The Republican side of the primary continues to be the most dramatic. After weeks of bad press for Congresswoman Jean Schmidt it’s time for Bob McEwen to be on the receiving end.

The Enquirer today came out with a pair of in depth stories on McEwen, detailing his recent career as a Washington lobbyist as well as the continuing questions of his residency. McEwen campion The Whistleblower was quick to label them as smears and hit pieces in tomorrow’s issue. Blogger Axinar came down on the side of McEwen really being a resident of Virginia.

While the general information contained in the pieces is nothing new, one specific bit did stand out:

…McEwen, who served on the House Intelligence Committee while in Congress, said most of his lobbying has been for international clients, such as the Republic of Uzbekistan, which hired the firm in 2002 to help the country secure U.S. aid after it helped with the war on terror in Afghanistan. “We could not have done the operation in Afghanistan without the cooperation of Uzbekistan,” McEwen said.

Uzbekistan has a very troubled recent history. From the Wikipedia:

…credible non-government human right watchdogs, such as IHF, Human Rights Watch, Amnesty International, as well as United States Department of State and Council of the European Union define Uzbekistan as “an authoritarian state with limited civil rights” and express profound concern about “wide-scale violation of virtually all basic human rights”. According to the reports, the most widespread violations are torture, arbitrary arrests, and various restrictions of freedoms: of religion, of speech and press, of free association and assembly. The reports maintain that the violations are most often committed against members of religious organizations, independent journalists, human right activists, and political activists, including members of the banned opposition parties. In 2005, Uzbekistan was included into Freedom House’s “The Worst of the Worst: The World’s Most Repressive Societies”

Still, I can’t really see Republicans having a problem with McEwen’s lobbying for foreign dictatorships given the activities on behave of such nations as Saudi Arabia by the Bush clan and their allies.

On the plus side the McEwen campaign issued a press release stating that most of the candidates that ran in last years special election are backing him for Congress. Included in the release were Doug Mink, Eric Minamyer, Tom Brinkman, and Steve Austin. The most surprising endorsement comes from Eric Minamyer who was a big backer of Jean Schmidt when she was running against Paul Hackett.

BizzyBlog gives a breakdown of each of the endorsers.