Offering frequent news and analysis from the majestic Evergreen State and beyond, The Cascadia Advocate is the Northwest Progressive Institute's unconventional perspective on world, national, and local politics.

Tuesday, January 24, 2006

Seattle Times finally covers GOP dirty tricks

It's several days late, but here's the story from the Times:
House Democrats on Monday accused Republicans of dirty politics for mailing out 25,000 postcards that accuse certain lawmakers of being soft on crime and protecting violent sex offenders.

The postcards show a mug shot of a middle-age man with slicked-back hair. His eyes and his name are blacked out to shield his identity. The cards, shown in photocopies provided by Democrats, carry a bold headline that reads, "This violent predator lives in your community."

[...]

The cards are part of a $75,000 Republican ad campaign that Democrats say is targeting lawmakers in swing districts for the November election. In addition to the cards, the campaign is using radio spots, television ads and automated phone calls.

"It's politics at its worst," fumed House Majority Leader Lynn Kessler, D-Hoquiam.
Indeed. But it's much more than that.

As usual, the Republican leadership tried to pretend it wasn't involved:
House Republican Leader Richard DeBolt, R-Chehalis, said he had nothing to do with the ad campaign and referred questions to Kevin Carns, executive director of the Speakers Roundtable, a GOP political-action committee (PAC).
"Nothing to do" with the ad campaign, eh? Richard DeBolt is such a liar. Of course he was involved. The GOP's stunt on the first day of the session was certainly his doing; and that was the setup for this ad campaign.

It's the classic denial. DeBolt was and no doubt still is involved. He and his cronies are feeding people like Stefan Sharkansky information because the regional progressive blogosphere is investigating these dirty tricks and exposing the Republicans' lies. Stefan is the surrogate they're using to respond.

From the Times article:
Carns said there was discussion of an ad campaign even before the vote was taken, but the ads weren't created until afterward.
See what we mean? This was all designed and planned out months ago. No doubt DeBolt, who recently wrested the leadership position of the House GOP caucus away from Chandler, thought this would give the GOP an edge.
The mailing infuriated Democrats. "The entire postcard is a lie," Kessler said.

For example, she said, although the postcards claim the sex offender pictured lives in a particular district, the same photo appears on all the cards.

Carns said the cards aren't supposed to be taken literally. "I would have loved to put an offender from each specific district and not obscured their name. But we'd have put ourselves at liability to do so," he said.

He used one picture, with identifying information blacked out, "as a metaphor," he said.
Metaphor, indeed. What a lame, phony excuse. If this is a metaphor, where's the disclaimer? Of course the postcard is a lie. It's unrefutable. The postcards say: "This violent predator lives in your community" which is a flat out lie. The whole postcard is built around the premise that these guys live in your community and Democrats are for public policy that would leave your family unprotected - completely distorting the Democrats' position. Again, it's a LIE.

Republicans are lying with their postcards, TV ads, and robocalls. They don't have anything legitimate to hold over the heads of their Democratic counterparts so they're just making up lies.

It's a campaign designed to stir up mistrust and angry feelings among constituents of these Democratic legislators. It's filthy and disgusting, and it's happening while lawmakers are in Olympia trying to do the public's business.

Every single editorial board across the state ought to condemn these sleazy tactics. And every single media outlet that prides itself on objectivity ought to investigate this story and allow the public to see the truth.

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