"'Hippie museum' enters N.J. politics" -- from the Philadelphia Inquirer

[Lobster Martini]

(LM: This is just irritating.)

'Hippie museum' enters N.J. politics

GOP candidate used the proposed Woodstock shrine to criticize Sen. Frank Lautenberg.

When Republican U.S. Senate candidate Anne Evans Estabrook wanted to make a point about wasteful government spending, she reached for an example that has popped up in several other races: a museum in Woodstock, N.Y.

Estabrook is running a primary campaign aimed at convincing Republican voters she is the best person to beat the incumbent, Frank Lautenberg (D., N.J.).

This month, she asked: "Who would spend $70 million dollars for peanut storage, $20 million for cricket eradication, and voted to use our tax dollars on a hippie museum in Woodstock? This Congress and Frank Lautenberg just did."

Lautenberg did vote to give $1 million to the Museum at Bethel Woods, N.Y., the location of the August 1969 Woodstock Music Festival and Art Fair, as well as cricket eradication. A Lautenberg staffer noted the cricket bill also included aid to New Jersey farmers and the Women, Infants and Children food program. He did not vote on peanut storage; it died before it got to the Senate.

<snip>

The Woodstock museum, set to open next spring, never got its federal money; a coalition of Republicans and Democrats killed the proposed $1 million in mid-October. Still, that didn't stop the museum from getting mileage in the presidential campaign, a New York congressional race, and New Jersey's U.S. Senate primary.

When they were fighting earmarks in the federal budget, Republicans used the "hippie museum" to criticize U.S. Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton (D., N.Y.), who sponsored the spending with U.S. Sen. Chuck Schumer, (D., N.Y.).

U.S. Sen. John McCain (R., Ariz.) liked the hippie museum slap so much he made two ads about it. One depicts him saying: "A few days ago, Sen. Clinton tried to spend $1 million on the Woodstock concert museum. Now, my friends, I wasn't there. I'm sure it was a cultural and pharmaceutical event. I was tied up at the time."

<snip>.

A GOP congressional candidate campaigning in Peekskill, N.Y., a month later told the White Plains Journal News that he wanted to send his incumbent opponent, a former member of the rock band Orleans, "back to Woodstock," adding that U.S. Rep. John Hall (D., N.Y.) "wants to spend your glorious tax dollars on hippies."

But Hall didn't vote on the Bethel Woods museum. It wasn't in the House version of the bill.

As for Estabrook, she is the only one of the three most likely New Jersey Senate candidates who was about the right age to go to Woodstock. But she didn't go.

<snip>

(Link: http://www.philly.com/inquirer/breaking/news_breaking/20071226_Hippie_museum_entangled_in_N_J__and_national_politics.html)

[1620rock]

1. And how much will they spend on a Bush* library.

[goodgd_yall]

9. A lot more than a measly 1 million dollars

that's for sure.

[Kurt_and_Hunter]

2. "glorious tax dollars"???

[no name no slogan]

3. Interestingly enough, one US Senator was actually at Woodstock

Bonus points if you know who it was...

[Kurt_and_Hunter]

4. Gotta be Elizabeth Dole

(I know the actual answer but I don't want to spoil it)

[no name no slogan]

5. Nope. Here's a hint:

He's up for re-election this year. He's originally from New York, but does not represent that state in the Senate

[Kurt_and_Hunter]

6. I know, but don't want to spoil it.

(A two-letter hint that suggested the actual senator would also point to Dole or even John Edwards, but for a different reason)

[no name no slogan]

7. Correct!

And his sorry ass is going DOWN this year, I am happy to say. :D

[goodgd_yall]

8. Since Reagan, the 60s subculture

has been ridiculed. Why? Because it was a large and effective movement that challenged the status quo in America. So, of course, conservatives are going to use "hippie" as an insult and, unfortunately many Americans share in the ridicule.

[underpants]

10. Exaclty-plus this was only a supplimental amount to the $24 M NY state had put up for the museum

But then we can't have that mentioned now can we. Oh and we spend a million dollars in Iraq in the time it takes to read the headline in this story.