One of the seemingly infinite number of political blogs out there, The New York Times’s The Caucus recently featured a North Carolinian’s perspective on the state’s senatorial race between incumbent Republican candidate (and Duke graduate) Elizabeth Dole and Democrat and current state Sen. Kay Hagan.
I do understand that unfortunately TV ad attacks are part of the political process but, if they are going to be used, use them on the political issues, not on a personal or religious level. The race between these two ladies is very close. Polls do show Ms. Hagan ahead but the only poll that counts is the one taken next Tuesday. I just hope that those who have not voted yet will vote, not based on what Senator Dole said about her opponent and not on what her opponent said about Senator Dole, but on how one of them will help us through the many problems we are all facing.
Another way to look at it, however, is as a testament to how far away North Carolina has moved away from the racial politics of Jesse Helms. An African-American is at the top of the ballot for Democrats this year, yet he’s not the focus of the flailing, last-minute Dole ad. Who would have believed that just a few short years ago?
The title of their post, “Dole ‘Godless’ ad shows progress, sort of,” makes an attempt to qualify their point about this situation. Both religion- and race-based lies, hatred, and discrimination have been a part of political campaigns for quite some time. Readers, do you, like The Chicago Tribune’s writer, think the “Godless” ad shows progress of some sort?
Bonus link #1 — Act III: Dole responds to Hagan’s response, saying “Kay Hagan’s faith? Not the question.”
Though many races around the country have seen an increase in negative campaign ads in the last few days before the election, one in North Carolina has caught the attention of the national media, including outlets such as CNN, Fox News, and the Huffington Post.
United States Sen. Elizabeth Dole, a Republican, began running an ad this week that accuses her Democratic opponent, North Carolna State Sen. Kay Hagan, of being “godless”.
Dole’s add refers to a September fundraiser Hagan attended at the home of Wendy Kaminer and Woody Kaplan, members of the Secular Coalition of America. Kaplan is also a member of the Godless Americans PAC. The group states supporting candidates who do not believe in God as one of its objectives, along with removing references to God from the Pledge of Allegiance and U. S. currency.
The group also works to support candidates who believe in a separation of church and state, regardless of those specific candidates’ religious beliefs. The ad features a picture of Hagan and a voice-over of another woman, not Hagan, saying, “There is no God.”
The Hagan campaign has expressed outrage, threatening to file for a “cease-and-desist-order” against Dole if the ad doesn’t stop running.
Prominent Republican campaign strategist Ed Rollins called Dole’s ad “desperate” on CNN’s “Lou Dobbs Tonight” show, saying that the Senator should be ashamed of herself.
Negative TV ads are not new to North Carolina Senate races. Former Republican Sen. Jesse Helms produced a famous TV ad in 1990 titled “White Hands,” showing a white worker crumpling up a job rejection notice and blaming it on minority quotas.
This isn’t the first time that Dole has been accused of unsavory campaign tactics. Early on in Dole’s ultimately successful 2002 Senate run, she was the target of a Democrat-funded ad criticizing her participation in a fundraiser hosted by former Enron CEO Ken Lay. Dole’s campaign later donated money to a fund for jobless former Enron employees.
The “Godless” ad is only one in a series of negative campaign ads in the Dole-Hagan face off. An earlier pro-Hagan ad funded by the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee features two elderly men sitting on a porch in rocking chairs arguing about whether Dole is 92 or 93. Dole’s campaign complained that the ad was ageist, although the ad does ultimately explain that the numbers refer to Dole voting with Bush 92% of the time, and being ranked 93 in effectiveness out of 100 Senators by an outside agency.
Despite widespread shock in response to Dole’s recent ad, the trend toward mudslinging isn’t new, and it doesn’t look like it’s going to change anytime soon.
