The New York Times put together a little article about some of the disgusting race-baiting attack ads run by frenzied Democrats in the fading days of the midterm election season. It's not really surprising that the Times would find nothing terribly objectionable about this - the Paper of Record's eyebrow is raised a bit, but not enough to make its monocle fall out - but it's a sobering reminder of how very, very different the rules for Democrats are. They can be as nasty as they want to be, without fear of the media making them pay much of a price for going overboard. It's hard to imagine what the Republican equivalent of this garbage might be - what's the GOP version of a Democrat ad that tries to paint a candidate in North Carolina as somehow responsible for the shooting of Trayvon Martin? - but you can rest assured it would not be clinically reported in a non-judgmental article that set aside only two paragraphs to relay a squeak of complaint from the other side.
The closest the Times comes to expressing great discomfort with these Democrat tactics is to note how "the images and words they are using are striking for how overtly they play on fears of intimidation and repression," and to observe that it's "surprising" that this toxic waste is coming from national Democrats and state parties, not "the shadowy and often untraceable political action committees that typically employ such provocative messages."
Note to Republican candidates and official party organs: do not, for one instant, during this election or any other, get the idea that you can get away with "employing such provocative messages" in your campaigns. I don't want to see any hapless GOP candidate in 2016 stammering, "But the other guys got away with saying that if black people don't vote Democrat, white racists will shoot their children!" while the media tears him limb from limb for using provocative messages.
On to the parade of horrors:
In North Carolina, the ???super PAC??? started by Senator Harry Reid of Nevada, the majority leader, ran an ad on black radio that accused the Republican candidate, Thom Tillis, of leading an effort to pass the kind of gun law that ???caused the shooting death of Trayvon Martin.???
[...] The group started by Mr. Reid, Senate Majority PAC, ran the ad on black radio that Republicans said all but accused Mr. Tillis, the Republican speaker of the State House, of killing Mr. Martin, an unarmed black teenager who was fatally shot in Florida in 2012. In the ad, the announcer reads through a list of policies Mr. Tillis supported that blacks are likely to find offensive, like curtailing early voting in the state. And then it turns more ominous.
???Tillis even led the effort to pass the type of ???Stand Your Ground??? laws that caused the shooting death of Trayvon Martin,??? the announcer says. The music playing in the background abruptly stops.
Is it really necessary to remind everyone that Stand Your Ground laws had absolutely nothing whatsoever to do with the Trayvon Martin shooting? I hope not... because the New York Times does not see fit to provide such a reminder. That would bring them uncomfortably close to admitting that all these Democrat ads are steaming piles of divisive, acidic lies, designed to divide Americans into warring camps and scare Democrat voters to the polls.
There's also mention of a Kay Hagan supporter referring to her Republican opponent as "Uncle Thom." Remember when the entire liberal media establishment was twisted into a knot of sick fury over the alleged "code words" people on the Right use to send each other racially-charged secret messages - words such as "golf?" Looks like Democrats get to use all the code words they want. The code doesn't even have to be as complicated as ig-pay atin-lay.
In addition, at a black church in Fayetteville, leaflets with a grainy image of a lynching have appeared, warning voters that if Ms. Hagan loses, President Obama will be impeached.
Similar messages are reaching black voters in Arkansas, where Senator Mark Pryor, a second-term Democrat, is up for re-election, and Georgia, where the retirement of Senator Saxby Chambliss, a Republican, has given Democrats a shot at the seat.
In Arkansas, voters are opening mailboxes to find leaflets with images of the Ferguson protests and the words: ???Enough! Republicans are targeting our kids, silencing our voices and even trying to impeach our president.??? The group distributing them is Color of Change, a grass-roots civil rights organization.
In Georgia, the state Democratic Party is mixing themes of racial discrimination with appeals to rally behind the only black man elected president. ???It???s up to us to vote to protect the legacy of the first African-American president,??? one flier reads.
Another invokes Ferguson. ???If you want to prevent another Ferguson in their future,??? the leaflet says over a picture of two young black children, ???vote. It???s up to you to make change happen.???
I'm old enough to remember when the media portrayed "divisiveness" as the worst possible political sin. I guess that all goes right out the window when Democrats are worried about getting creamed in a big election, huh?
Here's another little gem the New York Times didn't work into its roundup, from everyone's pink-sneakered campaign implosion, Democrat gubernatorial candidate Wendy Davis of Texas, by way of the Washington Examiner:
First Wendy Davis claimed her wheelchair-bound opponent Greg Abbott doesn't like the disabled. Then she claimed that Abbott, whose wife is Mexican-American, would support a state ban on interracial marriage.
Now she???s claiming he doesn???t want African-Americans to vote.
In a new radio ad paid for by the Davis campaign, a man calls Abbott ???bad news??? and accuses the Republican attorney general of trying to ???overturn the Voting Rights Act.???
???Take a guess about who Abbott doesn???t want to vote,??? the man adds.
How charming! How inclusive! What a high-minded example of how a stateswoman can bring all Americans together to meet the challenges that confront us as a society!
The Wall Street Journal kicks in a few more examples that somehow escaped the notice of the New York Times:
In Maryland, where Democrat Anthony Brown is running to become the state???s first black Governor, the state Democratic Party has released a flyer showing pictures of a civil-rights march, a ???colored waiting room??? sign, and Donald Trump alongside the words: ???Where???s the birth certificate???? The flyer ends: ???In Maryland, it???s our turn to take an important step in the journey . . . Vote for Anthony Brown.???
Democrats are also building on the fears stoked by Eric Holder ???s Justice Department about voter ID laws. Kentucky Democratic Senate candidate Alison Grimes is running a radio ad in urban areas in which a male narrator claims she is a ???champion??? for civil rights. The ad goes on to say that Republican Senator Mitch McConnell ???has been leading the Republican effort to take away our voting rights. Just like he blocked everything from getting done in Washington, he???s blocking the ballot box and trying to silence our voices.???
Some silence: Black voter turnout exceeded white turnout in states like Georgia and Indiana after voter ID laws passed.
Why let a few pesky facts get in the way of high-octane race-baiting? I'm sure these character assassins would insist evil Republicans wanted black turnout to be suppressed by voter ID laws, so they're still guilty of "voter suppression," even if the exact opposite result occurred.
Not all of the Democrats' Fear and Loathing campaign is racial, of course. The last gasps of their "War on Women" are playing out in this election cycle, most contemptibly in the abortion lobby's attempt to persuade Colorado voters that Republican candidate Cory Gardner wants to ban birth control. As USA Today notes, in one of history's easiest fact checks, Gardner actually "supports making birth control pills available over-the-counter, and nothing he supports or has proposed would ban the sale of condoms."
You have to see this one to believe it:
There's also a radio ad, which depicts post-Gardner Colorado as a sort of post-apocalyptic wasteland, ravaged by climate change and evaporated Pell grants in addition to the condom ban. This is possibly the purest dose of concentrated stupid ever blasted into the ears of American voters, explicitly designed to terrify people who have no idea what's actually going on into swinging by the polls on Election Day and voting Democrat to halt the rampage of Gardnerzilla:
NARAL spent half a million bucks on that. I guess that makes them one of the "shadowy and often untraceable political action committees that typically employ such provocative messages." It doesn't seem to be working, as the latest Quinnipiac poll has Gardner up 46-39 over Democrat incumbent Mark Udall.
Let's be frank: the sun will never rise on a day when one side of our political divide isn't criticizing the other for its campaign tactics... but we've spent the last few years hearing Democrats claim that even modest disagreement with President Obama is unforgivably divisive, if not tantamount to sedition. That makes it just a little bit harder than normal to watch them creep into the last weeks of a rough midterm election with a string of disgusting ads like these. Yesterday, working through the legitimate processes of representative government to pursue ends that varied from the Democrat agenda was considered divisive. Today, they'll happily paint their opponents as racists, sexists, and accessories to murder, if they think it will goose their turnout by a bit... and their media pals don't really think there's anything wrong with that, especially if it works. Thus does the era of Hope and Change end in Fear and Loathing, as I always suspected it would.
Update: Rep. Charlie Rangel of New York - America's favorite tax cheat - chips in with some of the most disgusting bile of the season. "They don't disagree - they hate," Rangel said of Republicans at a re-election rally for Gov. Andrew Cuomo. "They think if you didn???t come from Europe 30 years ago, you didn???t even make it. Some of them believe that slavery isn???t over, and they think they won the Civil War."
Which party did the President who won the Civil War belong to, again? Ah, well, history isn't Rangel's strong suit. Not surprisingly, he has a much higher opinion of Democrats: "Everything we???re doing is God???s work: education, health care, affordable housing, discrimination, paying people the minimum wage." Just as long as doing God's work doesn't involve Charlie Rangel paying his taxes.
Update: In the non-racial but really bizarre category of Fear and Loathing, Democrat voters have begun receiving letters informing them that they are being monitored by the Democrat Party, and if the voter doesn't drag himself to the polls on Election Day, there will be... consequences. "If you do not vote this year, we will be interested to hear why not," the vague threat at the end of one version of this letter reads.
This is the sort of thing that one might expect from those shadowy and often untraceable political action committees, except that one example of the threatening We Are Watching letter was sourced to the New York State Democratic Committee. I have seen claims online that Republicans and GOP-aligned groups have sent out letters like this in the past, but I have yet to see an example. Does threatening people with Party harassment if they don't go to the polls actually work? That would speak almost as poorly of the successfully intimidated as it does of the bullies.
Update: Struggling Democrat Senator Mary Landrieu of Louisiana slapped down the race card to explain President Obama's unpopularity in her state: "I'll be very, very honest with you. The South has not always been the friendlies place for African-Americans. It's been a difficult time for the President to present himself in a very positive light as a leader."
Well, I guess that explains why she doesn't actually live in Louisiana, then. (Whoops - that was supposed to be a secret!) This last-minute appeal should do wonders for her popularity in the final days of the race: Vote for Mary, you racist knuckle-dragging Cajun-fried hicks! She hates your stinking white-sheeted guts, but she'll do a great job of representing you in Washington!
Update: Up in Wisconsin, frenzied Democrats go the "Dr. Strangelove" route and accuse Governor Scott Walker of tampering with the precious bodily fluids of the state's children.