Slap her around and call her Betty

by: Carnacki

Mon May 23, 2011 at 18:02:23 PM EDT

The national press follows up on a Ry Rivard story in the Daily Mail about Ireland skipping a GOP "unity" breakfast.

Now, it's closed to the press, being called a "working session" and Stuart couldn't say in an interview who besides Maloney was coming. Maloney had a decisive win in his party's primary earlier this month.

"I really don't want to sort of say who is going to be there," he said in a Friday telephone interview. "I can tell you confidently that there will be multiple candidates at this meeting."

It's clear that former Secretary of State Betty Ireland will not be there. A spokeswoman said she is out of town. Ireland finished second following negative ads from the Maloney campaign.

"We've encouraged Betty's supporters to move on and support any candidate they like," said Ireland spokeswoman Suzette Raines. "I can tell you we've had a flood of calls and emails about the things that were done against Betty in the primary. People are very upset, which has not been perpetuated by Betty or the campaign staff - at all."

Hotline gets one point wrong - understandably.

In West Virginia, Maloney, running as an outsider, defeated Ireland, the GOP establishment candidate, in a race that turned nasty toward the end.

Ireland should have been the GOP establishment candidate, but Stuart threw her under the bus, saying after she declared he'd enter the race himself if a candidate to his liking did not enter.

Ireland paid her dues in GOP party building, is one of the very few Republicans to successfully run for state office, and has remained a loyal GOP member. Her thanks was to be smeared by the very party that she worked to build. Ireland was the candidate that had the best chance among Republicans of winning.