Posted on 10/24/2005 2:42:04 PM PDT by got_moab?
National Republicans have spent at least $147,200 so far on an ad campaign aimed at sucking the air out of Cranston Republican Mayor Stephen P. Laffey's U.S. Senate bid.
Paid for by the National Republican Senatorial Committee, the ads describe Laffey as everything from goofy and eccentric, to "slick" and hypocritical.
And this is just the beginning, with political analysts from here to Washington to the University of Virginia debating whether these early-and-often TV attack ads will backfire on the Republican incumbent the national committee is trying to help: Sen. Lincoln D. Chafee.
The risks are many. Voters could hold Chafee responsible for any national GOP ad that makes them mad, no matter how many times he says: "It's not my ad."
If no other race proves interesting enough to draw them to the polls, potential GOP voters, numbed by a year-long siege of contradictory and confusing campaign ads, could decide to sit out the general election. Advantage: Democrats.
Or an ad campaign, conceived by outsiders, that smirks at what Laffey considers a triumph -- using spy cameras to catch city workers snoozing on the job -- could inure to his benefit.
But someone at the senatorial reelection committee -- chaired by U.S. Sen. Elizabeth Dole, R-N.C. -- has clearly decided the stakes are high enough to take such risks.
"You know as well as I do this is about defending existing Republican senatorial seats. Senator Chafee is an existing Republican senator and they will do what they think is best to defend him . . . That's their job," said Rhode Island Republican John Harpootian, a member of Chafee's fundraising team, of the national campaign committee.
And before you change that channel, Brown political science Prof. Darrell M. West notes the political ad can be an art form: "We can be entertained by it and and we can be influenced by it" even though "we definitely don't want to admit it because, psychologically, it suggests . . . we are letting some outside agent tell us what to think."
But not all of Rhode Island's Republican leaders are happy with the national GOP's approach.
Among those contacting the National Republican Senatorial Committee last week to relay concerns about the tone of the ads was state GOP chairwoman Patricia Morgan, who believes Chafee shares her reservations.
"I know that the NRSC are very serious about protecting Senator Chafee and his seat in the Senate, so I am assuming they are professionals and they know what they are doing," Morgan said.
But Morgan said she viewed the first of the two ads, especially, as a personal attack on Laffey, which she considers an unfair tactic that is counter to the kind of campaign she associates with Chafee.
The 30-second spot pits the pledge Laffey made, in his own ad, to "stand up" to the oil industry against "the fortune" he made when he was in the private investment business "selling oil industry stocks on Wall Street" and "profiting from offshore drilling . . . Slick. Steve Laffey, laughing all the way to the bank."
No surprise, Laffey has publicly called on Chafee to "stand on his soapbox over there" and publicly demand a stop to the ads.
Laffey also suggests that this and a second ad hurt Chafee more than him because "they don't have anything positive to say about Linc Chafee and his record . . . He's down there in the gunk. He's associated with it."
While her words are different, the state GOP chairwoman does not seem to disagree.
Said Morgan late last week of Chafee: "He has always been a man of dignity . . . so he is very concerned that his image is being formed as being a negative campaigner when he doesn't have any control over it."
Chafee himself would not say whether Morgan had accurately described his own concerns.
Citing federal campaign-financing rules barring any coordination between his own campaign and the national-financed ad campaign committee, Chafee also would not say if he had discussed these concerns with the national committee.
His campaign manager, Ian Lang, said: "The senator has had no interaction with the NRSC about these ads, nor can we by law." But when asked the same question directly, Chafee said: "I try not to cross any of these boundaries." Then: "Don't jump to any conclusions."
And finally: "My preference would be positive, factual, issue-oriented ads. That hasn't changed, but . . . [I am not] going to hyperventilate over one ad or a couple of ads that are occurring here a year away.
"I just know this is going to be a long campaign . . . There are going to be a lot of these ads. Some of them I'm not going to like, some of them I'm going to like."
Chafee said he also recognizes the national GOP committee "might have other motives" for parachuting into Rhode Island so early, such as its efforts to recruit candidates in other states. "They can point to Rhode Island and say, 'Look we are already in Rhode Island running ads on behalf of a Republican. We'll do the same for you.' "
But seasoned campaign watchers across the country see other clear -- if risky -- strategies emerging in the national GOP's early entry into the '06 Rhode Island Senate race.
"They have to find a way to knock Laffey out fairly early so Chafee can consolidate his own base to take on a strong Democratic challenger," suggests Larry Sabato, director of the University of Virginia Center for Politics.
Sabato does not foresee Laffey dropping out. But watching the high-stakes Rhode Island race from a distance, he believes the National Republican Senatorial Committee is out to "make it clear that Chafee is going to win."
"2006 is not going to be an easy year for Republicans in blue states. That's for sure," said Sabato.
But if the ads help Chafee build a big enough lead, "at some point," he suggests, "the Laffey challenge becomes judged not serious by the voters and even his own conservatives become disillusioned and they pack it in."
"The sense I am increasingly getting is that Laffey is not well defined and they are taking the opportunity to define him," said National Journal editor Jennifer Duffy, who also analyzes Senate races for The Cook Political Report in Washington.
While Laffey has been courted by such bastions of fiscal conservatism as the antitax Club for Growth, Duffy in her own "2006 Senate race rundown" noted that he "wants to be perceived as a populist outsider willing to take on both parties and Washington."
This, she notes, "might be an effective strategy in the current political environment since polls indicate voters are disenchanted with both parties." Still, after a recent visit home to Rhode Island, Duffy said, she concluded: "The more Laffey is defined, the easier it will be for Chafee."
"The problem that they might have," said Duffy of the national committee, "is the need to keep it up."
Nine years later, former state treasurer Nancy Mayer still believes the attack ads the National Republican Senatorial Committee ran against her Democratic opponent in the 1996 U.S. Senate race were so over the top "they hurt me enormously."
"I feel badly for Linc because he is such a nice guy," said Mayer last week of Chafee.
But Brown University's West believes the National Republican Senatorial Committee's '96 campaign against then-U.S. Rep. Jack Reed was doomed by the cookie-cutter use of ads that might have resonated in another state, but not against Reed. "People saw the GOP as an out-of-state organization trying to tear down a guy they liked."
In October '05, West sees a much "different situation in that Laffey is not as well-known as Reed was, so he is more vulnerable . . . and his own profile is more polarized . . . some people love him, some people hate him."
"The riskier situation is not being well-known and having an attack ad define you before you get a chance to define yourself and that is exactly what the National Republican party is trying to do with Laffey . . . They are trying to take advantage of him before he becomes well-known."
And finally: "My preference would be positive, factual, issue-oriented ads. That hasn't changed, but . . . [I am not] going to hyperventilate over one ad or a couple of ads that are occurring here a year away.
"I just know this is going to be a long campaign . . . There are going to be a lot of these ads. Some of them I'm not going to like, some of them I'm going to like."
My frustration and dissapointment in Chafee the Senator has turned to a genuine disdain for Chafee the man. What a complete ass, how he even manages to dress himself in the morning is a mystery.
The $64,000 question is why in the hell is the GOP going to give Chafee ANY money, period? What a waste...
same reason they supported specter over toomey
strategery;
liberal Republicans stink and so does the GOP establishment. period.
Eggzactly, their strategery sucks & they should have learned by now.... Geeze!
Excellent question. I'd challenge all these people who gripe about RINOs to donate to Laffee if they really feel this guy is an improvement. If you want to send a message to the GOP, tell them that you are giving to people who oppose RINOs... or we can just BashBush which would be completely different from what the Democrats do because they BushBash.
It's typical politics. If you don't like what the RNC is doing, don't give it any money.
Laffey's campaign site, if anyone wants to make a contribution to evicting one of the worst RINOs in the Senate.
http://www.electlaffey.com/site/index.php
The NRSC won't receive a dime from me.
because, unlike individual voters who get to pick who represents us, the Republican party is stuck with the people the voters pick in each state. And the senatorial committee exists NOT to make the republican party into the pure party we want, but to get republican senators re-elected.
We don't have to give them money (I don't). We can scream about their negative ads (I did).
But we can't expect them to try to dump one of their own for a challenger, even if WE like the challenger.
This doesn't really apply to Bush -- although Bush probably promised to support Specter in 2002 in exchange for Specter's support in the 2000 election (for whatever good that was, since Bush lost Pa. anyway).
Very well said. Counting votes, and maintaining control of a legislature is what it's all about. You play offense or lose control and play defense. When a president steps in he has to do things like cut taxes, defend America, and as they all do, channel that domestic tranquility pork torwards difficult legislators. Now he gets two SC nominees. He has to count those votes too.
Laffee is endorsed by the Club For Growth, who brought you Coburn and Pence.
I'm donating to Laffey.
Not a dime to the RNC.
Laffey is said to be a "moderate" whereas Chafee is a Liberal. That isn't why I want Chafee to lose.
Chafee is among the rarified group that truly are "Republicans in Name Only". I still remember his stunt last year stating he'd write in GHWB for President. He deserves to lose for that alone.
Sure fire way for (Weakest Linc) Chaffee to lose the general. Remind people of the ads paid for by the RNC. Being loved by the Republican party is the kiss of death in the liberal northeast.
There's such a sick sense of ironic justice to this all.
The amazing thing is that Reagan was able to go over the heads of the Democratically controlled Congress and the old liberal media, straight to the American people, because he knew what he was about. Bush is a fraud, and many many good people know it. We're in deep soil, and what's growing isn't American prosperity, or security.
Done. He looks pretty good. Economics degree and an MBA with real world experience before going into politics.
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