Do you think Billy Long is longing for the days when the paper only did stories about him, Chula and Little Bear? Hot Diggity Dog!

(photo courtesy Billy Long)

I've been following Long's campaign since February. A quick search of the bus will reveal that.

This aspect of the race is toxic.

It is out there, just under the skin, the soft underbelly of Springfield that no one wants to talk about on the record.

When I first heard, last August, these allegations, I didn't believe them.

This can't be true. This is Springfield, this kind of stuff doesn't go on here.

I didn't believe it until people started talking to me, people who were disgusted by what goes on but also made very much money in tips, sometimes more than a week's salary in one night. They were trapped. They didn't like what was going on but they liked / needed the money.

I was directed to websites, social networking sites, given key words to search for on google.

I reported on none of this. Without names attached, it wasn't going in the bus. Besides, I was having my hands full just reporting on Long's tweets on twitter, of which there were many.

But I heard so many stories from so many different sources that I slowly began to think there must be an element of truth in here. Not that they were 100% true, just as they weren't 100% false.

A telling sign to me that there is some truth in all this are Long's statements about his gambling. He changed his story too many times. I've posted about that.

But all of that, and there is a lot of that, is a character issue.

The real story in the Long campaign is unreported and for this I fault the SN-L.

Look at the people running Long's campaign, Jeff Roe, James Harris, Jason Klindt-look at their history.

Look at Long’s conflicting positions on Social Security, Agricultural, the healthcare bill and Career politicians and their cronies.

Look at Long's campaign contributons and where they came from, follow the money.

None of this was reported with any substance in the SN-L, but the paper did report about Chula and Little Bear and his drop dead tricks

The Turner Report has also posted on this subject.