from rush limbaugh mocking michael j. fox’ parkinson’s disease to negative ads that are egregiously offensive, the republicans have not just ceded the moral high-ground, they are wallowing in truly despicable filth.
i don’t see how anyone can support the republicans at this point. i’m ashamed to share my country with these people.
please read this article for more examples.
moby
The Year Of Playing Dirtier
Negative Ads Get Positively Surreal
By Michael Grunwald
Washington Post Staff Writer
Friday, October 27, 2006; Page A01
Rep. Ron Kind pays for sex!
Well, that’s what the Republican challenger for his Wisconsin congressional seat, Paul R. Nelson, claims in new ads, the ones with “XXX” stamped across Kind’s face.
It turns out that Kind — along with more than 200 of his fellow hedonists in the House — opposed an unsuccessful effort to stop the National Institutes of Health from pursuing peer-reviewed sex studies. According to Nelson’s ads, the Democrat also wants to “let illegal aliens burn the American flag” and “allow convicted child molesters to enter this country.”
On the brink of what could be a power-shifting election, it is kitchen-sink time: Desperate Republican candidates are throwing everything. While negative campaigning is a tradition in American politics, this year’s version in many races has an eccentric shade, filled with allegations of moral bankruptcy and sexual perversion.
The result has been a carnival of ugly, where operatives are trying to counter what polls show is a hostile political environment by casting opponents as fatally flawed characters. The National Republican Campaign Committee is spending more than 90 percent of its advertising budget on negative ads, according to GOP operatives, and the rest of the party seems to be following suit. A few examples of the “character issues” taking center stage two weeks before Election Day:
· In New York, the NRCC ran an ad accusing Democratic House candidate Michael A. Arcuri, a district attorney, of using taxpayer dollars for phone sex. “Hi, sexy,” a dancing woman purrs. “You’ve reached the live, one-on-one fantasy line.” It turns out that one of Arcuri’s aides had tried to call the state Division of Criminal Justice, which had a number that was almost identical to that of a porn line. The misdial cost taxpayers $1.25.
In Ohio, GOP gubernatorial candidate J. Kenneth Blackwell, trailing by more than 20 points in polls, has accused front-running Democratic Rep. Ted Strickland of protecting a former aide who was convicted in 1994 on a misdemeanor indecency charge. Blackwell’s campaign is also warning voters through suggestive “push polls” that Strickland failed to support a resolution condemning sex between adults and children. Strickland, a psychiatrist, objected to a line suggesting that sexually abused children cannot have healthy relationships when they grow up.
The Republican Party of Wisconsin distributed a mailing linking Democratic House candidate Steve Kagen to a convicted serial killer and child rapist. The supposed connection: The “bloodthirsty” attorney for the killer had also done legal work for Kagen.
· In two dozen congressional districts, a political action committee supported by a white Indianapolis businessman, J. Patrick Rooney, is running ads saying Democrats want to abort black babies. A voice says, “If you make a little mistake with one of your hos, you’ll want to dispose of that problem tout de suite, no questions asked.”
· In the most controversial recent ad, the Republican National Committee slammed Rep. Harold E. Ford Jr. (D-Tenn.) for attending a Playboy-sponsored Super Bowl party. In the ad, a scantily clad white actress winks as she reminisces about good times with Ford, who is black. That ad has been pulled, but the RNC has a new one saying Ford “wants to give the abortion pill to schoolchildren.”
Some Democrats are playing rough, too. House candidate Chris Carney is running ads slamming the “family values” of Rep. Don Sherwood (R-Pa.), whose former mistress accused him of choking her. And House candidate Kirsten Gillibrand has an ad online ridiculing Rep. John E. Sweeney (R-N.Y.) for attending a late-night fraternity party. “What’s a 50-year-old man doing at a frat party anyway?” one young woman asks, as a faux Sweeney boogies behind her to the Beastie Boys. “Totally creeping me out!” another responds.
But most harsh Democratic attacks have focused on the policies and performance of the GOP majority, trying to link Republicans to Bush, the unpopular war in Iraq and the scandals involving former representative Mark Foley and former lobbyist Jack Abramoff. That is not surprising, given that polls show two-thirds of the electorate thinks the country is going in the wrong direction. And studies show that negative ads can reduce turnout; Democrats hope a constant drumbeat of scandal, Iraq and “stay the course” will persuade conservatives to stay home on Nov. 7.
It is harder for Republicans to blame out-of-power Democrats for the current state of Washington, but they are equally eager to depress Democratic turnout and fire up their conservative base. One GOP strategy has been raising the specter of House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, a San Francisco liberal, becoming speaker; for example, Rep. John N. Hostettler (R-Ind.) is airing radio ads warning that a Democratic victory would allow Pelosi to “put in motion her radical plan to advance the homosexual agenda.”
Some of this year’s negative ads are more substantive, reprising a successful Republican strategy from 2002 and 2004: portraying Democrats as soft on terrorism. A host of Democrats have been accused of trying to “cut and run” in Iraq — including House candidate Tammy Duckworth of Illinois, who lost both legs in Iraq.
The “pays for sex” ad against Kind in Wisconsin — along with a similar one aired against Rep. Brad Miller (D-N.C.) — may be the most extreme. It says Kind spent tax dollars to study “the sex lives of Vietnamese prostitutes” and “the masturbation habits of old men” and “to pay teenage girls to watch pornographic movies with probes connected to their genitalia.” Cue the punch line: “Ron Kind pays for sex, but not for soldiers.” The Wisconsin Republican Party denounced the ad, and several TV stations refused to air it, but that only got it more attention. It is the centerpiece of Nelson’s Web site: “This ad is so powerful, a sitting U.S. Congressman threatened TV stations with legal action if they dared to play it.”
Kind joked in an interview that he has been paying for sex ever since he said “I do.” But on a more serious note, he said Nelson’s attack ad is typical of modern politics, in which desperate candidates can attract media coverage and rally their base with distortion. He opposed the amendment in question — as did many Republicans — because he does not think Congress should interfere in peer-reviewed NIH studies, not because of any interest in teenage genitalia. That particular study, incidentally, had nothing to do with teenagers.
“Man, it’s a crazy system, and it’s getting worse every year,” Kind said. “We rip each other to shreds, and then we’re all supposed to come back to Washington and try to work together. It’s a hell of a way to elect representatives.”