Posted on 09/21/2014 5:51:52 PM PDT by Second Amendment First
Gabby Giffords, irreproachable figure of sympathy, has fashioned an improbable new role for herself this election year: ruthless attack dog.
The former Democratic congresswoman, whose recovery from a gunshot wound to the head captivated the country, has unleashed some of the nastiest ads of the campaign season, going after GOP candidates in Arizona and New Hampshire with attacks even some left-leaning commentators say go too far. And Republicans on the receiving end are largely helpless to hit back, knowing a fight with the much-admired survivor is not one they’re likely to win.
Some of the toughest spots from Giffords’ newly formed pro-gun-control super PAC, Americans for Responsible Solutions, hammer Republican Martha McSally, a retired Air Force pilot who is running for the Arizona seat Giffords once held. One features a wrenching testimonial from a woman named Vicki who weeps and stumbles over her words as she recounts how her 19-year-old daughter was hunted down and murdered by an enraged ex-boyfriend.
(PHOTOS: Gabrielle Giffords’ congressional career)
“He had threatened her before. I knew. I just knew,” Vicki says. A narrator then declares that McSally “opposes making it harder for stalkers to get a gun.”
It’s no accident that Giffords is singling out McSally, people close to the former congresswoman say.
During her unsuccessful 2012 campaign, McSally ran TV commercials comparing herself to Giffords. The Giffords team fumed, and her husband, retired astronaut Mark Kelly, released a terse statement declaring, “Martha McSally is no Gabby Giffords.”
Another anti-McSally ad features a woman named Carol who says her daughter was killed by a criminal who bought a firearm at a gun show and didn’t receive a background check — a check, she states, that McSally would oppose.
(Also on POLITICO: Gabrielle Giffords’ ad push aims to aid successor)
“To McSally, it’s just politics,” Carol says as she clutches a picture of her deceased daughter. “To me, it’s personal.”
Giffords also is going after Marilinda Garcia, a New Hampshire congressional candidate who, viewers are told, has “strange ideas” on gun laws. Another GOP hopeful in the Granite State, Frank Guinta, is ripped for “support[ing] the loophole that lets stalkers buy guns without a background check, no questions asked.”
In a midterm cluttered with negative ads, many of them seemingly crafted with the same cookie-cutter approach, Giffords’ commercials stand out for their intensity. Vicki’s emotional display, for instance, is something rarely seen in political ads.
Giffords is launching her campaign in parts of the country that have been affected by high-profile incidents of gun violence.
(Full 2014 election results)
In the Arizona district, wounds from the 2011 shooting that nearly took Giffords’ life are never far from the surface. (The Democratic candidate, Rep. Ron Barber, a former Giffords staffer who succeeded her in Congress, was also wounded in the attack.) Her group also is considering running ads in a Colorado district that was home to the 2012 Aurora movie theater massacre and which neighbors Columbine High School, where a 1999 rampage took place.
Some longtime supporters are starting to cry foul.
On Friday, the Arizona Republic’s editorial page, which is typically liberal leaning, called the “Vicki” ad “base and vile.” The commercial, the newspaper said, put the murder “at McSally’s feet, as if she were responsible. A murder indictment implied. But, of course, McSally had nothing to do with” the death.
Giffords’ frustration with Washington’s failure to advance gun control legislation is playing out in her 2014 efforts.
(Also on POLITICO: Gabby Giffords, Mark Kelly ALS challenge Wayne LaPierre)
In the days following the December 2012 Newtown, Connecticut, school shooting, where 26 people lost their lives, she testified before Congress, telling senators that “too many children are dying.” On the day the Senate voted down a bill to expand background checks, she stood behind President Barack Obama in the Rose Garden as he told lawmakers their rejection was “shameful.” She would later write that she was “furious” over the vote.
Pia Carusone, a senior adviser to the super PAC, said the bill’s failure had been a setback for the former congresswoman but that Giffords viewed it as only “the start of turning a really big ship around.”
Carusone, who was Giffords’ chief of staff at the time she was shot, said Giffords is deeply involved in the making of the ads. The former congresswoman has been sorting through polling and taking part in conference calls with strategists. She’s also played a key role in fundraising, helping the group to raise more than $17 million. Giffords hasn’t personally appeared in the commercials aired so far, though she may star in future ones, aides say.
Giffords’ advisers deny the ads go overboard. They say they’re conscious of the former congresswoman’s sensitive image and, as a result, have been working to ensure that the commercials, while hard-hitting, don’t stray from fact. Not all of them have been negative. The group has begun running an ad praising Rep. Mike Fitzpatrick, a moderate Republican from the Philadelphia suburbs, for supporting expanded background checks.
(From POLITICO Magazine: Guns 'R' Us)
“We think about it in terms of making sure we never cross a line where it would be perceived as cheap, low blow or dirty,” Carusone said. “I don’t think you’ll see us ever do an ad that looks like a cheap attack ad.”
Republicans want to hit back, but it’s quite the conundrum going after Giffords.
Last week, McSally released a statement calling the ads “false and malicious” and “personally offensive,” revealing that she has been a victim of stalking. But the statement didn’t refer by name to Giffords or her super PAC, describing them only as “Congressman Barber’s political allies.”
Garcia also is pulling her punches. In a brief interview, she repeatedly declined to criticize the former congresswoman. Guinta didn’t respond to a request for comment.
It’s not the first time Republicans have struggled with how to deal with memories of the Arizona shooting. In 2012, the National Republican Congressional Committee undertook a research project to gauge how voters would respond to political attacks on Barber, who was shot twice in the attack.
Giffords’ bare-knuckled approach isn’t entirely out of character.
(Also on POLITICO: Remembering James S. Brady)
The Democrat proved herself to be a tough campaigner during her five years in the House. She wasn’t afraid to harshly attack her Republican foes in order to keep her hold on a swing district that hugs Arizona’s southern border.
In 2010, as Democrats across the country were swept away in a conservative wave, Giffords eked out a narrow, 4,156-vote victory over a GOP opponent, Jesse Kelly, by casting him as fringe and dangerous.
One particularly rough Giffords TV ad, which contended that Kelly would cut entitlement programs beloved by seniors, said the Republican was “more interested in greed and not interested in the rest of the population.”
“She was always an extremely pragmatic politician,” said Tom Zoellner, the author of a book about the Giffords shooting, “A Safeway in Arizona.” “She’s extremely smart, and she’s going to do what it takes to push her policy agenda.”
“She’s extremely smart, and she’s going to do what it takes to push her policy agenda.”
Seriously, how much of Gabby Giffords is actually left?
Oh bull. Giffords isn’t all there. Her utilitarian husband and “party” are manipulating her. She is little more than a script reader now.
I feel pity for her and contempt for those using her as a tool for their hateful anti-Constitution agenda.
Let’s not forget why mass killings of the most innocent people occur. The losers who do this are committing suicide in most cases but they are trying to hurt the world as much as possible, regardless of their goal. They want to cause as much hurt as possible and to do so they seek out victims whose harm will cause the most grief and suffering. It is what they do—seek maximum emotional harm. As a society, the defense is to protect our most innocent and vulnerable. It is essential to defend our children to the utmost. It is a form of terrorism—the goal is to cause you as much emotional hurt and harm as possible. Protect the children, protect the schools, protect the vulnerable. Evildoers steer clear of a defended place where they might be harmed or limited in causing the most damage possible.
Her shooter, Jared Laughner legally bought his Glock from Sportsmans Warehouse and did go through a background check.
Correct. She was a victim of that idiot who shot her and now she is a victim of the utilitarians who are parading her around as a spokesperson against the Constitution.
She is not capable of engaging in meaningful debate on this or any subject because of what that criminal did to her. What the Democrat party is doing to her is ALSO criminal, imo.
Liberals would love to make it impossible for a young woman to even own a gun to protect herself from a crazed ex-husband/boyfriend
Loughner threatened boatloads of people. When they reported the threats, they were told he was being watched. Turns out his mom is a big Dem who works for the city of Tucson. Special treatment for him.
I forget what the vote was on, but the Democrats flew her to DC for a “historic comeback” vote on a party-line Bill not too long after she was shot in the head.
She was so mentally handicapped that a staffer had to press the button for her. Because she couldn’t work it. A button. Yep.
Probably the single most disgusted thing that has happened in politics in 30 years.
She is a tool now. A lot like a hammer or a door stop.
“...fight...is not one (Republicans) are likely to win.”
It is a law of nature—Republicans always, will always, never fail to find a reason not to fight. I mean, Einstein completely missed that one.
If I truly believed I was going to be attacked by someone and didn’t already own a gun I’d damn sure go buy one. These people enjoy being victims, they don’t want real solutions, and I have no sympathy for them.
What I would pay to see is Giffords herself debate McSally.
And you can research the people in the ads and find the truth. Stalker was parolee murderer that got probation after 15 months in jail, etc, etc, etc. repeat offender was a know criminal did not obtain the gun legally. I’l bet that the guy may ave used another weapon and they just lied or made up the whole story.
So hammer the fact that Giffords supports making it harder for stalking victims to get a gun.
Politico! Wow.
This column gives Gabbie the business, tells it like it is and is unusually blunt for an all blue rag.
People forget how mean and nasty Gabby Giffords was before she got shot.
Giffords hAd no problem going to the range and shooing a eeeeeeevil AR-15 and her husband ran out and got a AR-15 the day after he said no one needs one, then admitted it was a straw purchase if I recall.
Simply recreate that ad Bloomberg ran a while back that showed when seconds count, the police are just minutes away.
You know,if she’s going to play hardball they should swing and hit the ball right back at her.
No special treatment as long as she stays in the game.
.
I’m sorry she was shot but she is now a brain damaged person to be pitied .
All Liberals do! Get mean, that is...
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