Is Katon Dawson Doing It Wrong?

SC GOP Chairman Katon Dawson is so obsessed with becoming Republican National Committee Chairman that he’ll apparently attack anyone – including himself.

Wait … what?

That, at any rate, is the current speculation surrounding a controversial mail piece criticizing Dawson for his former membership in a “whites only” Country Club here in Columbia, S.C. – a club that also boasts 2010 GOP gubernatorial candidates Henry McMaster and Carroll A. “Tumpy” Campbell III among its members.

But why on earth would Dawson attack himself over this issue?

The answer may lie in an increasingly acrimonious (and expensive) race that has seen accusations and insinuations flying from originating points unknown for months now.

People are sick of the negativity, and are beginning to turn on those they see as feeding it behind a barrage of anonymous e-mails and phone calls.

Unlike the hundreds of anonymous smears that the various RNC challengers have been blasting out about each other, though, this particular mailing attacking Dawson does have somebody’s name on it – Ohio Secretary of State Ken Blackwell.

There’s just one problem -Blackwell’s people didn’t send it.

In fact, not only did they not send it, but sources close to the Ohio Republican say they believe the mailing – which carried a Beltway postal code -is the work of one of Dawson’s top consultants, Rex Elsass.

“RNC committee members have been bombarded with negative attacks to the point that backlash is setting in,” one of Blackwell’s supporters told FITS. “This is an attempt by Katon to capitalize on that by making it look like Ken is the negative campaigner.”

In an e-mail sent yesterday to RNC members, Blackwell addresses the mail piece directly.

“Today, many of you received a fraudulent letter via US Mail that was deceptively designed to look like it came from my campaign,” Blackwell writes. “You can draw your own conclusions about which candidates are behind the slime. I simply ask you to reject both the attacks on me and the attacks that are designed to look like they come from me.”

“Let’s be clear about something,” Blackwell adds. “When (former Tennessee GOP Chairman) Chip Saltsman and Katon (Dawson) were under attack, I went on record and defended them under very difficult circumstances. It defies logic that I would attack them after my public statements.”

Dawson’s current positioning in the race is a subject of much discussion.

Some sources we’ve spoken with say he’s the front-runner, others are predicting he will finish fifth in the field.

All we know is that not one of the current slate of contenders – least of all Dawson – has what it takes to lead Republicans out of the national wilderness.

The GOP brand is dead, people – buried under chronic overspending and the abandonment of a commitment to individual liberty and prosperity.

As we’ve said on many occasions in the past, at least Democrats come by their costly, Orwellian approach to government honestly instead of pretending to be for “lower taxes and less government.”

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