Mean, meaner and meanest political ads

by David Grand
August 2, 2006

I've lived long enough to see the full range of brazen attack ads, particularly in presidential campaigns, which are designed to besmirch--by untruths, half-truths and innuendo--an opponent's integrity, honesty and moral fiber.

But every once in awhile, there's some attack ads that try to use humor as a way of demeaning opponents, the most recent examples of which occurred in the Maryland senatorial race when:

• Allen Lichtman jumped full clothed into a lake to show what a "big splash" he'd make in Washington. (That he didn't have a watch on in the opening sequence clearly revealed his intentions).
• Dennis Rasmussen used animated cartoon caricatures of Ben Cardin and Michael Steele to convey the message that he was someone in the middle of the two. (His depicting Steele as the Tin Man in the "Wizard of Oz" would've caused  Jack Haley, who played that role to roll over in his grave.)
• Daniel Vovak. who wants to be known as "The Wig Man," appeared as a mannequin head (in a powered wig), debating a goldfish in a bowl wearing a necktie representing Michael Steele. (Putting a tie on that little biddy fish would've been harder than catching a greased pig.) (Of the three, Lichtman's was more true to life, for how many times have we told a politician to go jump in the lake?) But those are the exceptions to the rule in attack ads, which go for the jugular rather than the funny bone. Those I can vividly recall are:
• Perhaps the most negative ad of all times, the so-called Daisy spot in 1964, that Johnson used to portray Goldwater, who if elected as president, could bring about  a nuclear war, and turn the ice cream cone a young girl was enjoying in a field of daises without a care in the world into an atomic bomb. (If she's alive today, how she must regret appearing in that ad.) 
• The anti-Max Cleland ad that his Republican opponent Saxby Chambliss ran (shamelessly I would say) during the 2000 senatorial race in Georgia ranks high on the list of the slimmest ones I've ever had the displeasure of seeing. The ad, featuring Osama bin Laden and Saddam Hussein, had Cleland's image morphed into those figures, in order to question his patriotism for his having voted against the Homeland Security bill. Why, even Lee Atwater, the fabled Republican cutthroat politico who helped pilot the first George Bush to victory over Dukakis with the infamous "Willie Horton" ad would've hesitated before attacking a man who lost both legs and an arm in Vietnam.
• In the 2000 primary race in South Carolina, Sen John McCain who'd won a stunning victory over Bush in New Hampshire, was hit by everything but the kitchen sink by Bush supporters. For instance, church fliers were circulated that labeled him as "The Fag Candidate," who cheated on his wife, was a drug addict and who'd fathered a black child with a black prostitute. (Truth is that the McCains' black child was adopted from Mother Theresa's orphanage in Bangladesh.) Some Bush operatives went so far as to claim that his five and half years as a POW drove him insane, and that he was guilty of treason by collaborating with the enemy, notwithstanding the fact that he was constantly tortured. ( For him now to be buddy-buddy with Bush is hard for me to fathom.)
• A more recent example of racism raising its ugly head is in the Michigan governor's race, where a full-page ad in the Michigan Chronicle, urged African-Americans to "stop putting all their eggs in one basket" and to "say NO to Governor Granholm in November." That ad featured pictures of the governor as well as Adolph Hitler and a swastika. Her opponent Dick DeVos denounced the ad paid for by the "Voice the Vote" PAC.

But looking back in history, attack ads were commonplace, what with Lincoln being called "a liar, thief, buffoon, ignoramus, swindler and butcher." Jefferson was accused of supporting "murder, robbery, rape, adultery and incest." And Jackson labeled a murderer, with both his wife and mother tarred as prostitutes. So, I guess we're no better or worse now than in their times.