The focus on James Talerico’s quest for sanity this weekend has taken some of the focus off the other critical Senate campaign, that of Mike Rogers against Abdul Muhammed el-Sayed on Saturday night
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Which is a pity, because on Saturday night, Rogers pretty much wiped the floor with El-Sayed during the Michigan Senate campaign debate.
Rogers relentlessly hammered El-Sayed al Misri throughout the debate, seldom if ever letting up. Some of the more sensitive souls on our side might say that he was too brutal, too harsh, and too unrelenting, but he really had no choice, since the moderator, a local nonentity named Rick Abin, was filling the customary Dem-leaning role, yapping over Rogers while he spoke but listening respectfully to El-Sayed. Rogers was not playing, much to his credit. It was, all in all, a most unGOP performance, particularly as it occurred in a Northern Tier state. (It would – and perhaps did – have sent Karl Rove staggering to his fainting couch: “I didn’t invent American conservatism to serve as a platform for this kind of crude, vulgar, undignified hijinks.”)
Rogers left very few targets unserviced.
Regarding Al-Sayed’s status as a “doctor”: “He’s not really a doctor… If somebody came into his office and he tried to treat them, he’d go to jail.”
Regarding his unusual real estate holdings: “He has a home in the United Arab Emirates,” Rogers said while discussing last week’s revelation that El-Sayed holds dual citizenship with Egypt. Doc Sayed responded with “He’s got a house in Florida,” to which Rogers replied, “At least Florida is in the United States.”
But things really lit up when Rogers began discussing El-Sayed’s terror connections through his mother. This exchange throws some light on the quality of thinking that went into the Rogers campaign’s debate prep. He did not attack El-Sayed’s mother directly, or at all. Instead, he simply compared her job with the Islamic American Relief Agency, a Hamas and Al Qaeda affiliate, with his own mother’s humble career.
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El-Sayed fell right in, snapping, “You going after my mom?” Rogers replied, “I’m not going after your mom. What your mom was working at, I’m going after that organization, that was indicted for funneling money to Al Qaeda. That’s your mom.”
But Rogers saved the heavy artillery for his closing statement: “You’re bought off by George Soros’ family. You’re bought off by Hamas, Hezb’allah, Al Qaeda. Those people who are supporting you pour that money into your campaign.”
Between the staffer who came in from the cold, the revocation of the firefighters’ union endorsement, and the Dave Portnoy self-own, El-Sayed has had a rough couple of weeks. His debate performance didn’t make it any better.
As for Rogers, if the rest of the GOP slate acted like this, we’d have nothing to worry about.
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Image: U.S. Army