Somebody told me the following story this morning, and I wondered whether it’s an Urban Legend.
“Recently there was an Indiana congressman running for office [not clear whether it was state legislature or Washington] who, unable to come up with any other decent campaign platform, made use of a loophole in the Indiana campaign laws to broadcast, on TV, actual film of partial birth abortions, as his whole ad campaign.”
The storyteller didn’t relate whether or not the politico won the election.
The time frame was “really recently,” like maybe 1998, 1996, 1994, etc. Since the issue of partial-birth abortions got really hot, when was that, anyway?
I talked to the guy who told me this story. BTW, he is NOT one of my tinfoil-in-the-hat-wearing UFO spotter friends, he is the letter carrier friend who tells me all the Straight Dope about what really goes on at the Post Office. If he says he heard or read this somewhere, then I believe he did.
To clarify: he says, well, maybe it wasn’t Indiana, maybe it was Ohio or one of those other Midwestern states, and it wasn’t that a congressman was using the footage. It was that a fervent anti-abortion activist spotted a loophole in that state’s campaign and TV broadcast laws, and decided to run for office so that he could show footage of abortions on TV. The point of the anecdote was that the state, whatever it was, HAD to allow him to show this stuff on TV, because it came under the heading of “campaign advertising”.
Also, it may not have been specifically partial-birth abortions, it may just have been regular ( :rolleyes: ) abortions.
I asked whether the guy won his election. He said, “Naww…didn’t even come close.”
This guy was running for some political office in some state-- maybe in the midwest-- and he took advantage of the campaign advertising laws to run ads not of abortions, but of scurrilous attacks on his opponent’s character! He lost, though.
Seriously, if anybody managed to get actual footage of abortions being performed on broadcast t.v., it would have been news of national prominence in one form or another. You can bet your hat that pro-choice groups would have found out about it quickly and raised a big ruckus, and that the media would eventually pick up the drumbeat. At best, someone might have been able to get something like that shown on a local channel once before it got pulled. But it certainly could not have been repeatedly broadcast over the course of an entire campaign without the national media noticing.
Of course, the actual images of a typical D&C abortion would be about as interesting as seeing someone get their teeth cleaned anyway, but I suppose it’s the symbolism that matters.
I have no idea whether the depicted event has occurred. It sounds vaguely similar to a half dozen stories I vaguely remember hearing, so I can’t even link any of them together.
I do have an obvious quibble with the story as presented the second time:
Political adverstising is advertising. No station is required to carry it and, if they do carry it, each station still has veto power on the content of any ads they carry.
It has been quite a few years since the USSC struck down the old provision to require broadcast outlets to provide equal airplay for both/all candidates in any election. (Even then the stations were not required to accept everything handed to them, only to provide equal amounts of air time.) Since broadcast media is Federally regulated, I’m not sure that any state or local government can add much in the way of requirements on what is broadcast, so a state law or municipal ordinance requiring a station to broadcast “everything” submitted by a candidate seems unlikely, as well.
I haven’t worked in broadcasting for a long time, but I don’t think they’ve changed this particular part of the law.
No station is required to accept campaign advertising. However, once they accept an ad for any candidate running for a particular office, they have to accept the ads from all candidates running for that office. And once they accept the advertising, they must run whatever the candidate gives them without change, disclaimer or anything else, as long as the ad comes from the candidate’s official campaign (not those general Democratic or Republican party ads.)
You may remember the infamous Fred Harris “No more bullshit” commercials in 1976, and the even more infamous Lyndon LaRouche ads from several campaigns where he accused the Queen of England (among others) of being part of an international drug cartel. Do you really think any station or network WANTED to run those?
Also, any ad which features the candidate’s face or voice must be charged “the lowest unit rate” that the station charges any sponsor on any kind of contract for that length and time period. That’s the real reason why broadcasters hate political advertising. It crowds out the better-paying stuff.
On topic, I too have heard of a Midwestern pro-life protest candidate who ran graphic abortion footage in his ad (and lost) but I can’t remember any details either.
Sorry I don’t have better details here. A few years ago, someone running for office on a pro-life platform (I don’t know if it was local or national) created a controversy by showing late-term abortions in his campaign ads. I actually saw this story on the news. In the news story, they showed some snippets from the ads with the “ugliness” fuzzed out. The story died fairly quickly and I never saw the campaign ad itself.
As a Hoosier and one who lives in the district (9th Congressional) that he would represent should he be elected, I believe I have some insight into this. Bailey ran a few years ago against a very popular Democratic Congressman, Lee Hamilton. He didn’t win, but he did try to gain name recognition (and also affirm his pro-life status) by running graphic anti-abortion commercials featuring dead fetuses. He was allowed to do this because campaign laws forbid television stations from refusing to run a political campaign advertisement, no matter how offensive it might be. Bailey lost, and seemingly withdrew from politics. This year, however, he came back, recognizing the potential for unseating Hamilton’s successor (running for his second term), Baron Hill. Most political observers will agree that it’s best to try and unseat an incumbent when he or she is running for his/her second term; after that the powers of incumbency (primariy fund-raising) become more insurmountable. Back to Michael Bailey. He entered the Republican primary against another conservative (who, ironically, received the endorsement of the Indiana Right-to-Life organization). He had some new commercials produced and bought air time in the Louisville, KY market (whence southern Indiana gets its TV signals). His commercials were run during early evening news programs. Several of the TV stations ran disclaimers (not immediately adjacent to the ads, because this is also prohibited by campaign law) stating that they had no choice but to run the ads (a true statement). Bailey won the primary and will now run against Hill in the November election. Southern Indiana is a relatively conservative area, so the Democrats generally run as moderates and manage to get elected. Hill probably won on the basis of Hamilton’s endorsement, but now he’s on his own, and although Hill is favored, Bailey might pull the upset. Bailey claims he’s not a “one-trick pony” – he says all the “right” stuff: opposition to NAFTA, lower taxes, etc., but it’s his anti-abortion stance that has attracted attention. Undoubtedly there will be more anti-abortion commercials as the election draws nearer.
Sorry for the long-windedness, but I wanted to provide “the straight dope”.
And the judges’ decision is–it’s a dead heat, between Otto and Earendil! Otto got off the boat first, but Earendil brought more luggage.
Excellent work, Teemsters! My mailman friend is fully vindicated, he is not crazy, and it WAS Indiana, after all.
For anybody who is interested in The Straight Dope According to Mike Bailey, here’s his official website. Apparently running for Congress is only one of the many strings to his bow.
