Allen Unruh: Head D-Bag and Bert Reynolds Stunt Double

One of my favorite abortion-related flicks of all time is that of Citizen Ruth, a hilarious, satirical depiction of the abortion debate. At a time where Vote Yes for The Unruhs to Pocket MORE Federal Monies can't lay the crap off, I find myself loving this film more and more. Casting Bert Reynolds as the head anti was abso-freakin'-lutely brilliant...maybe even a direct copycat, perhaps. Ah, Allen Unruh. The dude apparently, as according to the new More magazine article, is responsible for stealing Leslee (yep, they had an affair, people!) from her pre-martial sex-loving, PASTOR boy toy and Democratic, liberal feminist values and turning her into an anti-choice, empirical nutso. When Leslee's mom told her to "get out of the kitchen and start a business," she obviously took that to mean "find a rich dude from which you can spring board his crusade into a lucrative, international empire." I'm sure it was the mustache. Money, surely, had nothing to do with it.

Where There's News Media, There's an Unruh

Saturday's KELO featured a piece on buying local produce, so it only makes sense for the story to contain an interview with...what? ALLEN UNRUH?! (See Madville Times for the full scoop.)

So, let's talk about this.

For one, can the SD public please have just one week - only one - where we don't have to deal with an Unruh? Can we? Please? I think the following definition pretty much sums up the condition that Les' and Al' face and although urbandictionary.com hasn't been real popular amongst the feminist community lately, I gotta say this was just too perfect to pass up.

1. Media Whore

1. A person who has a psychological need to get into TV, Film, Radio or Print.
2. A person who becomes aroused almost sexually by seeing or hearing themselves or about themselves in the media.
Most people who audition for reality TV series or write excessive numbers of letters to the editor are nothing more than media whores.

Now let us journey back in time to the Vote Yes petition reveal party of months past. You might recall the post I did about it. Well, I thought that the Unruhs along with the YV Prayer Team had a beef with KELO? Or is this just God's way of answering their prayers?

The Pro-Cancer Clearinghouse

"HotMama247" (seriously!!) over at the Abstinence Clearinghouse blog is trying to scare people about the HPV vaccine and even seems to be implying that it's mandated nationwide (which, of course, it's not).

I know I sound like a broken record, but I'm pretty sure Leslee Unruh loves cancer. Here's the crazy thing about HPV, friends: even abstinent people can get it. Maybe Leslee should change the name of the organization to Living-Inside-an-Airtight-Bubble-Like-John-Travolta-in-That-Movie-Because-
That's-the-Only-Way-to-Be-Totally-Safe-From-Disease Clearinghouse.

Grab Your Garlic, SD Media

The Vote Yes zealots are back…and they seem to have a beef with the media.

Voices Carry has posted a painfully long video from last Sunday’s Celebration Party. And when I say “painfully,” I mean it. This sucker’s 24 minutes long. Save yourself the time and if you’re in a crunch, skip down to my “Hilarity Awards” for the gems. Obviously the video is a cornucopia of crazy (per usual), but this whole media-hating situation has me interested...and perhaps a little concerned.

Leslee Unruh (I mean, who else?) to the audience:

And tomorrow if the South Dakota media does what they should
do, in all the newspapers across South Dakota, they’ll show your face, not mine.
So if you see my face, you’ll know that’s not the way this was supposed to
go. [...] We didn’t want the media to focus on my face or the campaign
people’s face. We want them to focus on who made it happen…and that was
you.

The next day on the Vote Yes Prayer Blog:

Please ask for prayer that fairness be given to this campaign by
everyone in the media. KELOLAND was not fair when they gave us hardly any
coverage of the celebration last Sunday. Also, today SD PUBLIC RADIO set up
an interview with Dr. Allen Unruh and a representative from the other side and didn’t get Dr. Unruh on the program until the other person had been on for almost 5 minutes.

So, I guess the media better watch out, because VY seems to have a strange vendetta here. I’m not sure what they’re trying to do, but whatever it is, the media IS NOT cooperating. My advice would be to load up on garlic and earplugs. (I guess you can skip the earplugs if it’s red-tape-over-the-mouth day.) You hear that, Lou Raguse? Run while you can!


The Hilary Awards
1. Did they have a live trumpeter? Really?
2. Allen’s tangent about their “volunteer army,” saying “we didn’t pay people to get petitions” yet minutes later, they welcome the “staff” of the campaign. Staff? Otherwise known as EMPLOYEES? Also, most of the other people are pastors or Alpha Center/Alive/Fleet for Little Feet/Abstinence Clearinghouse folk, so let’s be honest: technically they’re on the payroll.
3. Allen Unruh tells opponents like myself “You can just go take a nap,” rambling on about how completely UNTIRED the Vote Yes camp is. Leslee later says that before their campaign kickoff, everyone needs to rest. But I thought you all weren’t tired? Which one is it?
4. Leslee admits she’s hard to work with. Yikes, I’ll bet!
5. Leslee says how she’s opened a new bank account, oh my bad, I mean “chapter” of her life.


Finally: The Vote Yes team talks a couple of times about the tactics they employed while gathering petition signatures. Asking “Do you like killing babies?” or “Do you like babies?” is hardly allowing an opportunity for anyone to comfortably decline. I’ll expect that 50% of those signatures came from pro-choice individuals. Next time, don’t stand glossy-eyed, have a baby in your arms (nice touch at the event though, Les) and intimidate people into doing something that they don’t believe is right.

Is today the big day?

Voices Carry is saying the big unveiling of the Vote Yes petition total is scheduled for this afternoon. Any predictions on what the total will be? Will they put Leslee up front or let a less divisive figure take the lead? How many times will they use the phrases "abortion as birth control" and "this is what the voters asked for"? How long will it take after this announcement is made for Missionaries for the Preborn and other fringe groups to load up their trucks and return to South Dakota?

***Edit: Total is 46,000; both in the press coverage and on the Vote Yes website, Allen seems to be taking the lead over Leslee; not much about the message in KELO's coverage, and the wild eyed crazies are loading up their anti-choice caravans as we speak.***

Dakota Voice Mind-Meld?

Man, are Bob Ellis and I sharing a brain? His post about the duelling abortion polls pretty much hit on everything I was going to say...sort of.

...the results of a poll can sway widely depending on what questions are asked, the verbiage used, and the tone and emphasis used by the questionnaire (if it's done verbally). If your verbiage and tone tell the respondent that they'd be an idiot to answer with Answer A, many of them will give Answer B, because they want to be thought of as "intelligent and informed."

Agreed. This is definitely a problem with the overuse of polling in politics.

Also, this company that did the poll, Greenberg Quinlan Rosner, doesn't exactly look like an objective organization.

Yep, looks like they take on primarily progressive clients. The research company that did the South Dakotans Support Life poll, Public Opinion Strategies (I think; since the anti-choice group refused to distribute a copy of their poll results to the media, I'm just relying on the KELO reporter's notes here) is, on the other hand, "a national Republican political and public affairs research firm with its roots in political campaigns." A partner in the firm is described as "one of the Republican Party's leading political strategists and pollsters." Those tricky pollsters -- there's not an objective mind among them! Right with you, Bob!

Pro-life people aren't going to quit working for what's right, no matter what any poll says. Right and wrong aren't determined by popular opinion.

I think pro-choice people would say the same, my friend.

Interesting note on the press conference though: Abstinence Clearinghouse Executive Director Kimberly Martinez, but Leslee wasn't anywhere in sight. Hrm. In case you missed her, why not enjoy a little Leslee now?



P.S. It's possible that listening to Leslee's crazytalk for hours and hours while making this video may have addled my brain and that's why Bob Ellis is sounding so reasonable to me. Just a possibility.