Oct 21, 2008
NC-08: Robin Hayes - Caught on Tape
The Southern Dem at Daily Kos:
Did the U.S. Representative from Concord warm up John McCain's rally Saturday by saying that "liberals hate real Americans that work and achieve and believe in God"?
The New York Observer says so this morning. Hayes spokeswoman Amanda Little told Politico that Hayes absolutely denied the comment.
Observer reporter Lisa Zagaroli - and her digital tape recorder - were at the Concord event. She went through the speech this morning, and yes, amid some raucous crowd noise is this: "Liberals hate real Americans that work and achieve and accomplish and believe in God." (Audio coming soon.)
Robin Hayes - Caught on Tape
Charlotte Observer
Politics Blog
Tuesday, October 21, 2008
Did the U.S. Representative from
Concord warm up
John McCain's rally Saturday by saying that "liberals hate real Americans that
work and achieve and believe in God"?
The New York Observer says
so this morning. Hayes spokeswoman Amanda Little told Politico that Hayes absolutely denied the
comment.
Observer reporter Lisa Zagaroli - and her digital tape recorder -
were at the Concord event. She went through the speech this
morning, and yes, amid some raucous crowd noise is this: "Liberals hate real
Americans that work and achieve and accomplish and believe in God." (Audio
coming soon.)
Hayes, upon further review, released a statement moments ago
acknowledging the remark but saying he didn't recall making it:
"After reading it, there is no doubt that it came out
completely the wrong way," he said. "I actually was trying to work to keep the
crowd as respectful as possible, so this is definitely not what not what I
intended.
"As a conservative, I fight for lower taxes and policies that
strengthen our values. Liberals are advocating higher taxes, which I believe
punish success - and they are advocating policies like gay marriage that I feel
undermine strong families. We have a strong difference of opinion about the
future of our nation, but obviously this was the wrong way to get that
difference of opinion across."
The Hayes remark came a day after
Minnesota Rep. Michele Bachmann, a Republican, told MSNBC that
media should do an expose of "the views of the people in Congress and find out:
Are they pro-America or anti-America?" Such comments might play well with the
home crowd, but not so much with moderates so critical to this
election.
Zagaroli also reports that when Hayes first took the stage Saturday, he was holding written comments that he said would ensure "we don't say something stupid, that we don't say something we don't mean."
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