Kranz-Argus-Daschle Campaign

As I mentioned yesterday, I think The New York Times reporter who wrote the magazine piece on Sunday about the race wrenched a quote from former Senator Jim Abdnor out of context--I'm sure he was referring to McGovern's wild travels in the 1970s which contributed to his defeat in 1980. BTW, if you want to read more about the 1986 Daschle-Abdnor Senate race see this article. Anyway, here's what is interesting about this quote. The same morning it appears in the NYT Mag, it appears in Kranz's column. If precedent is any guide--think, for a good example, of the Atlantic Monthly's Josh Green comment about Daschle losing his leadership post--Kranz would scramble around and call the key players and find a way to play down the story. Not in this case, however--Kranz just runs the quote. Now Kranz has known Abdnor for a long time so I'm sure he knew that the Abdnor quote didn't scan. Anyway, in addition to the quote immediately showing up in the Kranz column in the Argus, it also shows up on the Daschle blog. Randell Beck is making a big deal on the Argus blog about how Kranz was right about "the hug" (although no blogger ever said there was absolutely a hug--that was Time magazine, that bastion of hateful yahoos, who said that), let's see if he admits Kranz was wrong if this Abdnor quote, which apparently Kranz didn't bother to check out, turns out to have been misused.