Remember When Republican Smear Campaigns Were At Least Funny?
Last month, Montana's Democratic Senate primary was won by State Senate President Jon Tester, a farmer who currently serves as President of the Montana State Senate. Tester has a less-than-Senatorial flattop haircut that Republicans apparently fear emblematic of the sort of man-of-the-people populism likely to topple embattled Republican incumbent Conrad Burns. With that in mind, always eager to toss gasoline on the culture war bonfire in true Republican fashion, the Burns campaign busted right out of the starting gate by calling Tester a charlatan with an ad featuring a barber making the following statement:
"Fella comes in for a trim on his flattop because he's running for U.S. Senate. Guess he didn't want anybody to know he opposes a gay-marriage ban. Thinks flag burning is a right. And supports higher taxes. So I told him, 'You're gonna need a lot more than a haircut to cover up all that' ... Didn't leave much of a tip either."
As ridiculous as this ad may be, it's undeniably funny (as was the Tester campaign's response, which featured Tester's REAL barber speaking on his behalf and pointing out that the "barber" from the Burns ad was an actor). Reading about this ad online, it struck me just how long it's been since a Republican attack ad against a Democrat was actually humorous. Back in the heyday of the mid-to-late 1990's, it seemed every Republican was a comedian with clever (if idiotic) TV ads smearing their opponents. Since the Karl Rove era was ushered in, however, GOP campaign ads have simply become vicious ad hominems appealing to the lowest denominator without even a shred of humor to be found.
Particularly since 9-11, the GOP modus operandi has been to compare their opponents to the enemy during wartime, a most despicable methodology that has sadly yielded results. After the infamous and hauntingly successful 2002 ad comparing Georgia's Democratic Senator (and triple amputee Vietnam War veteran) Max Cleland to Osama bin Laden and Saddam Hussein, Republicans across the country joined the bandwagon in 2004, including in Minnesota, where Congressional candidate Dan Stevens referred to Democratic Congressman Collin Peterson as a "friend of terrorism" and Congressman Mark Kennedy said that Democratic challenger Patty Wetterling "wanted to negotiate with the Taliban".
My, how far the party has regressed from 1996 and 1998 when the following masterpieces of humor entertained viewers of all partisan allegiances:
In 1998, current Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid faced a tough challenge from Republican Congressman John Ensign (who even though he lost to Reid...barely...would win the open seat two years later and join the Senate) in Nevada. Ensign featured an ad reminding voters all the pork-barrel earmarks Reid had supported "sending millions of dollars to states like West Virginia". The ad then cut to a hillbilly caricature with fists full of cash in both hands saying "Thank you kindly, Senator Reid". Hmmmm....I thought it was Democrats who were dripping with disrespect for red staters.
Also in 1998, there was a fury of controversy in the South Carolina Governor's race, where the main issue was the imposition of a lottery in the state which was fiercely opposed by then GOP Governor David Beasley and his Christian evangelical base. Beasley ran an ad against Democratic opponent Jim Hodges featuring a Tony Soprano-esque mobster type with a thick Jersey accent "endorsing" Hodges on the basis that "....if the lottery Mr. Hodges supports gets approved, South Carolina will become just like back home in Atlantic City...."
Just north of the border that same year, North Carolina Republicans took the cake with an ad politicizing the fictional North Carolina town of Mayberry. Andy Griffith had just made a high-profile contribution to the state Democratic Party and then Senate candidate John Edwards. Eager to spin this to their favor, the GOP "Mayberry" ad opined that "just about everybody in Mayberry would have been a Republican. Andy Taylor would have been a Republican....Barney Fife would have been a Republican....so would Aunt Bea....and Floyd the barber, etc., etc. In fact, the only resident of Mayberry who would have been a Democrat would be Otis, the town drunk."
Minnesota had some fun ones as well, particularly in 1996 when the always entertaining (though not always intentionally) Rudy Boschwitz came out with a series of comical ads smearing Democratic Senator Paul Wellstone as "embarrassingly liberal", the most memorable featuring a cartoon caricature of Wellstone who would raise a sign spelling out "LIBERAL" in big letters every time the narrator cited aspects of his voting record. That rascally Rudy got even more audacious from there, with a "retro" ad set in Wellstone's youth, where a small room thick with pot-smoking hippies was honoring Wellstone with the "1968 Liberal of the Year" award. Disappointingly, the 2002 Wellstone-Coleman race wasn't nearly as entertaining as I had hoped for after the endlessly amusing Wellstone-Boschwitz grudge matches of 1990 and 1996.
Also in 1996, Minnesota Republican Congressman Gil Gutknecht had a masterpiece of an ad against Democratic challenger Mary Reider. A huge influx of union money financed Reider's early campaign ads and Gutknecht's response featured a lady (seen only from the back but meant to represent Reider) sitting behind a desk, IRS-like, while a long line of weary and overworked taxpayers handed over all their money to Mary Reider. Gutknecht's voice-over suggested that "Washington labor bosses have financed Mary Reider's campaign...and will demand to be paid back". The closing scene featured a little girl with a piggy bank approaching the Reider caricature, recoiling in sadness and fear about having to fork over her money while Reider demandingly beckoned the girl to the desk with her hand. Comedy gold.
While the Republicans clearly beat the Democrats in the humor war back in the 1990's, the comedy did not yield them election victories. Of the examples I cited, the only winner was Gil Gutknecht who beat Mary Reider by a 53-47 margin in that 1996 race. The rest of the Republicans responsible for the entertaining ads (Ensign, Beasley, Faircloth (who ran against John Edwards), and Boschwitz) were all defeated. It was only when the GOP campaign ads became humorless, sleazy, and diabolically odious that they started to win elections. Who knows? There may be a connection. If there is, I can only hope that Conrad Burns' howler of an ad mocking Jon Tester's haircut is a sign of things to come....where Republicans bankroll clever ads but lose elections.
"Fella comes in for a trim on his flattop because he's running for U.S. Senate. Guess he didn't want anybody to know he opposes a gay-marriage ban. Thinks flag burning is a right. And supports higher taxes. So I told him, 'You're gonna need a lot more than a haircut to cover up all that' ... Didn't leave much of a tip either."
As ridiculous as this ad may be, it's undeniably funny (as was the Tester campaign's response, which featured Tester's REAL barber speaking on his behalf and pointing out that the "barber" from the Burns ad was an actor). Reading about this ad online, it struck me just how long it's been since a Republican attack ad against a Democrat was actually humorous. Back in the heyday of the mid-to-late 1990's, it seemed every Republican was a comedian with clever (if idiotic) TV ads smearing their opponents. Since the Karl Rove era was ushered in, however, GOP campaign ads have simply become vicious ad hominems appealing to the lowest denominator without even a shred of humor to be found.
Particularly since 9-11, the GOP modus operandi has been to compare their opponents to the enemy during wartime, a most despicable methodology that has sadly yielded results. After the infamous and hauntingly successful 2002 ad comparing Georgia's Democratic Senator (and triple amputee Vietnam War veteran) Max Cleland to Osama bin Laden and Saddam Hussein, Republicans across the country joined the bandwagon in 2004, including in Minnesota, where Congressional candidate Dan Stevens referred to Democratic Congressman Collin Peterson as a "friend of terrorism" and Congressman Mark Kennedy said that Democratic challenger Patty Wetterling "wanted to negotiate with the Taliban".
My, how far the party has regressed from 1996 and 1998 when the following masterpieces of humor entertained viewers of all partisan allegiances:
In 1998, current Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid faced a tough challenge from Republican Congressman John Ensign (who even though he lost to Reid...barely...would win the open seat two years later and join the Senate) in Nevada. Ensign featured an ad reminding voters all the pork-barrel earmarks Reid had supported "sending millions of dollars to states like West Virginia". The ad then cut to a hillbilly caricature with fists full of cash in both hands saying "Thank you kindly, Senator Reid". Hmmmm....I thought it was Democrats who were dripping with disrespect for red staters.
Also in 1998, there was a fury of controversy in the South Carolina Governor's race, where the main issue was the imposition of a lottery in the state which was fiercely opposed by then GOP Governor David Beasley and his Christian evangelical base. Beasley ran an ad against Democratic opponent Jim Hodges featuring a Tony Soprano-esque mobster type with a thick Jersey accent "endorsing" Hodges on the basis that "....if the lottery Mr. Hodges supports gets approved, South Carolina will become just like back home in Atlantic City...."
Just north of the border that same year, North Carolina Republicans took the cake with an ad politicizing the fictional North Carolina town of Mayberry. Andy Griffith had just made a high-profile contribution to the state Democratic Party and then Senate candidate John Edwards. Eager to spin this to their favor, the GOP "Mayberry" ad opined that "just about everybody in Mayberry would have been a Republican. Andy Taylor would have been a Republican....Barney Fife would have been a Republican....so would Aunt Bea....and Floyd the barber, etc., etc. In fact, the only resident of Mayberry who would have been a Democrat would be Otis, the town drunk."
Minnesota had some fun ones as well, particularly in 1996 when the always entertaining (though not always intentionally) Rudy Boschwitz came out with a series of comical ads smearing Democratic Senator Paul Wellstone as "embarrassingly liberal", the most memorable featuring a cartoon caricature of Wellstone who would raise a sign spelling out "LIBERAL" in big letters every time the narrator cited aspects of his voting record. That rascally Rudy got even more audacious from there, with a "retro" ad set in Wellstone's youth, where a small room thick with pot-smoking hippies was honoring Wellstone with the "1968 Liberal of the Year" award. Disappointingly, the 2002 Wellstone-Coleman race wasn't nearly as entertaining as I had hoped for after the endlessly amusing Wellstone-Boschwitz grudge matches of 1990 and 1996.
Also in 1996, Minnesota Republican Congressman Gil Gutknecht had a masterpiece of an ad against Democratic challenger Mary Reider. A huge influx of union money financed Reider's early campaign ads and Gutknecht's response featured a lady (seen only from the back but meant to represent Reider) sitting behind a desk, IRS-like, while a long line of weary and overworked taxpayers handed over all their money to Mary Reider. Gutknecht's voice-over suggested that "Washington labor bosses have financed Mary Reider's campaign...and will demand to be paid back". The closing scene featured a little girl with a piggy bank approaching the Reider caricature, recoiling in sadness and fear about having to fork over her money while Reider demandingly beckoned the girl to the desk with her hand. Comedy gold.
While the Republicans clearly beat the Democrats in the humor war back in the 1990's, the comedy did not yield them election victories. Of the examples I cited, the only winner was Gil Gutknecht who beat Mary Reider by a 53-47 margin in that 1996 race. The rest of the Republicans responsible for the entertaining ads (Ensign, Beasley, Faircloth (who ran against John Edwards), and Boschwitz) were all defeated. It was only when the GOP campaign ads became humorless, sleazy, and diabolically odious that they started to win elections. Who knows? There may be a connection. If there is, I can only hope that Conrad Burns' howler of an ad mocking Jon Tester's haircut is a sign of things to come....where Republicans bankroll clever ads but lose elections.
posted by Mark at 3:14 PM
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