In one of the key races in the country, former Democratic Rep. Barron Hill, who lost the seat to Republican Rep. Mike Sodrel in 2004 after beating back Sodrel's first challenge in 2002, has been widely considered the favorite, leading in most polls until he attempted to tar Sodrel with the Foley scandal in ads. Now, Sodrel has stormed back to even or a small lead.
Hill was a basketball star in high school in Indiana, which, in that state's culture, is nearly as good as discovering a cure for cancer and slightly better than a Nobel Prize in Literature. But in an interview with the Louisville Courier-Journal, he claimed to also be the Indiana state 100-yard dash record holder AND to have been drafted out of college - to play football for the New York Giants.
Problem is, neither one is true. RedState's Jeff Emanuel brings the debunk hard, here. Read it all - the comments explain how Hill may have convinced himself he held the dash record, at least.
After failing to attempt even rudimentary fact-checking, the Louisville Courier-Journal was forced to issue a correction. (If you wonder why a Kentucky paper was profiling an Indiana House candidate, Louisville is just across the border from the 9th district).
It seems that Hill, with the late campaign flubs of the Foley miscue and this false bragging, is attempting to join the list of Democratic candidates who are imploding in the late stages of this campaign. Harold Ford, Jr. is the most prominent, but Jon Tester hasn't exactly shown his brilliance, either, and while polls have shown no effect for Claire McCaskill's several goofs, the results probably will. Ben Cardin is trying hard to give the election in Maryland to Steele, and Phil Kellam has all but defaulted his once-promising chances in the House race in Virginia's 2nd.
It's important to remember that nobody cares who led for 3 1/2 quarters in a football or basketball game, for eight innings in baseball, or for 54 holes in golf. The winner is the one who is ahead when it is OVER.
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Congressional Races, Crazy Talk, Indiana
