The Robinson affair - is it fact or fiction? | Eastern North Carolina Now

In the age of Deep Fakes, many are asking whether the political bomb dropped on GOP gubenatorial candidate Mark Robinson by the highly politically biased CNN, once popularly called the "Clinton News Network" is fact or fiction.  The timing of it was extremely politically calculated, and that raises big questions about the rest of it.

Mark Robinson is a flawed candidate, given his skeletons from his family business past and his undisciplined tongue, where he often says things that are easy to take out of context or sometimes problematic even in context.  Recent polling on Robinson has not been encouraging for him, espcecially with a downward trend line.  That means that if this was a calculated political hit, its real target was probably "guilt by association" against Trump rather than against Robinson himself.

The highly political timing of this bombshell absolutely stunk.  After teasing that something was coming all day, CNN unloaded with this hit in the afternoon, just hours before the deadline in which a candidate could withdraw and still be replaced on the ballot.  This political timing was very, very deliberate to catch Robinson flatfooted with no real time to weigh options.  It was extremely dirty by CNN, which suggests this might not be the only part that stunk.

It is highly unlikely that CNN got this deep into the weeds to put Robinson under the microscope.  This was clearly the result of oppostition research by someone on the Democrat side that was handed to CNN to exploit.  The real question was whether this was simply research or to the contrary manufactured out of whole cloth.

Robinson's own campaign is hit hard.  This will dry up his money in the last six weeks of the campaign.  In an age where we have seen repeated dirty tricks by the liberal media to help the Democrats, it may not dry up the enthusiasm of many of his supporters, but without money and already in a polling tailspin, his path to victory looks nearly impossible.  But the real target of this media hit is almost certainly Trump.

What can Robinson do?  As Thom Tillis pointed out, he needs to sue CNN.  A denial needs to be followed by a lawsuit.  Secondly, if this is a made up political hit, he needs to take a polygraph test and hold a press conference with the results.  All of that needs to happen fast.  Discovery in a lawsuit should reveal where CNN really got this information.   It may well lead straight back to Josh Stein.

If Robinson is not prepared to do those things, he needss to withdraw, even though it will now take a lawsuit to try to get a replacement candidate accredited to receive the votes of voters who mark Robinson's name.