Negative Ads

Here where I live, in Arizona Congressional District 5, there are two races that empit­o­mize to me the fun­da­men­tal nature of the mod­ern Republican Party. The par­tic­u­lar races are for Senate, between incum­bant Republican Jon Kyl and Democratic chal­lenger Jim Pederson, and the U.S. House of Representatives, between incum­bant Republican J.D. Hayworth and Democratic chal­lenger Harry Mitchell.

Both races have fea­tured cam­paign ads for the Republican can­di­dates that fol­low the exact same format:

• Chide the Democratic can­di­date for so called “neg­a­tive” attacks against the Republican can­di­date. So far as I can tell, these “attacks” mainly con­sist of stat­ing the Republican’s record.
• Immediately launch­ing into “neg­a­tive attacks” against the Democratic can­di­date that almost exclu­sively con­sist of a barely con­cealed racist attack on the Democrat’s posi­tion on “immigration.”

And there you have it, the state of the Republican party in Arizona. Commenting on their record is an attack from the big mean Democrats. While spread­ing FUD that the Democratic can­di­date is in favor of throw­ing open the bor­der and let­ting all those filthy wet­backs in to steal all our high pay­ing jobs swab­bing out hotel rooms and mow­ing lawns is rea­soned debate. In real­ity, I think that an ad for Jim Pederson actu­ally sums up the sit­u­a­tion the best. To suma­rize the mes­sage; if you think that the direc­tion that this coun­try is head­ing in is the right one, then by all means vote Republican. But if you want change, vote for change. Yup, that’s about as neg­a­tive as they come Senator Kyl.

One final point on the “neg­a­tiv­ity” in this race. J.D. Hayworth has a series of cam­paign signs scat­tered around town with an added tag, “Please Don’t Steal This Sign Harry.” on them; imply­ing that Mitchell is some­how defac­ing Hayworth’s sig­nage. I hap­pen to know Harry Mitchell, he was the Mayor of Tempe for many years, and I also had the honor of attend­ing his classes when he was a high school teacher. Politics aside, Harry is an hon­or­able man, and to imply that he would uti­lize such tac­tics is the worst form of “neg­a­tiv­ity.” But I guess that we can’t expect much bet­ter from a for­mer T.V. Sportscaster…see J.D. that’s negative.