JerseyGuy wrote:It's no less 'scummy' then ads the DNC puts out. Why the double standard?
Really? Examples, please.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ND3FdwXgRSg
That's it? You trolled youtube.com looking for a rebuttal video and all you could come up with is something from forty-two years ago? When all anyone else has to do is find whatever THIS WEEK'S worst GOP ad happens to be?
By the way, for my money, this week's pole-position holder in the GOP media slime race is the RNC's Harold Ford / Playboy ad. Or maybe video footage of Rush Limbaugh claiming that Michael J. Fox was faking his Parkinson's for a TV commercial. Oh, that's right -- that wasn't actually a commercial, and it wasn't tied directly to the GOP. Rush, as we all know, is an independent voice in the media...
I spoke with a buddy of mine in Tennessee the other day and learned a little bit more about how that Playboy ad came about. It seems that Harold Ford, single and in his late 30s, has never been married and never even been publicly seen dating. Whispers were starting to gather in Tennessee about his sexual preferences so Ford actually went to a Playboy event of some kind and had his picture taken with lots of great looking women, most of whom are, of course, white. The Republican ad was in response to that, trying to be humorous about the Playboy event. Of course, given the racial stereotype issues that ad raised, it was immediately branded racist even if the intent was otherwise. Was the ad racist? Maybe, even if the intent was not. Was the ad stupid in terms of someone not even realizing the stereotype issue raised? Absolutely. So, those who ran the ad may or may not be scum but they are idiots one way or the other.
For anyone who hasn't spent much time in Tennessee, the state is really three states - east, middle and west - and Ford is from the west (Memphis) which is completely different culturally from middle and east Tennessee. Think of upstate NY vs the NYC metro area or Chicago vs. downstate Illinois. The same dynamics are at work in that race.
Ford has another problem in Tennessee, however, in that he has spent little time there, having grown up in Washington, DC and, while representing a west Tennessee district, his real life has been spent in DC much like Al Gore. Gore grew up in a DC hotel because his father was a Senator and Ford has the same problem. That doesn't sit well with Tennesseans, in many cases and, just as Gore couldn't carry his home state in the 2000 election, Ford may have a similar issue in this one. The stupidity of the Republican ad, on the other hand, may have just swung the race in Ford's favor. We shall see....