REPUBLICANS OPEN A SECOND FRONT IN THE PAUL PELOSI NARRATIVE WAR

Republicans told you Paul Pelosi got his skull cracked with a hammer because "Democrat" cities are unsafe. They told you Pelosi and the attacker were having a secret gay assignation. They told you the attacker was too mentally ill to have any relevant political opinions (except his earlier lefty ones, which were extremely significant). They told you the attacker is an "illegal alien" (a long-time visa overstayer from Canada).

But they're not finished.

All of a sudden, a two-week-old incident involving the family of a North Carolina congressional candidate is becoming national news. From AP:

A recent shooting at the Hickory, North Carolina, residence of GOP congressional candidate Pat Harrigan’s parents and young children caused no injuries but placed “tremendous stress” on the family in the final weeks of his campaign, Harrigan’s mother said Thursday....

Marla Harrigan, 74, told The Associated Press on Thursday that she and her husband James Harrigan were watching television down the hall when a bullet shattered their laundry room window on the night of Oct. 18. The Hickory Police Department responded to their 911 call and noted in the police report that the incident involved a firearm.

The congressional candidate’s children, ages 3 and 5, were asleep in the bedroom directly above the room where the shooting occurred, Marla Harrigan said. The bullet came from a densely wooded area and did not wake the kids.

She said the two children have been living with their grandparents in Hickory, about 57 miles northwest of Charlotte, for much of the campaign cycle. They have since been relocated out of state “out of an abundance of caution after the shooting,” she said, adding that her son is urging his parents to leave town as well.

Hickory Police Department spokesperson Kristen Hart said the department has not made arrests related to the incident and that the investigation is ongoing.

More, from Britain's frequently pro-GOP Daily Mail:

Harrigan, a firearms manufacturer and former Green Beret, has since come forward to assert he would not be intimidated by the shooting, and that 'death threats aren't enough to knock this Green Beret off that mission.'

Harrigan is tying this to an ad made by his Democratic opponent.

His opponent ... Democrat Jeff Jackson, has been forced to pull an ad filmed outside his opponent's lakeside home criticizing his gun manufacturing business, as well as his ownership of a ritzy home in a neighborhood outside the confines of the 14th Congressional District.

The ad shows a man on a jet ski as a narrator tells listeners Harrigan 'made a fortune' off tragedies such as the Sandy Hook Shooting, and bought a lake house. It then shows an image of Harrigan's home, which is not far from that of his parents. It was released on the day of the shooting....

So, to sum up: Republican Pat Harrigan made very nice money as a gun manufacturer. His Democratic opponent made an ad noting this and highlighting a posh home owned by the Republican outside the congressional district. The day the ad was released, a shooting took place -- no injuries, but the shots went into a house where the Republican's children were sleeping. Oh, by the way:

The home pictured in the ad was not the one that was shot.

Police are still investigating.

I could speculate that the Republican arranged to have his parents' home shot at while his kids were sleeping there, but I don't think even a guy who refers to himself as "this Green Beret" would be quite that psychopathic. However, I do have questions about why we're hearing this now.

The incident happened two weeks ago. Let's assume that Harrigan didn't want the news to go public at the time because he worried about copycat incidents. But all of a sudden he's not worried. All of a sudden he wants this story out, possibly in the hope that it will give him momentum right before Election Day. (The district, newly created after the 2020 census, is considered safely Democratic, but maybe not enough to prevent an upset.)

Or maybe the national party wants the story out now, in the wake of the Pelosi attack.

Whatever's happening here, I expect this to be a massive story on the right. The chairwoman of the Republican Party is already on it (although she wrongly states that the incident took place at "his home" -- possibly an innocent error, possibly a strategic massaging of the truth).

.@PatHarriganNC wears a bulletproof vest to events, received death threats, and now his home was shot at after his opponent filmed an ad outside his home.

A bullet landed feet away from his sleeping kids. Why is the media barely covering this?https://t.co/6cDdQi2z5Y

— Ronna McDaniel (@GOPChairwoman) November 4, 2022

I expect the mainstream media to ignore the story, which will give the right several days to develop and distrubute talking points. Then the right will chastise the mainstream media for ignoring the story, which will result in an extra cycle of grievance. Rinse and repeat. It's the way we live now.