I'm just grateful this blew up in Dole's face.


No Regrets: Dole Staffer Defends Ad Attacking `Godless Americans'

By Rob Boston

Fri Mar 06, 2009 at 10:32:45 AM EST  print story


        Let's pretend it's the middle of October, and John Doe and Jane
Smith are both seeking the same U.S. Senate seat. Doe, who is down a few
points in the polls, hears a rumor that Smith attended a fund-raiser
sponsored by a Jewish group at the home of a couple who happen to be
Jewish.
Doe's campaign runs a television ad, replete with scary music, that
says: "Jewish Americans and Jane Smith. She hid from cameras. Took
`Jewish' money. What did Jane Smith promise in return?"

John Doe and his staff members who devised this ad are enormous bigots,
right? No one would hesitate to point that out. No right-thinking person
would defend such an ad.

Plug in another religion if you like. "Jane Smith took `Buddhist' money,
Jane Smith took `Hindu' money," etc. Doe and co. are still bigots.

It would seem to follow, then, that Doe and his staffers are still
bigots when they accuse Smith of taking money from atheists, calling it
"Godless money."

You may recognize this scenario. It played out in North Carolina last
year when U.S. Sen. Elizabeth Dole attacked opponent Kay Hagan because
Hagan attended a fund-raiser held at the home of two atheists. (The
couple - businessman Woody Kaplan and author Wendy Kaminer - sponsored
the event, not any "Godless" group.)

Recently, the man who engineered that ad, Marty Ryall, reflected on the
campaign for Politics Magazine. Ryall talks about how the ad came to be
aired and discusses some of the challenges Dole faced in her campaign.

Ryall recounts all of this in a matter-of-fact way. He writes, "We had
polled the issue in mid-September and found that it tested very well
among the key groups that we needed to win. We needed to raise intensity
among Republican voters, as well as shift the focus of Independents and
conservative Democrats from our negatives to Kay Hagan in an unfavorable
way. We needed something that had some shock value and would also
generate an earned media component - and that was the `Godless' issue."

It apparently never occurred to Ryall that he was engaging in rank
bigotry, that the type of ad he green-lighted would never have been
considered had it tarred any other group. He does no soul-searching and
never once questions whether the decision to use the ad in any way
damaged his integrity (perhaps because he doesn't have any to damage).
Ryall's only regret is that the ad didn't work!

Now, I didn't just fall off the turnip truck yesterday. I've lived in
the Washington area for 23 years and followed politics before moving
here. I know what campaigns are about and am aware that politics is a
blood sport. The sad truth is, if you want your candidate to win, you
have to explain not just why he or she is so great but why his or her
opponent is not to be trusted.

Yep, it's rough-and-tumble out there. But that doesn't mean there are
absolutely no boundaries. Over the years, certain types of attacks have
become unacceptable. Blatant appeals to racism have more or less dried
up, and rank anti-Semitism is no longer tolerated.

Yet Ryall seems to think it's still OK to attack an entire class of
Americans as somehow evil, dangerous or un-American because of what they
believe (or don't believe) about God. Dole must feel the same way, since
she signed off on this repulsive ad and defended it to the hilt.

This is appalling bigotry. We can all take solace in the fact that
Ryall's cynical and wicked scheme backfired badly. Let's hope he learns
from that.

I don't expect Ryall to suddenly get ethical - I suspect it's too late
for that. But perhaps the fact that Dole lost by 9 points will help him
understand that next time, religious bigotry is not the way to propel
your candidate to victory.

As for Dole, all I can say is that this was an especially shameful way
to end a political career.

http://tinyurl.com/aq9v5h

--- Xnews/5.04.25