The GOP 2018 Congressional Campaign: The Stench Of Desperation

When politicians don't have anything to say about issues that will appeal to voters they go negative in the hope that they will disgust voters enough to discourage election day participation. That's what the GOP is doing now. They read the same polls the rest of us do and they know the only way to win is to keep Democrats and independents away from the voting booth next month. Even Politico noted that the ads they're running are ugly distortions of reality. They're not meant to change any minds... just to create confusion, apprehension and disgust so that people don't want to vote. Paul Ryan's SuperPAC alone has poured an unbelievable $3 million into a smear campaign against Randy Bryce in Wisconsin hoping to persuade workers and women not to vote.

Earlier this morning Randy Bryce reminded us that Bernie and his policy agenda are extremely popular in his corner of Wisconsin. "He won 71 out of 72 precincts in the 2016 primary election. Both events he did with me packed the venues to capacity on opposite sides of the district. Having been endorsed early by Senator Sanders has been a huge help. Republicans think that the progressive ideals both of us fight to advance are 'radical.' If making sure people can see a doctor is radical or, if promising not to make cuts to Social Security is 'far left' I’ll take that title. It just shows how out of touch these extremist Republicans really are." And that's a good description of how the Republicans are trying to turn the world topsy-turvy. Paul Ryan disparages Medicare-For-All supporters as off the rails, counting on voters not remembering that he has-- for a decade-- tried to dissolve Medicaid and Medicare and whittle away at Social Security. Ryan, using the talking points all Republican have been using, blasted Democrats this week: "Democrats propose to abolish our health-care system as we know it. And it is the best representation of how far today’s Democratic Party has gone off the rails... Everyone-- no matter how much you like your plan-- would have their plan taken away. The only way to control costs would be to ration care, and restrict access to doctors and treatments. All of these decisions would be made in Washington."

None of that is true, but it doesn't stop GOP robots-- from Bruce Poliquin in Maine to Cathy McMorris Rodgers in Washington state-- from parroting the same frightening-sounding bullshit in their ads. Here's how Poliquin's progressive Democratic challenger, Jared Golden, threw Poliquin's lies right back in his face. And, by the way, the healthcare lie is far from the only way the Republicans are bullshitting the voters. 

Democratic House candidate Jason Crow received a Bronze Star for heroism in Iraq and a “lawyer of the year” award for his veterans advocacy. But according to his GOP adversaries, he has “neglected” Colorado veterans.

Virginia Democrat Abigail Spanberger spent nearly a decade fighting terrorists as an undercover CIA officer. But to hear Republicans tell it, she harbors terrorist sympathies.

Attacks ads have always been a staple of campaign season. But Republicans have twisted facts in some ads to an extraordinary degree as they fight to save their House majority, weaving narratives about Democratic candidates that are misleading at best-- or blatantly false at worst.

In several ads, military vets-- who count as some of Democrats' best recruits to defeat sitting Republicans this year-- have had their patriotism called into question. One spot insinuates that Spanberger, who is challenging Rep. Dave Brat’s (R-VA), has ties to extremists because she taught at a Saudi Arabian-funded Muslim school where two infamous terrorists once attended. The CIA not only knew about the job, but later hired Spanberger and employed her for eight years.

Democrats say the spots, aired mostly by the outside GOP super PAC Congressional Leadership Fund and the National Republican Congressional Committee, smack of desperation. In some cases, local Republicans, religious leaders and newspaper editorial boards have have denounced the attacks.

The aggressive tactics highlight a party grappling to save its majority. Many of the Democrats who've come under attack have short or nonexistent records in political office, leaving Republicans to pick over their personal lives for any scraps to use against them.

“Republicans are having a heck of a time right now, and they’re just looking to attack anywhere they think they might be able to.... throwing whatever they have at the wall to see what sticks,” Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee Chairman Ben Ray Luján (D-NM) told reporters at a Bloomberg breakfast last week, calling the attacks “smears.”

Targets of the ads have called for them to be taken down, and spent time and resources trying to rebut the claims. Republicans involved in making the ads say that's exactly their intention: to keep Democrats on the defensive.

They also argue that Democrats would be doing the same thing if the roles were reversed.

"The mere fact that Democrats are complaining about CLF ads speaks to the effectiveness of the ads and the degree to which it’s taken Democratic candidates in key races off their message," CLF spokeswoman Courtney Alexander said.

Democrats argue that the charges have backfired and helped Democratic candidates raise money and gain ground on their Republican rivals. Spanberger’s campaign is now in a dead heat with Brat, according to a Sept. 24 internal poll, and raised more money after the terrorist ad launched than she did in the entire first quarter of 2017. Among likely voters, she's up 5 points, her campaigns says.

But Republicans say their Terror High ad actually helped reverse Brat's fortunes: They say he now has a narrow lead after being tied with Spanberger in August, according to their polling.

realistic polling by Monmouth

Both parties, of course, always spend heavily on opposition research to sniff out their opponents’ weaknesses and flash them before voters. But it’s one thing to highlight flaws in a candidate’s record, like Republicans have done with Wisconsin Democrat Randy Bryce’s drunk driving arrest. It’s another to connect dots that aren’t there.

CLF’s recent attack on Ohio Democrat Aftab Pureval, for instance, accuses the Indian-Tibetan, first-generation American of aiding his former employer in making “millions” by “helping Libyans reduce payments owed to families of Americans killed by Libyan terrorism.”

But Pureval wasn’t working for the Washington law firm that reached the restitution agreement when it was initially struck. When he did join the firm, Pureval worked on anti-trust litigation, not payments to the families of victims of the 1988 Lockerbie terrorist attack.

Not mentioned in the ad was the fact that former President George W. Bush backed the settlement negotiation with Libya-- and that Rep. Steve Chabot, Pureval’s GOP opponent, did not object when it was approved in the House.

Local media called the attack "misleading." And one American family who lost their father in the Libyan attack was so outraged by the video that they reached out to donate to Pureval’s campaign.

“My response to the CLF ad involved words that are best not repeated here,” Scott Rosen wrote in a letter to Pureval’s campaign. He was 5 years old when his father, Saul Mark Rosen, was killed in the Lockerbie bombing, leaving his mom to raise two children. “The attempt to connect you to the murder of my father was utterly beyond the pale."

CLF says the ad has helped Chabot stretch his lead over Pureval, according to their internal polling.

But they haven't seen the same results in other races-- particularly in Colorado, where many Republicans believe Rep. Mike Coffman is going to lose. There, CLF portrayed Crow as a willing bystander to the massive Veterans Affairs Department backlog scandal. (The group recently pulled its ads from the district.)

Crow sat on the local department’s board from 2009 to 2014, and Republicans have highlighted his absence from more than a dozen board meetings to say he’s at fault.

“While veterans suffered from the VA scandal, Crow didn’t show up for work,” one ad said. “Jason Crow neglected Colorado veterans.”

Crow’s campaign said his wife was either on bed rest due to pregnancy complications or that they’d had a new baby at the time of the missed meetings.

Backlash was swift. Local veterans who know Crow showed up at Coffman's office to protest. Crow’s campaign highlighted the thousands of pro-bono hours he’d dedicated to helping veterans with substance abuse issues, as well as the “lawyer of the year” award he received in 2010 from the Denver Bar Association for his veterans advocacy.

In Spanberger's case, CLF ran a commercial calling attention to her onetime position as a substitute teacher at the Saudi school. Spanberger never worked with the two would-be terrorists, having left the school before it came under congressional scrutiny. She later received a top-secret clearance with the CIA.

“So dangerous, even Chuck Schumer called for the school to be shut down,” the ad nonetheless warns. “But Abigail Spanberger cashed her paychecks like nothing was wrong.”

Some Republican candidates have launched similar attacks impugning the motives or patriotism of their opponents. West Virginia Republican candidate Carol Miller ran a clip of her Democratic rival, Richard Ojeda, saying “the United States of America is not the greatest country.” One vet in the spot accuses Ojeda, who served in Iraq and Afghanistan, of “stepping on the graves of every dead soldier.”

What Ojeda actually said is that U.S. isn't the greatest country because homelessness is rampant, the health care system is lacking and the opioid epidemic has been allowed to fester. Ojeda issued his own ad in response, talking about the names of fallen soldiers tattooed his back.

“My military record and my love of country has come under fire … by Carol Miller,” an angry Ojeda said in the video filmed before a veterans memorial. “How dare she! A millionaire, who has enjoyed a life of privilege under the very freedoms that I have fought for.”



In New York, Republicans have accused Democratic hopeful Antonio Delgado of “attacking our democracy” because the former rapper once sung about finding peace in the Middle East. In the years-old anti-war jam, Delgado, who went on to graduate from Harvard Law School and become a Rhodes Scholar, says “God bless America, God bless Iraq, God bless us all.”

But an NRCC ad highlights only the “God bless Iraq” line. Delgado is running against vulnerable GOP Rep. John Faso.

The party has also hit Delgado for being a “big city rapper” and not “like us,” depicting the lawyer wearing a dark hoodie and playing his old rap songs that reference sex and drugs and use of the “N” word.

Nearly 20 local clergy members denounced the attacks for their racial undertones; Delgado is African-American. A local radio station said it recently pulled an ad sponsored by CLF for their “inaccuracy.” (CLF disputes that the ad was removed, arguing that PAC officials took it down of their own accord.) Even the district’s former Republican congressman, Chris Gibson, has expressed discomfort.

“Shame on you!” the religious leaders wrote to Faso, asking him to denounce the ads, which he has not done. “This tactic should be called out for what it is, a thinly veiled, racist attack for the purpose of insinuating fear in the voters in our district.”

to count the number of exclamation points, click on the image

Above is an ugly Republican Party Facebook entry from a typical GOP official-- well, not really that typical, 'cause most of them are smart enough not to do it so publicly. This was was created by a Republican precinct committeeman, Michael Kalny from Shawnee. He was stupid enough to send it to Anne Pritchett, president of the Johnson County Democratic Women’s Club. Supporters of Kevin Yoder are weepy because the Paul Ryan just tossed the Yoder campaign overboard as a lost cause. Democrat Sharice Davids is way ahead in polling.