Posted on 10/26/2006 11:18:39 AM PDT by radar101
The Republican National Committee provided the money for a television advertisement running in Tennessee that Some say plays to racist fears.
Jennifer Peebles, the political editor at the Tennessean newspaper in Nashville, speaks with Susan Stamberg about the ad.
All Things Considered, October 25, 2006 · The election is less than two weeks away in a year when control of the House and Senate is at stake. One campaign tool that gets rolled out every election year at this time is the shocking campaign ad, and this year is no different. Just when you think you've seen it all, political consultants come up with new ways to call their opponents scum.
In Tennessee, the Republican Party has run an ad against Democract Harold Ford, an African American, that is so loaded with innuendo that even Ford's Republican opponent denounced it.
In the ad, a blonde coos into the camera, "I met Harold at the Playboy party."
John Gere, a political science professor at Vanderbilt University, says the commercial "makes the Willie Horton ad look like child's play." Gere, who studies the effectiveness of political ads, calls this one a new low.
"It's raising the race card and playing it through the use of old-style fears about interracial couples and interracial relations. I've never seen anything like this," Gere says.
When asked about the ad, Ken Mehlman, the chair of the Republican National Committee, initially said he didn't see the racial overtones. He also noted that the Republican National Committee didn't have any say over the content. (Mehlman's office later called NPR to say that the ad was going to be taken out of rotation.)
In a much more subtle -- but just as devastating -- ad by the Democrats, actor Michael J. Fox sways and twitches with the effects of Parkinson's disease while he speaks in support of stem cell research.
If these and the hundreds of local ads like them are to be believed, politicians in America are tax-and-spend, sex-crazed criminals who hate children, puppies and rainbows, and love to vote themselves pay-raises.
But Vanderbilt's Gere says that negative ads don't seem to be responsible for the American public's distrust of politicians. In fact, he says, most negative ads serve a noble purpose: They are actually more substantive than positive ads.
"If you want more issues, the issues to be more specific, the issues to be documented," Gere says, "it turns out negative ads have that more than positive ads" -- which often feature warm and fuzzy images of candidates and their families, or a vague appeal to values and security, Gere says.
But Gere also notes that negative ads haven't been shown to be any more effective than positive ones. In the end, it comes down to how much an ad is repeated, and how well it grabs voters' attention.
http://youtube.com/watch?v=kkiz1_d1GsA
TAXMAN
http://www.gop.com/Multimedia/MediaPlayer.aspx?ID=1138&TypeID=2
STAKES
http://www.gop.com/Multimedia/MediaPlayer.aspx?ID=1136&TypeID=2 http://www.gop.com/Multimedia/MediaPlayer.aspx?ID=1138&TypeID=2
I believe this is ANOTHER dead story. First it was pulled. Second Corker apologized for it. Everything is over...let's go on to the next event. Don't leave us waiting. lol.
I think the real problem the Dims have with the Ford ad is that it is funny and effective. It paints Ford as a leftist on taxes, guns, and foreign policy.
Was NPR shocked at the NAACP ads in 2000 which blamed George W. Bush of complicity in the dragging death of a black man in rural Texas ?
Yet another glaring illustration of why NPR has no business existing off of taxpayer money.
Why haven't PBS and NPR been defunded ?
I love how the dems are complaining about this advertisement. The more they complain, the more it looks like they are afraid of it, that the ad is completely 100% true. Thanks NPR and the rest of the dems, you have helped us (unwittingly) yet again.
How racist is it, really? I didn't think it was racist to point out that the guy went to a Playboy party.
If they had put a black woman in there instead of a white woman, asking Harold to call her, they'd be screaming even louder, wouldn't they?
My favorite part of the ad is the guy that says he doesn't need all his guns.
I'd like the media to report how some people don't find the ad racist at all and those that do are just looking for anything to be offended about. nd no, I didn't see the racism in the Williw Horton ad either.
Anybody whose opinion is swayed by an ad shouldn't be voting in the first place!..........We're not selling soap powders, people!..............
"that Some say plays to racist fears. "
I suppose since "some" is capitalized that means that there is a Mr. or Mrs. Some, somewhere who is shocked.
Yep. I recalled exactly the same ad. The big difference is this year's Tennessee ad is based on ACTUAL FACT about something Ford not only admitted he did, but bragged about. The James Byrd ad was a total fabrication about something GWB had absolutley nothing to do with (other than ensuring the perps were prosecuted), was not pulled and what NPR/PBS had absolutely nothing to condemn.
The Left is always "shocked" and "offended" kind of like how the Muslims are always "shocked" and "offended".
"I think the real problem the Dims have with the Ford ad is that it is funny and effective. It paints Ford as a leftist on taxes, guns, and foreign policy."
Of course that is correct. There is nothing racist in the ad. It is a phony charge by democrats to try to get the ad off the air and then call Corker and the RNC racist.
So John Gere and other critics continue to manufacture and label problems that don't exist.
This is standard, non-substantive response when they can't address the basic charge.
I take exception to this statement. Michael Steele loves puppies.
Now that the record has been set straight, carry on,
What would you expect from "National Pubic Radio?"
It's funny, I've spent a lot of time in the desert SW. You can drive for a hundred miles and not pick up a commercial radio station, but By GOD, you sure as hell can get a damn PBS station. That entity needs gutting at the throat....
Instead of just scrolling past them all, please take a moment to click the applicable state(s) on the Topics screen when posting news of particular interest to people in that state.
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