I think it’s now limited to areas where it is expected to bring more votes than it would turn away, which is thankfully somewhat more limited than it was several years ago. The push poll about McCain’s black baby, Helm’s “Hand” ad, etc.
A spokesman for Corker said: "The new RNC ad we have just seen on our local broadcast outlets is tacky, over the top and is not reflective of the kind of campaign we are running.” That could mean a lot of things, so I suppose the precise objection is open to interpretation.
However, I notice that in three pages of debate on this, neither you (who, much to my shock, earlier lamented the difficulty in choosing which race the bimbo ought to be) nor Age Quod Agis have gone so far as to criticize the ad at all. How on earth are you two six days behind Mr. Corker’s flak in condemning that piece of trash that marred the airwaves until just yesterday?
I will accept that in the spirit that it was offered and thank you for the kind word, however, I am also astounded at the audacity of your complementing me on my even-handedness while you steadfastly refuse to condemn an advertisement that is just plain gutter politics – on many levels.
You mean, where I was saying that the Democrats need to avoid complaining about how unfair stuff is? How in the world does that have anything to do with an assertion that they never, sometimes or always engage in appeals to racism?
Then you don’t know what the term means.
I didn’t realize we were in a race. This debate is about whether the ad is racist or not, which is what I’ve been discussing. You are welcome to start a thread about whether or not its fair. But if you’re going to play the holier-than-thou card, I did call it a negative ad by a sleezy politician in my very post.
They do?!
:eek:
Talk about your “cave-dwellers”!
Which ad are you referring to and who is it by?
As for race relations… I just don’t think the Dems care all that much about race relations. They are often quite happy to divide the races in their quest for votes.
Yes, to the extent that endorsing positions favorable to minorities will drive away a portion of whiteys.
I was kind of thinking of bullshit like… Bush hates black folks and wanted them all to die on top of their houses in New Orleans.
Oh, is Kanye West a Democratic politician now?
Certainly you have some cite for some Democratic politician saying Bush hates black folks and wanted them all to die on top of their houses in New Orleans.
A better example would be the “plantation” remark that HRC made on MLK day this year in front of a Black audience. I think a much stronger case can be made that her remarks were meant to be racially divisive than can be made that the anti-Ford ad was racist.
Link. It’s about 1:30 into the ~5:00 clip.
Oh, well…if a Clinton did it…
Take it from a six decade Tennessean who used to work in advertising and Tennessee politics. Everything is very carefully considered when these ads are crafted. They played every angle.
When I first saw the ad, my gut reaction was that the ad was suggesting that Harold was cavorting with a slut. All they have to do is mention “Playboy Bunny,” show an apparently nekkid woman batting her eyes and saying “call me” in a sexy voice and that communicates to most Southerners that I know “easy woman.”
Then the rational feminist in me takes over and says, “That’s not my business.”
But Tennessee does have a lot of people who will continue to think of that woman as a slut.
It never entered my mind until I saw HARDBALL that the ad was racist. But it is. It’s racist because ad writers take that sort of thing into consideration. They know their audience. I didn’t respond to the racist element because I am a Progressive. But there are plenty of bigots who would have bristled immediately at the thought of that white blond woman with Harold Ford. And there are many others who would have noticed the insenuation where I missed it.
So they have hit him in two directions.
you with the face, I also caught the implication of the words at the end of the ad, but only after considering the other racist aspects. Then it hit me right between the eyes.
Nasty, nasty ad.
Obviously, you’ve never battled your Southern mother for the right to wear a sleeveless dress to church.
Of course he hasn’t. 'luci is all about the tube tops.
I’m gonna call shenanigans on this one. I was living in Alabama in 2000 when the constitutional amendment that banned interacial marriage was overturned by a 60/40 margin. That’s right, 40% of the voters in Alabama, and remember, 2000 was a presidential election year when more than 1.67 million people in Alabama voted, 40% were fine with the ban on interacial marriage.
I spoke to some of these people, and I assure you it was not for some obscure sense of tradition and constitutional constructivism. It was because they thought it was wrong to mix the races. I doubt that the 600,000 people who voted this way have changed their minds in the last 6 years.
This is way past a YMMV situation, elucidator , you have described an absence of racist attitudes that simply doesn’t exist.
You learn something new every day. It never occurred to me that ticks voted the straight party ticket.
You exaggerate me, sir. An “absence” of racist attitudes? Pollyanna I ain’t. But racism is not a discrete entity, an all or nothing proposition. When I was a younger man, that was the last bomb to throw in an argument: well, would you want your sister to marry one? Huh? Would ya? There’s quite a lot of territory between being uncomfortable with interracial marriage and denying black people essential human rights. “People ought to stick to thier own kind” is racist, to be sure, but it is not the same virulent variety of racism that had a young man lynched for whistling at a white woman.
Of those 40% who voted to oppose interracial marriage, how many, do you suppose, would vote to deny voting rights to black people? I can’t prove anything, but I suspect rather few. Furthermore, Mr. Ford is the kind of colored man who appeals most to white “racists” (quote marks intended to convey the growing lack of definition for that term…): church going, educated, polite, well spoken and about as black as Julian Bond.
As to the ad in question, clearly, mileage does vary, and wildly. I saw the ad and reacted that it was attacking Mr. Ford’s image as clean-cut and church-going. Not until someone pointed it out did I catch any suggestion of real, down home, knuckle walking, cousin-loving racism. Several other posters had the same reaction, several others did not. I do not doubt the honesty of other’s reactions, and I expect the same for mine own.
Its a little like the gay marriage thingy: people favor civil unions with all attendent rights for gay people, but balk at the word “marriage”, even though it means practically nil. I am not willing to say that all the people who are uncomfortable with “gay marriage” hate gay people, only that there are some subjects that provoke an almost instinctual conservative reaction which will, with time and progress, be overcome.
Walt Whitman, is that you?
All kinds of things aren’t “acceptable” that nonetheless exist, hence, are not “absent”. And an even wider variety of things that are subjective by their very nature. Of the people who voted in favor of the aforementioned amendment, how many would be insulted if you described them as racist?
Tennessean weighing in here.
The smear ads don’t count for a thing.
Middle Tennessee, where I live, is the balance. West TN is solid Ford, East is Corker.
Middle Tennessee is all over the map, & don’t pay any attention to the polls, as they’re full of felgercarb.
I support Ford, but his family is an albatross around is neck.
Bush, & especially New Orleans, is the bird choking Corker.
And early voting, relatively new here, is creating a fine, big voter turnout. I recommend all Dopers write to the State Legislators, & try & get it in your States.
I went Ford, as did my Mom & Dad.
Cross your fingers, because it is gonna be close, mean, & bitter. It will get more vicious before it is all over.
Ford’s family is a problem? Haven’t heard anything about that. Advise?