.
I’ve had one phone message from a woman demanding to know the truth about the mailer, accusing me of not answering my phone to avoid her (her one call), insisting that if I were honest I would have my response all over WLOS and the Citizen-Times (so clearly I’m a liar), and then not leaving a number (she called from a blocked one.)
I do promise no frequent op-eds in the AC-T, no grandstanding, no divisive talking points for the furtherance of wedge issues.
Does this response mean I’ve done it again? Okay. Will sit down and shut up now. Cheers.
The anonymous mud-slinging from both sides this time around is very disappointing. Cecil would do himself a favor if he would refrain from responding to every critique and attack. He only dignifies them. I’ve even seen him posting on threads responding to letters to the editor. He’s the front runner, so of course he is going to draw lightning. He demeans himself by jumping into every conversation. If he is elected to council, he’ll need to man up and learn to let some sh*t roll off his back. Otherwise we’ll all be in for a loooooong 4 years.
These attacks on Cecil are foul — as foul as the October 4 broadcast email slamming Kelly Miller, which was sent by Cecil’s $500 contributor Charlie Thomas and failed 2007 City Council Candidate Elaine Lite under the PAC name "Progressive Research Group" (see Ashvegas October 6).
Commenters have pointed out this week on a political blog run by a current candidate that tactics like these new ones against Cecil (against candidates perceived to be anti-development or anti-business or for more regulation of development or business) have come for many years from Magnolia’s owner and former failed mayoral candidate Chris Peterson and his friends Al Sneed, Bob Long and others. These commenters are correct. In the 1980’s or early ’90s their attacks were often directed at women candidates including Norma Price or Marie Colton. The mailer or the full page Citizen-Times ad would come on Saturday just before the Tuesday election. Every election year without fail the attack would show up, always on Saturday.
Brownie Newman’s first campaign was attacked with a quote or misquote saying that he wanted to close the Blue Ridge Parkway and plant flowers in its place, or some idiot thing. A callow Brownie may actually have said this. Could you or I defend everything we said in our late teens or early twenties?
Sometimes these tactics work and sometimes they don’t. Cecil’s supporters’ misleading attacts on Kelly Miller certainly didn’t do Kelly’s campaign any good.
But I don’t think this week’s attacks on Cecil will have much impact. If 100 votes change because of this slam, I’d be surprised. If the election were open to voters in the entire County of Buncombe, yes, but not in 2009 Asheville.
Thank you Ashvegas for covering these false or misleading attacks in an evenhanded way, from whichever side they come.