Campaign Diaries

The Minnesota Senate is living up to expectations, and Norm Coleman’s latest ad ups the stakes a little more in what has become one of the most negative races of the cycle:

A central part of Coleman’s strategy has long been to disqualify Franken as an option even for voters who are looking to vote Democratic this year. Over the summer, Al Franken had done a relatively decent job at putting the springtime scandals behind him and had unveiled his own series of tough ads hitting Coleman’s ethics; over the past few weeks, the DSCC had joined in the fun by airing a series of ads attacking the incumbent, two of which I highlighted a few days ago. But Coleman is now looking to make sure that the spotlight remains on his opponent so that the race becomes (or remains) a referendum on Franken rather than a choice between two parties.

“I approve of this message (pause) because I thought it was important for you to see it,” says Coleman at the beginning, before the ad encourages the viewer to ask himself whether Franken has the temperament to be Senator. Coleman makes sure to add very little editorializing, letting footage of Franken himself do all the work. This is very often the most damaging type of ad, as it is difficult for Democrats to accuse Coleman of going negative when the ad contains no attack but a compilation of clips of Franken.

The main danger for Coleman would be if viewers think he is trying to distract them from real issues, and that is exactly the argument the DSCC has been making for Coleman in one of its recent ads. In a second ad Coleman released today, he talks directly to the camera, telling viewers that they should expect to see a lot of ads with “scary music” accusing him of having ties to Big Oil and being connected with President Bush. In other words, Coleman is saying that it is the Democrat who are trying to distract you from the truth in an interesting (albeit not novel, nor previously successful) strategy to inoculate himself from attacks.

But the fireworks of the Minnesota Senate race might soon be viewed as amateurish games compared to the latest bomb dropped by Oregon’s Gordon Smith, who is now resorting to one of the oldest tricks in the GOP’s attack book and has launched two ads that could be remembered as one of the low points of the 2008 cycle.

His first ad features Tiffany Edens, a woman who was raped two decades ago at age 13 by a man named Richard Gilmore who confessed to eight other rapes but was not convicted of them because the statutes of limitation had expired. Speaking directly to the camera, Edens faults Smith for having voted against a bill that would have changed the law (Jeff Mapes has more details about the background story, as well as the Merkley campaign’s defense):

Smith’s second ad - once again devoted to Richard Gilmore - also attacks him for opposing mandatory life sentences for serial rapists. The suggestion is clearly that men like Gilmore might get out of jail while still being a danger to society and that Merkley would be responsible for whatever harm might occur:

This is a familiar tactic for the GOP to use against Democratic candidates who have a somewhat liberal record on crime, and the echoes to the Willie Horton ad are evident. For decades now, ads like this have awaited elected officials who have chosen not to support yet another repressive bill sponsored by some politician looking to score political points. These spots are designed to appeal to the viewer’s instinctive emotions, triggering a gut reaction of disgust that Gordon Smith hopes voters will transfer from Gilmore to Merkley.

As long as there is no obvious fact-checking mistake in the ad, this ad is not likely to backfire. After all, this type of spot is certainly not a shot in the dark but has been tested in many elections before (though do note that GOP candidate Kerry Healey’s attempt at such fear-mongering in the Massachusetts gubernatorial race was widely criticized in 2006). But Smith has to be aware that ads that are playing with raw emotions and issues like rape can very easily cross a line and provoke unexpected reactions.

Merkley will now probably need the DSCC to come to its rescue and offer a strong response that hits back against Smith. Depending on Smith’s credibility with voters and depending on whether voters view these attacks as contradicting the incumbent’s touting his moderate credentials, Democrats could even use his aggressive tone against him. At the very least, Jeff Merkley can take comfort in the fact that Smith must be view him as a real danger - a candidate only unleashes such ads if he feels truly threatened.

In other Senate advertising news, an independent group called Campaign Money Watch has taken a $150,000 buy in Alaska - that’s serious money in that state, and at the very least it ensures that this ad isn’t just a press release in video format and that it will actually be viewed by Alaska residents - attacking Ted Stevens’s ethics. That’s obviously not very hard to do, but the spot does not contain any word of Stevens’ indictement. Rather, it accuses Stevens of working for whoever gives him money. The group’s thinking seems to be (1) that Alaska voters will know about the indictement and (2) that Stevens’ main argument is that whatever he might have done he works on behalf of the state and can exercise his seniority to help his state, making it urgent for his opponents to point out that a corrupt politician votes against his voters’ interests rather than for them.