Talk:Cal Cunningham

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A Commons file used on this page has been nominated for speedy deletion[edit]

The following Wikimedia Commons file used on this page has been nominated for speedy deletion:

You can see the reason for deletion at the file description page linked above. —Community Tech bot (talk) 21:21, 9 December 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Racist comments in personal life section[edit]

Someone added demeaning and racist comments in the personal life section. I removed them. 10/3/2019 — Preceding unsigned comment added by 50.242.255.37 (talk) 15:23, 3 October 2019 (UTC)[reply]

I can't do this alone[edit]

This article appears to be written by someone close to Mr. Cunningham and contains numerous claims that are not verifiable or sourced. I would appreciate some help dealing with this mess of an article. I have asked for citations on a few things that I have noticed already but will delete those in a week or so if they are not/cannot be resolved. I would appreciate any help anyone can provide for this article. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Alex the Nerd (talk • contribs) 20:58, 11 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Is Awards, Honors, Community Service encyclopedic?[edit]

It seems like a large section and I'm not sure if it qualifies under advertising but it sure feels that way to me, what do you guys think? Alex the Nerd (talk) 13:08, 12 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]

I've moved, out of the section, information that relates to other sections (for example, an award for military service. What's left doesn't seem to belong elsewhere. (Section title shortened, also.) -- John Broughton (♫♫) 18:00, 2 August 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Inclusion of Information on WasteZero[edit]

There have been some objections raised in previous edits to content on WasteZero:

  • 21:02, 8 June 2020‎ Marquardtika talk contribs‎ 21,013 bytes -1,216‎ Reverted good faith edits by Jjjjjjjjjj (talk): Every source here is to the company website, we need independent sourcing per WP:RS (TW)
  • 20:46, 29 May 2020‎ Marquardtika talk contribs‎ 21,013 bytes -234‎ →‎WasteZero: PR speak

The News & Observer is a well-known paper in the area which has the largest circulation in the state, and so I'd say it meets WP:RS.

In terms of linking to the company website I went through the pages, and it looked to be essentially information about their business operations, and not so much grandiose marketing. As far as I can tell they aren't directly selling to consumers anyway, but trying to establish deals with municipal governments.

I think the objective can be just to try to briefly convey to readers what the company does, and then if people are curious they can click on the link to get more information from them.

Jjjjjjjjjj (talk) 17:45, 17 June 2020 (UTC)[reply]

I think it makes sense to briefly indicate what the company does, especially if it can be cited to a secondary source like the News & Observer. —Granger (talk · contribs) 00:19, 18 June 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks for starting this discussion. The newspaper source is good independent sourcing, but I've removed the citations to the company website because those aren't needed to achieve the goal of briefly conveying what the company does. Marquardtika (talk) 20:17, 6 July 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Information on PPP loan to Waste Zero[edit]

In response to these edits:

  • 20:56, 12 August 2020‎ Jjjjjjjjjj Added information on the PPP loan to WasteZero which the Tillis campaign and the National Republican Senatorial Committee have sought to draw attention to saying that Cunningham was hypocritical
  • 23:38, 12 August 2020‎ Neutrality Challenging this newly added content as excessive (WP:WEIGHT); this is way overboard. Maybe some of this could be added, in shortened form, to 2020 United States Senate election in North Carolina
  • 05:23, 13 August 2020‎ Okay, perhaps it did get a bit long, and so I sought to compress it. I'll add Talk:Cal Cunningham#Information on PPP loan to Waste Zero, and can make an additional comment there.

One of the things that I tried to see before making the initial edit (20:56, 12 August 2020‎) is just how much the Tillis campaign and the Republican party in general is seeking to push the PPP loan to WasteZero issue.

I did a Google search for "criticism of Cal Cunningham", and that led to a Google Ad going to cluelesscal.com/ in which the first thing they talk about is the matter of taking a historic preservation tax credit, and then the second thing is the PPP loan to WasteZero. Although I didn't go through them the snippets on the search page from the other results seemed to suggest an emphasis on the PPP loan matter. I tried doing the Google search via a web proxy to try to see what the results might be for others and they looked similar.

The perceived emphasis of the Republican campaign influenced the edits, as I figured readers might go to Wikipedia to try to see what information there is on the issue.

Jjjjjjjjjj (talk) 05:34, 13 August 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for starting this discussion. I think the content is still undue weight in the context of this biographical article. It's a campaign mini-controversy, with an entirely expected back-and-forth between opposing candidates. Maybe a sentence or a few sentences belongs at 2020 United States Senate election in North Carolina, but this seems like horse-race, news-of-the-day stuff to me. Neutralitytalk 15:23, 13 August 2020 (UTC)[reply]

I think it's okay to go with a shorter wording as people can visit the WRAL site, and could dig deeper from there if they choose to do so.

I don't know precisely to what extent the Republican side is pushing the PPP loan to WasteZero issue.

As of this writing I see two other PolitiFactNC analyses relating to the Senate race. One is on an ad about Tillis and handwashing, and the other is on an ad about Cunningham and taxes.

But the analysis of the WasteZero PPP loan is considerably longer in length than the two more recent analyses. (I'm looking at the Trinity Audio "Listen to this article now" length)

Caption text
Title Date Length Ad Source WRAL Accuracy Rating
Fact check: Tillis says Cunningham criticized program that helped 'his company' July 17, 2020 8:05 Republican against Democrat Half True
Fact check: Ad takes Tillis handwashing comments out of context July 24, 2020 4:24 Democrat against Republican False
Fact check: Ad says Cunningham voted for '$1 billion in new taxes' August 12, 2020 3:36 Republican against Democrat True

And I mentioned above the Google search of "criticism of Cunningham" which returns an ad to https://cluelesscal.com/ . The Republican side also has https://www.cunninghamfactcheck.com/ , and when I did a search for "cunningham attack ad on tillis" an ad was returned going to https://www.dishonestcal.com/ . All of these sites are pushing the PPP loan to WasteZero hypocrisy charge.

Note that I'm doing the searches from my home in Raleigh, North Carolina. Even when I do a Google search for just "Cunningham" an ad appears going to https://cluelesscal.com while another goes to the Official Cal Cunningham campaign website.

I also did a ProQuest search for the text "PPP" and with the location field set to "North Carolina": 

PPP AND loc(North Carolina)
Additional limits - Date: Last 3 months; Source type: Magazines, Newspapers; Language: English

For this test there were 38 results, and I counted that 9 of them were related to the PPP loan to WasteZero.

One of them I found interesting is about how the PPP program has been a source of general controversy in Senate races throughout the country:

Paycheck program hits the campaign airwaves, Pandemic rescue measure touted and attacked in Senate battlegrounds, July 7, 2020 from Roll Call.

The concluding sentence of that article is, "It’s not likely to be the last ad of the campaign season on the subject."

So I think there's evidence that in North Carolina this is something that the Republican side is pushing, and which is part of the political conversation at this point in time.

And so I think creating a separate section heading is a reasonable thing to do as people might hear about it in a variety of different ways, and could then visit the Wikipedia article to try to get more information.

If it's in a separate section they could quickly see at the top a part of the article that addresses that, and could then visit the WRAL news site.

Jjjjjjjjjj (talk) 21:39, 17 August 2020 (UTC)[reply]

  • Thanks for this post, but I'm still challenging the material. The proper weight in this biographical article, at this moment, is zero. This is pretty typical campaign back-and-forth and I am not seeing how it is biographically significant (which is not the same thing as electorally significant). I agree that this can be covered at 2020 United States Senate election in North Carolina. This must stay out per WP:ONUS until a consensus develops. Feel free to take this to RfC if you like. Neutralitytalk 22:06, 17 August 2020 (UTC)[reply]
I'm inclined to agree with Neutrality. This may be worth mentioning in the article about the election, but I don't see how it's significant enough for this biographical article. —Granger (talk · contribs) 00:24, 18 August 2020 (UTC)[reply]

For what it's worth I see similar passages in other articles for candidates running in close US Senate races.

During Daine's 2014 Senate campaign, Democratic opponents alleged that Daines had outsourced U.S. jobs to China. Daines responded to this charge by saying that he created hundreds of jobs in Montana when he worked for RightNow Technologies.

In 2019 Gideon faced an election ethics complaint for breaking a political donation law by accepting reimbursements for her political donations from her own PAC. A spokesperson said, "The contributions were within the legal limit and fully disclosed, but the committee was given incorrect guidance on how to process them. The error was immediately addressed." The campaign said that it had reimbursed the federal government $3,250 for the violations and closed the PAC.

I don't see those parts of the articles as being at all problematic.

But perhaps we could ask this question.

How would this information be integrated within the article on the 2020 United States Senate election in North Carolina?

Looking at the articles on the close Senate races as judged by Cook Political Report I don't see any section on something such as political controversies, or campaign issues.

Just as an incidental point, looking at the articles on the candidates for each of those races, it looks like most of them have a section on political positions, but we don't actually have that for Cal Cunningham. That could be of service to readers (who might also be voters) as well.

Jjjjjjjjjj (talk) 07:27, 18 August 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Just a note that at John E. James we have "Renaissance Global, based in Detroit, was the recipient of a $1–2 million Paycheck Protection Program loan during the 2020 COVID-19 pandemic." Also Robin Vos has "His popcorn business, Robin J. Vos Enterprises, received more than $150,000 in coronavirus relief during the coronavirus pandemic of 2020." Is the thought that this type of content is WP:UNDUE in general? Marquardtika (talk) 14:11, 18 August 2020 (UTC)[reply]
It strikes me as more reasonable in those articles, as it's only one sentence (not rehashing campaign arguments) and James is the CEO of Renaissance Global while Vos is the president of Robin J. Vos Enterprises. In contrast, it seems Cunningham is an independent contractor (and former vice president) at WasteZero. We could create a new subsection in the election article about this minor controversy; see 2012 United States Senate election in Missouri for an example of how that can be done.
Adding a "Political positions" section sounds like a good idea to me. —Granger (talk · contribs) 20:14, 18 August 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Yes, that all makes sense to me. This wasn't particularly neutrally written. I also take objection to the manufacture of "controversies" on political pages. Just because the Democratic or GOP campaign arms run an ad about something doesn't make it a "controversy." We'd do well to focus on content that has probable enduring encyclopedic notability and not the campaign tit for tat of the day. Marquardtika (talk) 21:33, 18 August 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Okay, I can plan to work on it.

One question that could be asked: Would making a link in the WasteZero section (or in the 2020 Senate campaign section) to a newly created section in 2020 United States Senate election in North Carolina on the PPP loan be undue weight? Would it make a difference if that link was just in the WasteZero section or actually in a newly created subsection of the WasteZero section (similarly for the case of the 2020 Senate campaign section)?

@Marquardtika: What in that edit are you seeing as a neutral point of view issue?

Another question: If a section on the PPP loan was added to 2020 United States Senate election in North Carolina and if objection to it was raised are there people here who would back up the inclusion of that information in the other article?

I was looking at the policy guidelines including WP:WEIGHT and WP:BALASP which is right below WP:WEIGHT. Linked from WP:BALASP is WP:RECENTISM, and also WP:NOTNEWS, and from WP:NOTNEWS there is a link to WP:TOOMUCH.

I don't think the original or current objection here is really WP:WEIGHT. How could it be WP:WEIGHT? Who is the tiny minority that is being emphasized unduly? The people of the Republican party? But the people of the Republican party wouldn't be a tiny minority in US politics. The people of North Carolina? But the people of North Carolina wouldn't be a tiny minority in the context of an article on a North Carolina political leader running for an office to represent North Carolina in a national body.

I think the objection is really more something such as: WP:BALASP, WP:RECENTISM, WP:NOTNEWS, WP:TOOMUCH. More or less that it's too minor a thing to include in the biographical article.

But the underlying sentiment behind this seems to me quite possibly just a more general WP:NPOV issue that in the midst of the election inclusion of that information favors the Republican side over the Democrat side.

Looking at the article history it is true that the original inclusion by CharlesShirley with the link to North State Journal seems to me to favor a right leaning take on it. That content was then moved around by Nevermore27 in these two edits: 1 2. It stayed there for about a week, and then it was moderated and scaled back in this edit with a link to the WRAL analysis by Forward760 (the link to North State Journal was removed).

When I saw that I was curious about it, looked into it, and expanded it in that edit on August 12th (perhaps hitting against WP:TOOMUCH in the process).

But I was trying to keep to WP:NPOV the whole time.

And aside from the nuance of particular policy guidelines I think that's the main thing. To try to stick as best we can to WP:NPOV.

Does inclusion favor too much the Republican side? Or does it favor too much the Democrat side? I don't know. I can see that recently about 1,200 access the article each day, but I don't know why people accessed the article or what exactly they might have been looking for. I'm not sure how 1,200 per day compares to other media sources in the course of an election in North Carolina.

There's about 7 million registered voters in North Carolina, and so if it was say about 1,000 per day for the next 70 days till the election that would be about 1% of the registered voters till the election. The estimate assumes that it remains constant, that views are unique, and that each reader is a voter, which are just simplifying assumptions for the purpose of making an estimate.

As I said above I don't know if it benefits one side too much over the other. I could say that having seen some of the Republican ads I then get more ads with the Republican message, and also got a mailing from the Republican side.

So say if somebody just keeps doing Google searches they may certainly see the WRAL fact check, but above that can be plenty of Republican ads, and they might just keep clicking on Republican ads.

And so if they go to the Wikipedia article on Cal Cunningham, and they don't see anything on it, then they might just keep doing Google searches and looking at Republican ads.

I think about that Roosevelt quote on Neutrality's userpage,"Democracy cannot succeed unless those who express their choice are prepared to choose wisely. The real safeguard of democracy, therefore, is education." So, in that hypothetical, the voter wouldn't necessarily have gotten the opportunity to get more educated about that issue when they accessed the article on Cal Cunningham.

On the other hand it is true that if that information isn't included at all, then people may not hear about it in any way whatsoever. And maybe that makes sense because it's too minor a thing.

Or at some point they may go to the 2020 United States Senate election in North Carolina, and if that's added and allowed to stay be able to get whatever information we would provide there (say the WRAL analysis on it).

The policy guidelines don't talk about things like page views, and as far as I know there's no policy guidelines for elections (there is Wikipedia:WikiProject Elections and Referendums). But I don't think we should be ostrich like and pretend as though the only thing that matters is the policy guidelines and the article, and that this whole thing isn't happening within a larger context.

The spike in the number of views, the increase in the number of edits, increase in the number of editors, and the very existence of this discussion: that's all because of the election.

So I think we should try to be fair to both sides, and try out best to maintain WP:NPOV.

Jjjjjjjjjj (talk) 05:14, 21 August 2020 (UTC)[reply]

In this edit, I didn't like the phrasing "A controversy arose" or "The Thom Tillis campaign accused Cunningham of hypocrisy." Looking at the source, in reference to Waste Zero it says "Cunningham is not a founder and the campaign says he has no ownership stake. He was on the payroll for seven years and now works for the firm on a contract basis." So the Tillis campaign ran an ad criticizing Cunningham. It's pretty WP:MILL campaign stuff. The fact that Cunningham is a contract employee of a company that got a PPP loan doesn't seem that notable to me. Marquardtika (talk) 14:57, 21 August 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Okay, one way or another, I can share the results of the test I just ran tonight.

What I did is to go through the tweets from Thom Tillis starting at the July 7th tweet that was mentioned in the WRAL report on the PPP loan. As of this writing the last tweet that I see is the one on National Dog Day.

I counted the number of total tweets, and the number that speak about Cal Cunningham and hypocrisy related to the PPP loan program. I didn't count tweets that just talk about PPP without the claim of hypocrisy on the part of Cunningham.

So going back to July 7th I count 207 tweets, and 51 on the PPP loan issue that the WRAL report covered.

Which is about 1/4th or 25% of the total.

I could also seek to go through tweets from the Cunningham side, but after going through the tweets from the Tillis side I think the only other thing that might be worth mentioning would be related to taxes.

And there is also a WRAL report related to that:

Fact Check: Ad says Cunningham voted for '$1 billion in new taxes'

So I recall that Marquardtika said that, "We'd do well to focus on content that has probable enduring encyclopedic notability and not the campaign tit for tat of the day."

Yet I kind of think that if one were to go with say a rough rule of thumb of approximately 25% of tweets or more then it wouldn't necessarily be just the campaign "tit for tat" but would be perhaps the two, three, or four issues that within that election came to public attention at some level.

This article for example is getting now only about 20 views a day, but that doesn't mean that it wouldn't be potentially useful to historians or other people.

2012 Republican Party presidential debates and forums

I had it in my Firefox history, because I accessed it while doing the lecture transcripts on international and global history.

Perhaps an argument could be made that the work isn't going to get done for all the elections, and would be less likely to get done for smaller elections, and I think that could be very well true.

But that doesn't mean that at least some of it could get done, and that it could be useful to readers and included as long it's sufficiently notable.

Also, just as a final thought, I think the rape and pregnancy controversy in the 2012 Missouri election was more significant than the PPP loan issue. I recall hearing about that all the way here in North Carolina.

If the standard was something as significant as that or more then the PPP loan issue wouldn't be included, but then that information wouldn't be available to people on Wikipedia, both before the election and also after.

Jjjjjjjjjj (talk) 04:21, 27 August 2020 (UTC)[reply]

The tweet counts look like more reason to think this is just a campaign argument, not a reason to include it in a biographical article. —Granger (talk · contribs) 09:02, 27 August 2020 (UTC)[reply]


@Mx. Granger: Well, one way or another, I don't think there's some exact answer on it. If I had said that 34+27=51 and somebody had said that I had forgotten the carry, and it was actually 61 I would concede that I had made a mistake. I had thought it would just sail through without comment or objection like the vast majority of my other edits on Wikipedia. Or if not that there could just be some reasonable compromise worked out for including a little bit of information about a topic that's been in the news in North Carolina. It was surprising to me that it kept getting deleted. I didn't really know what to make of it. But I don't think a small mention of that issue is really in any way a problem whether in this article or in 2020 United States Senate election in North Carolina.

So maybe at some point I'll do the RfC as was recommended at the beginning, and also recommended by Cordless Larry.

If the consensus from the RfC is for exclusion then the current state of the article on that issue is consistent with that consensus.

But I can seek to put forth a concise argument consistent with my original view which is that it's okay to mention that briefly in this article.

Jjjjjjjjjj (talk) 03:22, 28 August 2020 (UTC)[reply]

After going through the Tweets from the Republican side I figured it was reasonable to go through the Tweets from the Democratic side. I wanted to try to do it reasonably soon after going through the Tweets from the Republican side.

So this was slightly different in that there wasn't anything that I was looking for specifically at the outset.

I started then by going backward from the present, and looking for categories to count up which constituted political attacks on the Republican side:

  • Unemployment Programs - Mostly at the national level, but also based on Tillis's record at the state level.
  • Healthcare - Affordable Care Act (ACA) and Medicaid, but I didn't count public service announcement on COVID-19 which aren't really political attacks. Cunningham also specifically mentions healthcare in the pinned tweet at the top.
  • US Postal Service and Louis DeJoy - These tweets are the most recent ones that have been going out to people.

I started from July 7th like I did for the Republican side. Some of the tweets had some element of Tillis and McConnell on recess or on vacation while problems remain unaddressed.

After going back to July 7th to pick categories I then moved forward in time from July 7th, and counted up how many were in each category. I didn't count retweets which Cunningham did but which I don't believe Tillis did.

Total tweets: 225

Caption text
Category Total Percent
Unemployment Programs 20 8.9%
Healthcare 24 10.7%
US Postal Service 10 4.4%


Based on the results from this analysis it doesn't appear that the Democrat side is doing as much political attacking as the Republican side is.

At least on Twitter, over the time period looked at, nor is the Democrat side doing much political defending against attacks on it from the Republican side. The Republican side also isn't defending against attacks on it from the Democrat side.

In none of the tweets from Cunningham is there anything about a PPP loan to WasteZero, or a response to Tillis's tweets on Cunningham's voting record in the North Carolina State legislature with respect to budgets and taxes.

In none of the tweets from Tillis is there much that I recall directly related to Medicaid expansion, the ACA, or unemployment insurance.

Jjjjjjjjjj (talk) 03:22, 28 August 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Personal life-Cal Cunningham sending sexual messages to a woman who is not his wife. He has admitted and apologised for this.[edit]

Cal Cunningham is married with two children.[1][2][3][4][5] In October 2020 it was reported that Cunningham had sent sexually explicit text messages to California public relations strategist Arlene Guzman Todd.[6][7][8][9][10][11] Cunningham has admitted and apologised for sending the messages. [12][13][14][15][16]

There should be a personal life section added to his page that says the above, that he is married with two children, and apologised and admitted to sexually messages a woman not his wife. The sources are good, and there are plenty more online that can be added. See Wikipedia:Reliable sources/Perennial sources. --2001:8003:59DB:4100:A97C:6B3D:9A2A:D8CF (talk) 21:12, 3 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]

References

  1. ^ https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/us-politics/cal-cunningham-admits-sending-sexual-texts-strategist-cal-cunningham-wife-thom-tillis-support-ap-b755718.html?amp
  2. ^ https://justfacts.votesmart.org/candidate/biography/40999/cal-cunningham
  3. ^ https://www.calfornc.com/meet-cal/
  4. ^ https://amp.newsobserver.com/news/politics-government/article246191610.html
  5. ^ https://apnews.com/article/senate-elections-north-carolina-archive-cal-cunningham-dea469d30c56cfada78244a8af6065b3
  6. ^ https://www.dailywire.com/news/democrat-senate-candidate-sent-sexual-texts-to-woman-who-isnt-his-wife
  7. ^ https://www.usnews.com/news/best-states/north-carolina/articles/2020-10-03/cal-cunningham-admits-to-sending-sexual-texts-to-strategist
  8. ^ https://www.newsobserver.com/news/politics-government/article246191610.html
  9. ^ https://www.fox13memphis.com/news/politics/cal-cunningham/POAWWGHQDM6AYUXRJAT7VWN2NA/
  10. ^ https://www.wral.com/cal-cunningham-admits-to-sexual-messages-with-calif-woman-will-stay-in-senate-race/19318069/
  11. ^ https://www.wsoctv.com/news/local/cal-cunningham-admits-sending-sexts-woman-who-is-not-his-wife/XU32Q6F735CYFGRAJ5GJXVEDIU/
  12. ^ https://www.usnews.com/news/best-states/north-carolina/articles/2020-10-03/cal-cunningham-admits-to-sending-sexual-texts-to-strategist
  13. ^ https://www.dailywire.com/news/democrat-senate-candidate-sent-sexual-texts-to-woman-who-isnt-his-wife
  14. ^ https://apnews.com/article/senate-elections-north-carolina-archive-cal-cunningham-dea469d30c56cfada78244a8af6065b3
  15. ^ https://amp.newsobserver.com/news/politics-government/article246191610.html
  16. ^ https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/us-politics/cal-cunningham-admits-sending-sexual-texts-strategist-cal-cunningham-wife-thom-tillis-support-ap-b755718.html?amp
Neutrality, I would really appreciate your advice and judgement here. KidAd talk 21:23, 3 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]
KidAd: The IP user's text is bad for multiple reasons: (1) WP:OVERCITE, (2) unnecessarily names the other woman (who is low-profile and whose name has not been widely reported - WP:BLP); (3) does not reflect source material ("suggestive" or "romantic" or "flirtatious" are the words most RS are using, not "explicit"); (4) fails to make clear that the texting was mutual (sources usually say "exchanged" and we should not imply unsolicited conduct); and (5) Daily Wire is not RS. But I agree the article should briefly mention the occurrence without these pitfalls, and I've inserted two sentences in a "personal life" section. See what you think. Neutralitytalk 00:20, 4 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Neutrality, Thank you. You said this in a far more eloquent way than I could. I was dealing with multiple things at once, but it appears that the IP has backed off. I think the content added to the "personal life" section is good for now. As the story is picked up, I'm sure more information will be released. KidAd talk 00:44, 4 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Sending romantic messages to his non-wife doesn't belong in the lead[edit]

It belongs in the personal life or 2020 campaign sections, yes. But not the lead. Snooganssnoogans (talk) 01:09, 7 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]

I disagree; it merits a sentence. Per WP:LEAD, it's amply represented in the body with its own subsection, and while it's not WP:DUE as an aspect of his personal life, it is due as an aspect of his political career. We have room for a sentence describing the trajectory of his campaign, and the sex scandal is obviously the most defining aspect of it. {{u|Sdkb}} talk 20:15, 12 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Affair[edit]

@RedHotPear: opening a discussion here re. this reversion which removed "Adultery is prohibited by the military and soldiers can be prosecuted for it. The husband of the woman who confirmed having an affair with Cunningham, himself an Army veteran, called on Cunningham to drop out of his 2020 Senate race." I thought this content added context to the preceding sentence, which is "The Army Reserve subsequently started an investigation into Cunningham." The Army didn't disclose the nature of the investigation, but the cited sources noted that adultery is prohibited by military members, and that the husband of Cunningham's paramour is also a military member, which seemed relevant in light of the investigation. There is loads of coverage of this whole incident, so we need to figure out what to include here. We could also include that Cunningham declined multiple times to say whether he participated in other extramarital affairs, per this, this, and this. I also wonder if we should include that he initially only confirmed that he had exchanged text messages--he did not admit to a full-blown affair until after the Associated Press published more evidence of the affair. According to Chuck Schumer, Cunningham was supposed to "spend the next 16 months in a windowless basement raising money." According to the New York Times, "Throughout his race, Mr. Cunningham has leaned heavily on his character and biography, playing up his military service and presenting himself as an inoffensive moderate." Politico says "Cunningham was making character, integrity and a military background such an integral part of his race." Some combo of the above content should be integrated into the article if we are to reflect what reliable sources are saying. Marquardtika (talk) 20:44, 9 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Also The Washington Post: "Cunningham struggled to refocus his U.S. Senate campaign on policy issues after acknowledging an extramarital relationship last week...he repeatedly ducked questions about his relationship with a California woman, declining to address repeated requests to know whether more affair allegations are coming." This October surprise is pretty clearly the major story of a campaign in a significant U.S. Senate race. I get the feeling that if Cunningham were a Republican, a lot more of the considerable RS coverage would be in the article already 🤔 Marquardtika (talk) 03:06, 10 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]
An entire sub-section is already devoted to it. The existing text is sufficient. Snooganssnoogans (talk) 03:40, 10 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]
We have five sentences on the topic. If length is a concern, maybe one of them should be: "Asked repeatedly whether he had carried on other extramarital affairs, Cunningham declined to answer."[1][2][3][4] As detailed above, he has run on a platform emphasizing his character. It seems rather noteworthy that while he was running such a campaign, he was also conducting an affair. And the affair was amidst the coronavirus pandemic--not very good social distancing, and I'm guessing his lady friend didn't wear a mask when she visited him at his family home. Tsk, tsk indeed. Marquardtika (talk) 04:09, 10 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Marquard, this is a short article as it is, and to conform to WP:DUE weight, we should not be running ahead of ourselves and incorporating every sensationalized headline or adding what we believe highlights his hypocrisy the most. We should also be particularly careful with a WP:BLP. At this point, the article should generally reflect that this event with significant coverage occurred and provide the overall outline of the story, which the existing text already does.
I also believe this sentence ("Several days after the first text messages were released, more were published.") should be removed because it is not important to the story. RedHotPear (talk) 00:47, 11 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]

References

  1. ^ Kane, Paul (October 9, 2020). "Cunningham struggles to refocus N.C. Senate campaign after acknowledging extramarital relationship". Washington Post. Retrieved 10 October 2020.
  2. ^ Leslie, Laura (9 October 2020). "Asked four times whether there are more affairs not yet known, Cunningham declined to say yes or no". WRAL.com. Retrieved 10 October 2020.
  3. ^ "Cal Cunningham dodges several questions during first news conference since sexting scandal". WSOC. October 9, 2020. Retrieved 10 October 2020.
  4. ^ Greenwood, Max (9 October 2020). "Cunningham dodges questions about text message scandal". TheHill. Retrieved 10 October 2020.
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