19 October 2006

Halloween Comes Early With GOP Ad Machine

Ugh. It's campaign ad season. Political Halloween, if you will.

Boo! My opponent is a pedophile-ophile!
Boo! My opponent will tax everything including your poopies!
Boo! My opponent wants to give free abortions in the school cafeteria!

Ken Blackwell's ads and talking points reflect an increasing sense of desperation. Desperate people do desperate campaigning, and we may not even have seen the worst of it yet. But what we've seen so far is pretty pathetic and a little bit disgusting, to be honest. I credit Ted Strickland for not taking the bait and jumping into the gutter with Blackwell. Strickland has emerged as the statesman and Blackwell as a trash-talking hack.

The latest ad controversy is DeWine's ad accusing Brown of not paying taxes for 12 years. I've seen it a few times on TV this week, so it's still running. According to a source in the Hamilton County Dem Party, the RNC has been told the ad is false but declined to pull it.

(George "Macaca" Allen is in a similar situation)

Now as I understand it, the policy of local TV stations is to run ads unless the opponent can provide proof that the ad makes false claims. Then it gets pulled.

Brown's website claims to have that proof in the form of a scanned image of a receipt. His website also explains:

In December 1993, Brown's house reelection campaign was issued a notice to pay unemployment taxes. The Ohio Bureau of Employment Services confirmed payment in April 1994.

The glitch may be the fault of the Ohio state government.


The State of Ohio also backs up Brown's claims:

Jon Allen, spokesman for the Ohio Department of Jobs and Family Services, the successor agency to the employment bureau, said the claims suggesting Brown didn't pay the tax bill for 12 or 13 years are false. His department researched the matter last year, when the Brown campaign asked about the lien. (from HypoSpeak)

Does it not seem that Brown has provided adequate proof that the claims made by the ad are false? Then why did I see this ad once again this morning?

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