McKeon madness almost over … maybe, maybe not

In a last-minute effort to salvage his campaign for Clark County GOP chairman, Dave McKeon sent out an email Tuesday night addressing the domestic violence allegations made against him by his former wife.

“I did not do the things they say that I did,” McKeon wrote.

Except …

The Superior Court of California disagreed, ruling that he was, in fact, a “domestic violence perpetrator.” I didn’t say that. A court of law said that.

When given a chance two weeks ago to address the allegations on Alan Stock’s radio program, after he kept them secret from supporters for six whole months, McKeon was forced to admit the documents were, in fact, authentic and that he did, in fact, sign the documents admitting to the allegations.

His excuse on the Stock show was that he admitted to the domestic violence allegations just to get the divorce proceedings over with. So, as Stock pointed out, either McKeon lied to a court of law back then, or he’s lying to his supporters now. Either way …

McKeon then went on to accuse Stock of “setting him up,” even though McKeon voluntarily agreed to come on the program to address the allegations. That claim was just bizarre.

But for a minute, let’s believe every word that has come out of Dave McKeon’s mouth. Let’s say every allegation made by his ex-wife is a complete and total fabrication, although she stands by every word of it to this day.

You still can’t get past the fact that the documents detailing the allegations exist; that the documents are authentic; that the documents are public, not private; that McKeon’s signature admitting to the allegations is on the documents; that it is, in fact, his signature, not a forgery; and that McKeon hid all of this from his supporters for six months.

And that the Democrats will use all of this to bludgeon Republicans for their so-called “war on women” up and down the ballot in the 2014 election cycle if he’s elected the party chairman.

Even if you buy McKeon’s entire story hook, line and sinker, you still can’t get past the fact that he used unbelievably bad judgment in hiding this information from members of the Republican Central Committee, hoping it wouldn’t come out. And the fact that he didn’t “seal the records” doesn’t change the fact that in a heated political campaign he didn’t disclose them either.

McKeon did, indeed, have a lot to hide — and hide it he tried.

My main point all along has been that politically it doesn’t matter whether the allegations about McKeon are true or not. What matters is that he didn’t tell anyone about these public, not private, records and now the Clark County Republican Central Committee is on the verge of committing political suicide because of it.

As hard as McKeon supporters want to make this about his opponent, Cindy Lake, this has nothing to do with Cindy Lake. This is about Dave McKeon. It’s about a stack of public — not private — documents, true or not, that makes him toxic as a potential party chairman for every candidate on the ballot next year. If he’s elected tonight, the Democrats will have a field day.

I repeat. The existence of all these documents isn’t a lie. They are not “yarns.” They’re real. McKeon admits they exist. He admits they are authentic. And he admits he’s the party named in them.

In the words of the late political strategist Murray Chotiner, “It’s not negative to tell the truth about your opponent.”

No one has slandered Dave McKeon. No one has libeled him. People have simply told the truth about the existence of information that is extremely relevant to the political seat he’s seeking; information McKeon would have kept hidden had someone else not exposed them.

If Dave McKeon loses tonight, it’ll be because of his own actions and decisions, not because of those who brought the information to light. And if he wins…well, the Central Committee will have made its own bed. And it won’t be able to say it didn’t know.

I, speaking for just about everybody, will simply be happy when this whole damn thing is over with.

Mr. Muth is president of Citizen Outreach, a conservative grassroots advocacy organization. He can be reached at chuck@citizenoutreach.com